Enlightenment is a destructive process

wales (68)in #enlightenment • 6 years ago (edited)

I can say for sure that enlighten is a destruction process; and to paraphrase Rumi: you have to find and remove all the obstacles that stand between you and love. (Here is the full text from Rumi: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.. Rumi.”

It has been said that enlightenment brings great insight and I guess it does, but it also can reveal a truth that can shatter everything you thought was real.

Enlightenment brings many things not least the destruction of all your dreaming; but first it drops you into a hole you can’t get out of and leaves you there in the dark of your separation until you’ve grown wings and can fly out for yourself. And so maybe it’s not for everyone.

The book tells that a prophet once spent 40 days and nights in the desert before he found himself and realised his mission in life. And before him another enlightened soul came to himself beneath a tree after a very long and ascetic time of searching.

Others, through great good fortune come across the master of the times and asked for his gift of enlightenment, or knowledge if you like.

Rumi had Shams; Arjuna had Krishna and Kabir had the lucky angel, while Hafiz had Attar; to name just a few.
I, on the other hand have a butterfly on the wind that turns into a moth at night and flutters into me incessantly until I am aflame in its constancy.

You get luck by following your heart they said. But what can I say?

I was never enamoured with the machine, not like some who dance for it every day, but I guess they find safety in that, and the anonymity must give them comfort with its promises; after all, there’s a lot of fear around, and conformity in the masses is a great escape, until that day comes to face your naked soul, when all is stripped away and the gate opens, and then the realisation must be: it was all a dream, that whatever was thought to be real is but dust in the wind, and the opportunity of a lifetime has been spent on someone else’s agenda and benefit; and no one can tell you this if you’re not open to hearing it.

If you follow the crowd you go where the crowd goes; and it makes a heap of sense, safety in numbers, right?
But life is not all roses and cheap beer though.

A bunch of ruffians appeared from nowhere and threw me into the pit and down and down I fell for a very long time until one day I popped out of the end into a hot boiler room where I came face to face with Old Nick.

But more about that in the next story…

Image from Pixabay