Enlightenment is a topic that has been the cornerstone of spirituality for thousands of years.

It is the goal of every true seeker.

It is the promised land for every devotee.

It is hailed as a utopia in a faraway land.

But few experience it.

And even fewer live within it.

It will not be experienced in sermons.

It will not be found in ancient manuscripts.

It will not be discovered in holy books or on the lips of priests and pandits.

It is not an achievement. In fact, it is an anti-achievement.

No intelligent man has ever become enlightened…unless he was first willing to give up his intelligence.

All that you believe you know is false. Your education, your societal status, your accomplishments and your degrees may serve you well in society.
But they have no value in the search for enlightenment.

Because it is precisely what you think you know that prevents you from seeing what truly is.

Your knowledge, your perceptions, your preferences and prejudices stand as a gargantuan wall that separates you from the world of peace. They are your cocoon.

And your coffin.

As long as they stand tall, the light of truth will be unable to reach you. And you will forever remain in darkness. Enlightenment is not a quest, but a possibility. And this possibility is only possible for the one who is courageous enough to admit that he does not know.

For it is only the one who does not know who is willing to go on a search.

Your intelligence binds you to your ego. And your ego to yourself. And within this self you have rotted for many lifetimes.

The way out, the way to enlightenment, is to first be willing to do what only a few in the history of mankind have been willing to do.

To admit that you know nothing.

To come to the realization that your education is for naught.

To understand that your ego and your pride is baseless.

To admit to yourself and to all that you know, that you are an idiot.

As an idiot, possibility once again reigns supreme.

The clouds part and the heavens avail themselves to you.

The solid that you once were has now become a void.

And existence has a place to flow.

In becoming an idiot, you have become a blank slate. And nature carves her calligraphy on the flat of your chest.

You instantly assume the power of the mighty oceans.

And the briskness of the Eastern breeze.

For you are no longer isolated from that which is fundamental to your constitution.

You are no longer separate from the hand that bore you.

In losing your idea of your self, you have abandoned all that has bound you to ignorance.

In abandoning your so-called intelligence, you have allowed for the possibility of wisdom.

In becoming a fool (or ‘idiot’), you have abandoned the search. For all that you once searched for has now come searching for you.

In becoming empty, you have gained the world.

You have finally arrived.

And moments from now it will dawn upon you that this place in which you have arrived, this place that you searched for for so long.

Is the very place in which you have always lived.

And when you discover this, you will laugh a thunderous laugh.

You will laugh the laugh of a fool.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Wonderlane at Flickr