According to some radical teachings, enlightenment is not for people.
It’s only ‘when you finally drop out of the illusion of being a person and are swallowed by the whole again to become The Whole, that enlightenment occurs. But it’s the disappearing of the human into the being, the disappearance of the Ultimate Witness.’
Or Something Like That.
My diplomatic answer to this extreme stuff is:
So fucking what?
As a person with eyes and a penis and a bank account with numbers that constantly change in all directions, as a human being with lust and thirst and anger and judgements and opinions and preferences and a bruised blue Vespa scooter, I’d rather like to know about what’s possible within the illusion.
Because we are here.
We are here even if that might not be ultimately true, and denying the fact that the experiences we have are extremely realistic and profound and meaningful and somehow have a purpose (because they ARE there), is a fearful, poor way of looking at life.
Denying the duality of our existence is a weird thing, because who is denying it in the first place?
Denial is a creation that can only exist within duality.
I find it painfully uninteresting to have discussions about Oneness, if the sole purpose of the discussion is to dismiss or ridicule or minimize every experience within it.
And aspiring to become ‘one with all there is’ wouldn’t be half as much fun if the process of waking up towards that goal didn’t bring so much goodies for the vulnerable meatsuits we are.
I guess being one without a body to have experiences would be pretty boring.
What I want to say is this: the deep and burning inclination we can feel to find out who we are in the most essential and authentic way, can lead us to liberation.
On many (illusory, sure) levels.
Ever expanding and transcending and opening up new vistas.
Which means that being a person to the fullest, can become really very awesome instead of just a hopeless existential roller coaster ending in the abyss.
It is (as always) the journey, the messy trip towards the final thing, that makes it all so amazing and magical.
The illusory being called Marnix doesn’t just have a cool life story to tell about decades of depressing darkness and finding light again, but there’s a growing, tangible and direct experience of that light.
My life is getting brighter, every single day.
The Marnix-person is cheerfully exposed to more consciousness, lovingly inflated like a colorful balloon with happy gas.
And he doesn’t give a fuck about being swallowed by Oneness.
The discussion whether we can be enlightened or not is utterly useless.
Life can be truly baffling when consciousness decides to recognize itself through you again.
But in order for that to happen, we need the body, the idea of a person, the suffering, the whole charade.
It’s a perfect set up.
It’s not real and very real at the same time.
Enjoying the trip is everything, and within that dream you can most definitely wake up and lighten up.
Who cares if that’s 100%, if just a tiny fraction is enough to change everything?
Who needs to be swallowed by The Whole and lose all the delicious things we get to experience?
The radical suits might say that ‘there’s no Who to begin with’.
Yeah whatever.
Just pretend there is, and shamelessly enjoy it.
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(Photo by @tunebasics, for Unsplash)