Chapter 8: Enlightenment

The disciples went and they asked the carpenters,

“Why have you not cut this tree?”

The carpenters said,

“You cannot make anything out of it because every branch has so many knots in it. Nothing is straight. You cannot make pillars out of it. You cannot make furniture out of it. You cannot use it as fuel because the smoke is so dangerous to the eyes – you almost go blind. This tree is absolutely useless. That’s why.”

They came back to tell Lao Tzu, who then laughed and said:

“Be like this tree. If you want to survive in this world be like this tree – absolutely useless. Then nobody will harm you. If you are straight you will be cut, you will become furniture in somebody’s house. If you are beautiful you will be sold in the market, you will become a commodity. Be like this tree, absolutely useless. Then nobody can harm you. And you will grow big and vast, and thousands of people can find shade under you.”

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Lao Tzu has a logic altogether different from the conditioned mind. :

Be the last. Move in the world as if you are not. Remain unknown. Don’t try to be the first, otherwise you will be competed against. Don’t try to prove your worth. There is no need. Remain useless and enjoy.

To understand him is to find that he is the most practical on a deeper layer of understanding than most people can recognize. Life is to enjoy and celebrate, and not to become solely a servant to the needs of others. Life is more like a song or poetry than like a commodity in the market; it should be like a flower by the side of the road, flowering for nobody in particular, sending its fragrance to the winds, just enjoying itself, just being itself.

If we succeed in being very clever and useful, we will be used. If we try to be very practical, somewhere or other we will be harnessed, because the world needs our functionality, needing us to become just another “somebody”.

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What is more problematic and traumatizing than a nobody being forced to become a somebody, a somebody that we really don’t want to be?

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Drop all these ideas. If we want to be a poem, a song, a flower, or any other manifestation of our creative spirit, then forget about how others see us, and what value we may have to them. Do not despair about embracing the energy of a nobody.   Some of the most powerful people in our world are “nobodies” who have been assigned the role of a “somebody” by our culture.  Those who remember to be a “nobody” are the greatest collaborators, and healers.

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While civilization encourages all of us to travel on its competitive superhighway to its image of a “somebody’, our neglected spiritual nature silently attempts to create a path back to where we can become a “nobody” again.

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Who, or what, will we listen to?

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The ultimate trauma to the human spirit is to be somebody that we aren’t.

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We die of a fatigue created through the endless parading around of our new, self deceptive image, an image easily discounted by the innocent child within us, should we become quiet enough to listen to our essence..

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No need to hurry.  No need to sparkle.  No need to be anyone but our self.—Virginia Woolf

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Self deception takes on added importance, and danger, in the mirror of relationships.  Only crazy making communication can result from exchanges between our illusions of self.

As Jesus stated:

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My kingdom is not of this world.

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Remain true to our self.

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Be our self.

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We will find what we are looking for, if we are sincerely seeking for the truth of who we really are..

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When we find our real self, the trauma and suffering of our human condition is seen for what it is.

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And, we can finally consciously make a decision as to what, or who, we shall serve:

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Somebody, or

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NOBODY.

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Serving somebody else’s agenda keeps us on the same historical path.

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Serving NOBODY places us squarely on the path back to the Garden of Eden, and we begin our Hero’s Journey back to our true nature.

Accepting that the world can do fine without us allows us to put down the burden of being corrective heroes and simply concentrate  on absorbing the journey of being alive.—Mark Nepo.

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What is the essence of enlightenment?  If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom,and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created. Could you imagine that butterfly going back and telling his caterpillar friends about the potential for a new life, and what the “ground dwellers” might say in response? How about

“get lost, you were never one of us, anyway?”

or

“well, it must be nice for you to fly, but it is just not for me right now?”

or

“have you heard about the great tasty leaves that parsley plant has?”

are three potential responses from those who think that change is threatening, unnecessary, irrelevant, or impossible, for themselves.  Enlightenment is not for everybody, it is for nobody.

There is new life available to all, yet I won’t devote too many words on that one. The word will forever remain a shadow, cast by the light built into the divine heart of mankind, as it tries to define the “undefinable”. Yet, if the heart is in the right place, the words formed and delivered will become more attuned to and resonant with the energies pointing to the healing of self and of the other.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

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More than once, certain members of our human race have had mountain top experiences, where true insight has been gained into understanding life, love, and both the ephemeral, and eternal, natures or aspects of reality, or That One. That One becomes the source for all future understanding and engagement with the world.

• That One saw the unity of all creation, and how all systems of thought tend to separate us from each other, rather than unite.
• That One saw how the limits of love shared was typically tribal in nature, and rarely extended beyond the imaginary boundaries of their perceived communities.
• That One saw how organized religion had become a tool for the political powers of the day, and no longer existed to serve the needs of the spirit, but instead to follow the dictates of those male power figures who inaccurately, and sometimes falsely, interpret the scriptures to control people, and arrange selfish outcomes.
• That One saw how the rich and powerful within the religion used its truth to dominate and control others.
• That One saw these religious power figures actually monetize their brethren, to see how their “flock” could bring them wealth through their superstitious tithing, or offerings to their “God”.
• That One saw that the poorest in spirit occupied the most fertile ground for healing, yet were the most separated from any benefits of their religion.
• That One saw that the religious power of the day was corrupt beyond repair.
• That One saw that all sense of religion needed to be “born again”.

That One came down from the mountain top to bring the good news to the people, that they did not need their religion anymore to keep them philosophically imprisoned.

That One then advised the world:

If their “religion” does not allow for them to love another as themself, then discard those dark aspects of their religion, honor the underlying spirit of love, and affirm the dignity and value of the human being through the healed human heart (which is the source of all true religion).

That just might mean removing the log from our own eyes (even if the log is our very own religion), before attempting to remove the splinter from another.

• It means stop monetizing humanity for business purposes.
• It also means separating the Church from the State.
• It means taking personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it!
• It means lying, cheating, stealing, destroying, murder, greed, selfishness, destroying the animal and plant kingdom and the like are antithetical to the spirit of love which has created this universe, therefore they are unacceptable patterns of behavior only reserved for those who have chosen to stay asleep..

You know who That One is, because That One lives today, and it has never been just the Buddha, or Jesus.

• That One has existed since the beginnings of the illusion of self, and other, and the illusions created by competing philosophies.
• That One has the voice for God, for Truth, for Love, and Life, bubbling up inside of their hearts, just waiting to be listened to, and obeyed.
• That One understands the difficulties in bringing Truth and Love to the masses, because in the masses is where corruption of thought gets institutionalized and normalized, instead opting to bring it to humanity one person at a time.

Please listen within yourself.

Tune out all others, no matter how well intentioned they may appear to be.