MAHARAJ: “Lightment” vs. Enlightenment, Part “T”

Today's Considerations

A man who attended several satsanga sessions that were conducted over an eight-week period in the late 1990’s in The Woodlands, Texas - and who later attended a three-day retreat in my home - said that he recently came across a riddle once again that I had shared with him and others in attendance at both of those gatherings. 

He said that, as nothing more than a part of "the dance," he has been following the recent postings and was struck once again with the wisdom of Maharaj which led him during those days past to shift away from focusing on Self-Inquiry and to focusing on self-inquiry, finally understanding why Maharaj said: “That is enough.”

To that end, he asked if I was still sharing the riddle I used back then, saying it really did give him “an ability to re-focus” per Maharaj’s advice.

I told him I had not recently used the riddle which I often employed back then to try to make the point about the seeking process, a point which I tried to make with him and others so many years ago. I thanked him for the reminder and told him I would share it now. 

Here is what I offered at the end of one session: 

“Before you return next time, seek the answer to this riddle:" 

There is only one thing which is seen at the very beginning of Enlightenment and at the very end of space and time. What is it? 

"Bring your solutions to the riddle next time."

 Many would spend almost every minute of every hour until their return, pondering, considering, deliberating, contemplating, reading and studying and brooding over what they took to be a truly enigmatic puzzle, taking their fanatical seeking patterns into their “meditation time” . . .  entering into depths of philosophical thinking which they had never before approached.

Some came in the next day looking frustrated; some looked defeated; some looked worn out, so tired they were from their lack of sleep.

One, though, was proud and excited because he was certain that his research has led him to a solution of the riddle. He said that the riddle had to do with Maharaj’s pointer that “Your body is short of time, not you. Time and space are in the mind only. You are not bound. Just understand yourself - that itself is eternity.”

One might have concluded that I had just brought him news that his favorite pet died in a car wreck that also killed his entire family, so sad was he when informed that he was not even close.

A woman said, “I am sure that I’m onto the answer and it has to do with what you told us Maharaj said about finding out who we are not but I can’t put it into words exactly – it has something to do with these two quotes I found from him: “To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not” and “Discover all that you are not - body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that - nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you."

Again, great despair when she was told, “Sorry, you’re not even close.”

One man had felt equally sure (prior to seeing those who missed the mark), so rather than making a statement cloaked in the confidence and conviction he first felt, he put his guess in the form of a question: “Does it have to do with Maharaj’s point that 'You are the space (akash) in which it moves, the time in which it lasts, the love that gives it life’?”

The reply that left him feeling so disheartened: “Again, not even close.”

Another: “So I guess it doesn’t have anything to with his saying: “For without memory and expectation there can be no time”?

He lit up like a shining star when I said, “You are right.” He said “I am?!!” I said, “Yes, you’re right that it doesn’t have anything to do with that statement.” Dejection.

Finally, this: “Well, I suppose there’s no need for me to read what he said that I figured has something to do with the riddle.”

“There's no rush here. Read on.”

So he read these word from Maharaj: "'I am' is an ever present fact, while ‘I am created’ is an idea. Neither God nor the universe have come to tell you that they have created you. The mind, obsessed by the idea of causality, invents creation and then wonders ‘who is the creator?’ The mind itself is the creator. Even this is not quite true, for the created and its creator are one. The mind and the world are not separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your own mind. All space and time are in the mind.' So let me guess. That’s not it either?"

“Also right. That’s not it either.”

Totally frustrated, the consensus became, “Okay! Enough already! Tell us!”

“Fine. Let’s review: There is only one thing which is seen at the very beginning of Enlightenment and at the very end of space and time. What is it?

The answer is . . . the letter ‘e’.”

A new consensus emerged, all involving the word “ass”: “You ass!” and “You smartass!” and "You dumbass!” One woman said, “I must be borderline. I loved you when I came in. Now I hate you!” And then we all shared a huge laugh.

Then, one woman moved us back on track: “So what’s the point?”

The reply: “The point is, first, as Maharaj said: ‘Truth is simple.’ The next point is that far too many people become involved with and absorbed in some cause or search or path or journey and become totally fanatical and O-CD about that. They occupy themselves for days and months and years with pondering, considering, deliberating, contemplating, reading and studying and brooding over enigmatic puzzles, taking their fanatical seeking patterns into their “meditation time” . . .  entering into depths of philosophical thinking far deeper than approached before. And all for naught. It’s all an exercise in silliness, taking something so simple and trying to make it into something so ‘profound’ and ‘lofty’ and ‘thoughtful’ and ‘weighty’ and ‘insightful’ and ‘intense’ and ‘extreme’ and making the simple and easy into something unbelievably difficult and complex and grueling and demanding and arduous.

“Maharaj was spot on when he said, ‘This is so simple’ and when he said of the I Am that it should be nothing more than ‘pure and simple being’.”

At the end with Maharaj, and now here as well, the focus is on un-teaching and un-learning. He asked, “What is wrong with forgetting? It is as simple to forget as to remember.”

See? Forget all the nonsense you were taught. Focus on “job one” to meet your basic, relative requirements and then stop making a second job out of living by excessive and fanatical and O-CD-style thinking and talking and doing and seeking.

It's this simple: Merely see ignorance as ignorance. Merely recognize insanity when it is pointed out to you. Then forget it all. Discard it all.

Simplify. 

“Follow Maharaj‘s advice: “Be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently” 

and 

“I am simplicity itself, compared to you.”

He said: “Give up all ideas about yourself and simply be.”

The bottom line? He said: “The disease [the Ultimate Sickness] is simple and the remedy, [the Ultimate Medicine] equally simple.”

Stop searching for the deepest, for the most profound, for the loftiest. Look always, first and foremost, for the simplest solution and for the most obvious awareness rather than the most "philosophical" or "deep" or "profound." Look first for the most obvious, for the most simple: see the “e” at the beginning and the “e’s” at the end.

Here's "the disease" in its simplest form: you were exposed to and have contracted what was said to be “knowledge” but which is actually learned ignorance. You’ve had the most insane thoughts and words and actions modeled for you by persons who normalized the abnormal, and now you have normalized the abnormal as well.

Here's "the remedy" in its simplest form: See the symptoms and cast them aside. Reject “their” minds which have become “your mind.” Be free of nonsense and the effects of "their" insanity and thereby be free, period.

Look at how difficult a task those seekers made out of looking for the solution to a simple riddle, and then see the similarity with how complicated the lives are of all who have assumed the role of “The Super Seeker” rather than simply abiding naturally and spontaneously and simply.  

With many, their motto is, “Just to make a short story long.” Similarly, many seekers are functioning with the attitude, “Just to make a short path long” or “Just to make a short journey long” or “Just to make the simple into the complex” or “Just to make the easy into the difficult.”

Why? Boredom? An excuse to escape? A reason to avoid the basic responsibilities of the relative existence? A desire to find a new and improved reason to continue to avoid or ignore one’s family? An excuse to avoid addressing whatever it was that left you with an inability to attach or to be loyal to or to be present for or to be available for those who would be close to you?

What are your actual motives which are hidden even from you? If actual motives are not seen, then the way to end their effects cannot be seen either; and because most are being driven by the hidden, subconscious agendas of their assumed personalities, they have no clue about why they are thinking the way that they are thinking, talking the way that they are talking, and doing the things that they are doing.

Where is there even the slightest speck of freedom from ignorance in that case? There is none. Where is there even the slightest speck of freedom from insanity in that case? There is none. Where is there even the slightest speck of freedom, period, in that case? There is none.

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

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