There are some things we can know, and some things we cannot know. Some things, by their very nature, are impossible to know. As human beings, it’s very important that we give some room in our consciousness for the unknown and the unknowable; otherwise, life will simply be a web of our own desires. We can experience only those things that we have desired, that we have already projected onto the screen of our consciousness. Life is a constant reflection of what we want. There is no path. The path creates itself based on the desires of the one who wants to walk that path.

Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist:

There is no tomorrow. As real as it appears to be – well, of course, if I go to sleep today I’ll wake up tomorrow, but with absolute certainty we say – of course, there is a tomorrow, but where is it? At this very moment, where is tomorrow? It’s nowhere. It doesn’t exist at all. It exists only because we have unfinished business. It exists only because we still have something to do. It exists because our desires still need another day, and another, and another. Just based on our experiences, based on our past experiences, we can say Every night I’ve gone to bed and I’ve woken up in the morning, so it’s going to happen the same way. I’m not saying it won’t, but tomorrow doesn’t exist.

Tomorrow is a manifestation of our desires. When the very nature of reality that we are trying to experience is a projection of our dreams and desires, it is very natural for us to get entangled in this process and forget that there can be something more to life; something completely different from our regular perception of reality, totally transcendental, cannot fall into the boundaries of the human mind, you cannot talk about or contemplate on, but you can certainly become – you can merge into it.

What is Enlightenment?

When it comes to the experience of Enlightenment, all other experiences are basically limitations of the human mind. Enlightenment is the ultimate possibility, and because it is the ultimate of possibilities, it is also the toughest of endeavors. It is not easy to become enlightened, but at the same time, it’s not impossible. It is a completely different path. It is that quest to know the Truth, not just a relative truth of what we have projected onto life, but an absolute Truth that stands independently. That Truth is Enlightenment. We call it an experience because that is how we understand life. For us, there is no life without experience, so we call Enlightenment an experience when it isn’t.

Enlightenment is the moment when all experiences end. When there is nothing to experience, nothing at all, there is enlightenment. When there is nothing to experience, the one who is experiencing disappears. In our case, the mind. Now, who is experiencing reality? Who is experiencing the day and the night? Who is experiencing the heat and the cold? Who is experiencing the pain and the pleasure? Is it you or your mind? It’s always your mind. The real you that is beyond all this, the one that is silently watching the game of life, that is a silent witness to the phenomenon of life – when you merge into that, when you become that Self, when you become that oneness, when you become an undivided life, when you fall into that ocean of consciousness, when you have dropped your dreaming and desires, when you have shared all your aspiration and you have surrendered to that something beyond – that moment is Enlightenment. Enlightenment is the wiping of the “Slate of Life” clean of all that you have scribbled on it.

Growing Up:

I mean, we are children of Existence. We are given a clean slate and we don’t know what to do with it. First, we start scribbling, then we start analyzing that scribbling, and eventually we make some sense of it. That is what we hold onto as our life. Life is our scribbling, if you think about it. If life is messy, it’s because we didn’t know what it was in our growing up years. We developed fears, prejudices, hate and anger, and all sorts of emotions, because we didn’t know what we were dealing with. Life was totally unknown. Then, over the course of time, we started making sense of that mess because we realized that there’s no way out of this. We have created this and we’ve got to be in it. The beauty of life is, it can take even garbage and turn it into something beautiful because there’s something beautiful inside us. Think about it: What is the experience of life? What is the pursuit of tomorrow? It is to try to give shape to that invisible something that is within us. Everywhere we look we see that invisible something taking shape.

A child comes from a human being. You don’t see the child in the body; the body is just the body for a long time. The child simply is a desire. It’s somewhere there in your desires, in your dreaming, in your aspirations. The child is always there, but you never see him. Eventually, you give birth; life comes out of life. The visible life comes out of the invisible life. Everything that we are trying to create – it could be a tiny house, it could be our futures, it could be cities, could be countries – whatever it is that we’re trying to build, we are trying to give shape to that inner perfection. In our own imperfect way, we give shape to it.

Getting to that perfection that is making all these things happen is Enlightenment. Enlightenment is the pursuit of your highest possibility. There is nothing beyond Enlightenment. Enlightenment is to know everything you can know. It is to know life by becoming it, not by understanding it. There are some things that are beyond understanding; you can never understand them. In fact, to try to understand them is the biggest stupidity.  One such thing is life. There is no way to understand it. What we call understanding is the distilled process of jumping into it and experiencing something. By the end of that experience, something sticks to us, and we identify that as understanding. So, there’s really no direct way of understanding. There’s no way to say, “Okay, I’m going to sit here. I’m going to watch life without participating in it, and I will just understand it. There is no such thing. You have to be a part of life, and when you are a part of life, whatever knowledge that gets distilled out is what we call understanding.

Turning Inward:

Awakening and Enlightenment cannot fall into any of these processes because it is the ultimate; it is the Truth. It is consciousness itself. It is aliveness itself. It is the very space where life is happening. It is the canvas on which the painting of life is being shaped. We cannot see the canvas itself, we can only see the painting. We are that canvas. The canvas has no way of seeing itself, but it can be so still, it can be in that state of non-desiring in such a deep way, that it can realize itself. That is what enlightenment is. Enlightenment is to get into the habit of quietening your mind, stilling your mind, stilling your body, stilling your senses; basically, withdrawing all your energy from the outside and focusing it on somewhere inside. Initially, when you turn it inward you will turn it toward your thoughts. You will turn it toward the world that you have created inside. Turning inward doesn’t happen just by saying, “Okay, I want to turn inward now.” When you turn inward, you’re basically turning inward to the same life that is outside, in a different form, in your dreams, and in your desires.

Over a period of time, you can truly turn inward. You can shift from those thoughts and desires to something empty, something hollow, that is just there. When you’re able to stay with it, you begin to experience a certain expansion. At the center of life there is no limitation, there are no boundaries, there is no time, there is no space, there is no left or right, and there is no good or bad. The duality of life disappears when you are at the center of life. We are always in the periphery of life; you know, chasing things. We are never at the center of it. When we get to the center of it, that explosion we experience within us, that explosion of freedom that explosion of limitless life, that explosion which shatters all the boundaries that we have created for ourselves – that explosion is what we call Enlightenment.