Enlightenment

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly.  These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon.  No one can call upon them in vain." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 26. 2:1-2, 5

"Sometimes a teacher of God may have a brief experience of direct union with God.  In this world, it is almost impossible that this endure.  If God were reached directly in sustained awareness, the body would not be long maintained.  Those who have laid the body down merely to extend their helpfulness to those remaining behind are few indeed.  And they need helpers who are still in bondage and still asleep, so that by their awakening can God's Voice be heard." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 26. 3:1-2, 8-10

Yesterday a friend and I were talking about enlightenment... about the tendency to look for teachers, gurus, for someone who gets it and knows more than we do.  Maybe even someone whose state of consciousness can be directly transmitted to us, like taking a pill, or being given all the answers.

I remember in the late 60's and early 70's when I was reading Alan Watts and experimenting with hallucinogens to experience God.  I had some amazing openings, and it did indeed change my life.  I experienced enlightenment more times than I can say.  And yet it seemed that I couldn't stay there.  Taking a pill can give us a glimpse.  Being in the presence of an enlightened teacher can give us a glimpse.  But it's not a glimpse of something we have to attain or somewhere we have to go.  It's a glimpse of our True Self... always here and always readily available.

So why do I say I couldn't stay there?  Why after we leave the retreat do we fall back into old ways of seeing and believing?  Because an awareness of Self requires the conscious relinquishment of perception and sensory data.  Taking a pill or being in a holy place can give us a glimpse of what is always here... but we can only see it by giving up the false.  This is why the Course says that these glimpses are almost impossible to maintain here in the dream we call life.  The sensory data and the collective beliefs are seen as necessary and even good (really, they're neither good nor bad... just all made up).  The conscious choice, which must be continuous, to shed all such judgments and perceptions... well, as Jesus would have put it, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  Not because it's hard... illusions aren't easy or hard, big or little... but because we have a vested interest in the world we walk in.  It's our dream.  As ACIM puts it: "I have done this, and this I would undo."

So here we are.  We can call on the image of our enlightened Self, in the form of Jesus or Buddha or Quan Yin or a host of others.  These images will always respond, because they are not anywhere but in us.  They are the Voice and image of Self in a language we can currently hear and respond to.  This is not the same as looking outside of ourself, to pills or physical gurus, to save us.  The images of Self we find within, like the Voice of the Holy Spirit, ARE Self.  A Self so vast and loving and perfect that tears of joy and gratitude are often shed as we remember, however briefly.

Finally, the Course reminds us: "Do not despair, then, because of limitations.  It is your function to escape from them, but not to be without them.  If you would be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language.  If you would be a savior, you must understand what needs to be escaped." 

Enlightenment, the remembering of Self, requires the conscious shedding of the false self we have constructed.  This is the interlocking chain of forgiveness that A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement Principle.  Perfection and Radiance is the Truth at the heart of it all.  Everything else is only for forgiving.