The Guru Dialogues VIII (You are what you seek)

Seeker – Ok…we’ve been having these meetings for a while now. And although I feel like I’ve made progress, I haven’t yet attained enlightenment. You told me everything but what enlightenment actually is. I’m going to ask you point blank now. Make me enlightened. Show me what it is.

Guru – Tell me, where are you looking for enlightenment?

S – I’ve been looking within, to that silence within. Sometimes I get there.

G – Are you sure that you are getting there? What mode of transportation are you using?

S – Well, none. I am stilling my mind.

G – You are trying to stop your thoughts, then?

S – Yes, sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

G – There is an ancient metaphor that describes what you bare trying to do, and why it must always inevitably fail. The human mind is like the trunk of an elephant, always moving, restless. Putting a heavy chain around the trunk will immobilize it, but that stillness is dependant upon the chain staying around the elephant’s trunk. No chain, no stillness. And so it is with a human mind that is being manipulated into stillness. Once the source of manipulation is gone (which is the mind itself), it becomes restless again. There is no use in trying to control the mind that way. It may help tame it a little bit, but if you truly want to be free of mind, that is not going to help you.

S – So what is to be done then?

G – What are you if you are not trying to control your mind, but are just letting it rest in stillness? There is no force being exerted, no coercion of the mind. No thought that the mind must be stilled. What are you when the mind is gently set aside, like a child that has outgrown its fascination with on old toy? What happens when even the concept of enlightenment is set aside? When you are no longer interested in attaining it? When there is no movement towards a goal at all?

S – I am…I don’t know what I am.

G – Allow yourself to expand naturally in that space. Do not resist it; allow it to pull you in. This is what you are. This is the ground from which the personality and the mind arise. Two things among an infinite number of things which are in a state of constant change, and which therefore cannot be who you really are. What you are does not change. Is always, is everything, is nothing. At this point concepts fail utterly. When concepts and the mind cannot capture something, then the only way to experience it is to BE it.

S – My god…

G – That is what you are looking for. You were looking for yourself. Be still and be yourself.

S – Thank you.

G – You are very welcome my friend.



[edit on 29-6-2009 by Silenceisall]