No More Enlightenment



http://portraitsinfaith.org/ramesh


"For 35...40 years I pursued enlightenment...sort of a deep, almost unconscious seeking of enlightenment. It ended in frustration because not even my guru or anybody could give me answers to two basic questions: What am I looking for—enlightenment—but what is enlightenment? More important: What will enlightenment do for me if and when I get it?

But when I asked my guru, he got angry because he thought I was questioning his enlightenment. Then he saw that many up there were waiting for his answers to: ‘What is enlightenment?’ and ‘What will it do for me?’

So he calmed down, and he gave me an answer which I knew would come. ‘You will know what enlightenment is and what it does for you only when you are enlightened. To know the sweetness in the mango we have to eat it.’

That is the classical escape route.

The basic question is, ‘What do I, Ramesh, want in this life?’ in the circumstances in which I was placed, over which I never had any control. And honestly, the answer to that is enlightenment...which I came to know when I retired at 60 and said, ‘No more enlightenment for me. Stupid!’ All I want for the rest of my life—however short or long it is—is happiness. Happiness for Ramesh! The ego; selfish, yea. Therefore, I thought, ‘Pursue happiness.’ And I got it. Or rather, it was my destiny to get it.

So, what I'm going to do is try to tell you the process in which this happened. First, I decided what it was that I wanted. From the beginning: happiness. But surely I knew what enjoyment was. I may not have enjoyed all of the enjoyments in life, but I still knew what was enjoyment. That is the opposite of pain. So, I know what enjoyment is, and yet I'm seeking happiness. Therefore, the most important question to start with is: ‘What is this happiness I'm seeking?’ which has to be totally different from the enjoyment I've had as [it has been] all my life. You know what I mean? And that was the most important question: ‘What is the happiness?’

I decided, [it was] foolish to seek happiness. I have to [actually] be satisfied with accepting the pleasure when it happens, enjoy it, suffer the pain when it happens.

Then an important question arose [and] at that point I had a...something [a voice] from outside...that only means God. So, what came to me from outside was: ‘You're wrong! It has never been my intention for the human being to suffer. It has always been that the human being, the birthright of the human being, is the happiness which he is seeking. Only thing is, that happiness is based on one factor which the human being has not accepted. That's why he is not happy.’

And then I happened to come across four beautiful words from the Bible which I had come across hundreds of times before but they made no real impression on my heart. In fact, the heart said, ‘Stupid.’ And [the words were]: ‘Thy will be done.’ Now it went straight to my heart. I said, ‘How fantastic! That is true!’ I may want something, you may want something, but who will get it does not depend on his effort. Ultimately, it is God's will, or the will of the Source.

And then I remembered the words in the Bhagavad Gita [about murder, when it happens as a natural consequence, such as in battle]. Therefore, 'Thy will be done' is not strictly correct [because] ‘thy will’ has been done. Therefore, the movie is already in the can. What we are still viewing is the same movie, but frame-by-frame-by-frame, day-by-day, hour-by-hour, second-by-second. But, even the physicist has accepted that with the Big Bang, the entire manifestation was created as a block; physicists say, 'as a block.' The fan, when it's working at the highest speed, you may feel the air, but you can't really see [the air]. And the slower the fan, the more clearly we see the blades.

So, that was the end of my search."