Why I am less afraid of enlightenment than I once was.

Fear is often something that hinders spiritual growth.  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of letting go, all important humps to grow past.  I myself chose the green monster (Baseball reference) of fears, I chose to be afraid of enlightenment itself.

I've been afraid becoming enlightened and then losing myself.  I wasn't afraid just of losing the ego creation, but also of something deeper, the whole of what I have become.   That is because enlightenment has been described as a transformation to me.  This now seems false.  If you look at the integral studies model, or just look around you, you will see that we are all "Whole-ons", an entity that is made up of smaller entities that are made of even smaller entities, My body to my intestines, to molecules to atoms, etc..  This also works in the opposite order, atoms, to molecules, to my intestines, to my body, which is the order I want to look at now, the order of growth.

When you are a newborn, you can't discern your thoughts.  As you get older, perhaps around 3 or 4 (sorry, I'm not a scientist, but feel free to do the research) you start to recognize your thoughts, something is talking in your head.  Then as you continue to get older you are able to define your thoughts as such and recognize when you are thinking, as opposed to say day dreaming.  In fact you get so immersed in this thought world that you think all reality is made up of it.  This continues to unfold until one day you realize that there is something beyond thought; awareness.  This is a wonderful day and often relieves a lot of suffering that has been building up in your thinking mind, but it is not enlightenment.  Enlightenment comes through more unfolding now at this level.  It is true for some that the unfolding was instantaneous, Buddha being an example here, but for the rest of there is a time of transition. 

So with these things in mind, I feel as if the unfolding is actually more of an infolding and therefore, no matter baby or enlightened being, there is still an undeniable me, which exists and will continue to exist.

Funeral reception

Today my Ego became aware of its own mortality.  True, if you are reading this, you probably believe that the soul (or whatever you want to call it) lives on past death and I'm inclined to believe.  However, all indications suggest that the Ego will be no more.  This made us sad.  Even though my ego isn't dying this exact moment, I felt like maybe I should take a moment to acknowledge its hard work though the years, especially the unaware years and give it a sort of Funeral reception.

The first thing I did is write my ego a poem.  It was a little Dr Seuss-ey, but I felt like it had a touching ending.  Being of the, let's celebrate instead of sad funeral face, opinion, we went to get some Little Debbie Swiss Cake rolls, a favorite of our late teens and early 20s.  Unfortunately CVS didn't have them so I ended up with Reecies Pieces and a bottle of orange Crush.  Then I came home and played video games.  Later I went to the grocery store and got the Cake rolls along with a Sparkling Grape Apple cider, some Maple Brown Sugar cream of wheat and one of those Pie/pastry things filled with pudding, all part of youthful memories.  Then I came back home and put on the 80s station on Pandora and rocked out.  It started with Madonna and by the time I got to Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer, I was done.

All in all a good party. 

My ego claims that the party isn't technically over until I finish off all the food.  I claim that I had IBS once and now I see why, the way I used to eat. 

A simple trick to hapiness

Let your reaction to everything be a positive one.


You taste a strawberry - positive reaction.
Someone yells at you - positive reaction
You step in dog poop - positive reaction.


If you train yourself to react positively to everything that happens to you, you will be happy.