Change

[Gonzo]

I suspect in most instances, we are trying to be or to become something we aren't.

I really disagreed with this when you first postulated it in chat. I now tend to agree with you.

Both are sought only after making the judgment that something is wrong with the self and something needs to be done to correct it.

We are taught from early childhood that we are bad. "dont be a bad boy/girl" or you are such a bad boy/girl you are grounded, cant have dinner... whatever, thereby starting the idea that we are somehow bad. Then we go to school, get grades to let us know just exactly how good/bad we are...none of those things are true. So we carry around this manufactured structure of what is good/bad. We are what we are...thats good stuff right there, never thought of it that way before.

Kim has a perspective on this that I've appreciated, and this morning, she amplified it. The process you describe she likens to acquiring a backpack full of rocks which we spend the rest of our lives dealing with as we trudge up the hill. Most if not all of the rocks are negatives about ourselves, leading often to self-loathing. The job remains to unload the backpack, equivalent to discovery of true self...not an easy job, and certainly the point of recapitulation.

Her addendum this morning concerned Downs Syndrome folk, who seem not to be burdened with backpacks full of rocks. They seem to love themselves and to love others with a sort of abandon. Kim wondered if perhaps they were not the truly advanced among us.

[Gonzo]

and...dude its what I have been telling y'all all along...YOU are already enlightened YOU just have to figure it out....

Well, I think the recent realizations are a bit different. That is, enlightenment is a notion of achieving successful being, and rather than say, or assume, that as we are really is the enlightened state, the true thing is, there is no such thing as enlightenment.

If I look back at the ancients who were pronounced to be enlightened (or to the current Jed McKenna, or perhaps U.G. Krishnamurti, or maybe Puppeji), they seem to function in a sort of self-assured manner. I don't know how else to describe that...it's as if they have no concern about what they say, or about what they do, something like ultimate trust in and belief in the nagual/universe. I can function like that at brief moments, never consistently. Maybe that's all it is.

I'm tempted more to say lately those who achieved that state, as in a sense recognized spiritual adepts, that they were destined to do so, and perhaps the real personal effort for each of us is to actually do exactly as Don Juan said...achieve our own totality, no matter what it is.

[Affinity]

I like Kim’s analogy. Rather than achieving, enlightenment becomes a notion of disachieving. I still do not agree with the idea that we are “already enlightened”. It occurs to me that another way of saying one is “enlightened” is to say that one is “simply perfect”. It then becomes obvious that something needs to take place in a person to become enlightened. In other words, you’re not simple enough yet. So instead of comparing yourself to what you “think” you should be, it becomes a matter of comparing yourself to what you know you once were. It’s a work in “progress” moving in the directions of fact, elation, and weightlessness, instead of fantasy, burden, and loathing.

[Gonzo]

I like Kim’s analogy. Rather than achieving, enlightenment becomes a notion of disachieving. I still do not agree with the idea that we are “already enlightened”. It occurs to me that another way of saying one is “enlightened” is to say that one is “simply perfect”. It then becomes obvious that something needs to take place in a person to become enlightened. In other words, you’re not simple enough yet. So instead of comparing yourself to what you “think” you should be, it becomes a matter of comparing yourself to what you know you once were. It’s a work in “progress” moving in the directions of fact, elation, and weightlessness, instead of fantasy, burden, and loathing.

Good line. Reminds me of Don Juan's statement that

...freedom is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds.

That "freedom" is attained, perhaps, by taking the rocks out of the backpack.