For a long time I searched for it.
20 years ago something changed.
That change is called awakening or enlightenment or some such.
That change created great changes in my life.
Eventually I got drawn into being a ‘knower’ of something.
I helped other people find this change for themselves.
I found a new identity and exciting ego boost in my new role. I also found a deep fulfillment and alignment.
I realized I was carrying a new load of my and other people’s expectations.
I came to feel suffocated by the new identity.
I came to feel suffocated and uncomfortable with ‘spiritual’ life and all its trappings, concepts and as I saw it – misunderstandings passed on as ‘truth’.
I wanted to get rid of all of it. Like hastily removing an old coat that’s full of moths.
I didn’t want to be in a special category and I didn’t see enlightenment as a special condition. Enlightenment is just the way things are (the way you are) and it doesn’t need a special name. We should instead have a special name for not recognizing the way things are. So-called ‘enlightenment’ is just seeing what is already there, pre-existing and staring you (quietly) in the face.
So, I wriggled out of my new role and the special category it put me in that was both seductive and suffocating and I offloaded spiritual life and all its trappings as much as I knew how to and I saw that enlightenment shouldn’t have a special name or be considered a special thing.
And my life became immeasurably simpler and extremely insecure without all the props that I had depended on to give me substance.
And that is how I lost my enlightenment. I never had it to begin with. It is not a thing you can have or get or lose in the same way that the sun does not disappear or cease to exist because it is hidden by clouds.
