Those who need the most pleasure, the most money, the most honor, are those who have the longer path to the Path. We all walk a path, but there is a true path, and that path, no matter where you go, or what path you may be walking now (or sitting still on, as the case may be) must begin at the self. This is what Hinduism and Buddhadharma teach, and they are absolutely right. And so those people who let their desire for wealth and power, for sensual pleasure, win out over what they may even know to be more valuable and productive need to get their fill before they can move on.
It is sort of like we need to get it out of our systems, we need to do these things in order that we can see that they will not give us what we really want. Perhaps some of us need to experience what we need to experience in order to get where we need to be, in order to make the connections that need to be made for us to really absorb and accept and desire truth over sensual and material things.
An interesting aspect of all this is the instances where people get a glimpse of the truth and they jump right to the end, and right to being a monk, or to intense meditation, and renounce worldly things and pleasures, and still they do not achieve enlightenment. Why?, they wonder. Why?, other people wonder about them.
And here, many people fault the path, fault (the) reality, and turn away from it, exclaiming that it obviously isn’t the (right) path, or that it isn’t “for them,” or some other such notion. But I think this happens not because those people did not see a bit of the truth, but rather that they did and are simply not ready.
When one sees a glimpse of the truth, the light is so bright, it is so amazing, it is so much better than any “earthly” joy or pleasure, that these people become instantly addicted and go right for it. But it is possible, if not probable, that they are not ready to go right for it, that they were ready for the glimpse, and that they still have “worldly” things to go through.
This is the problem with desiring enlightenment. If one desires enlightenment then he misses the point and proves he is not ready. And so these people desire enlightenment the way they desired sensual things, just so much more, because it is so powerful. And they do not see that they are going towards it with the wrong attitude. They still desire too much, they are not ready. They still have fears and desires and such that they need to get through.
The way is not to desire enlightenment, but rather to recognize the illusory nature of your ego, and work to be free from it, which is what questioning the illusions of one’s conditioned existence is all about.
Most people, even those who ostensibly get what this is all about, and go through the motions of following the path (the religious-type ceremonies and all the bowing and scraping), still are not able to be themselves aside from their egos, and as such, they desire selfishly without even realizing it, for selfish desire is very subtle, and it is difficult to know when it’s going on. There is a reason why so few people are able to accomplish this.
This is the kind of thing I saw when I saw (on TV) that old monk who was going to die and told the Dalai Lama that she was scared to die. Obviously, she is an example of someone who was not ready to be doing what she was trying to do. She was going through the motions, wearing the costume, but, ultimately, in the end, she was a tourist. She was not ready to be doing what she was doing. She is a good example of these people who run for the prize, run towards this feeling they had when they had the glimpse and they do not want anything else, for everything else seems less, seems dull and dim compared to it. Or, perhaps, this old monk never really felt she had a choice but to live this life. Perhaps she never really had a glimpse and, like so many people, (try to) think other peoples’ thought-ideas, mistake knowledge for wisdom, hear and say things the meaning of which always remains elusive because they have never really questioned it.
But, it is the human reaction of addiction that is manifesting itself here, and not real awareness. Like the man in The Last Temptation of Christ who was telling Jesus that he has spent his whole life waiting to hear God speak to him, he has dedicated his life to him, and that it hasn’t happened. Another example of someone who had a glimpse, or maybe never had the glimpse but rather wants salvation, divine connection, whatever you want to call it, and then dedicated his life to it, to the exclusion and denial of all other things, and thus was not really doing what he should be doing.
This is why the path (literally) is the questioning and freedom from this illusory self, and not some prize at the end of the scavenger hunt of religious ceremony. For that is still done out of selfish desire, and as such, the ultimate point is missed. Selfish desire for salvation—or happiness, or oneness with “God” or the Buddha, or even for “nirvana”—is still selfish desire.
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From my personal notes, 12/22/99
