How Many Been Enlightened In The Past 100 years?

I mean super-duper enlightened, and not just repeating good words.

What if enlightenment wasn’t super-duper, but just a realisation of our essential reality that is pure consciousness obscured by attraction, repulsion and indifference? How many super-duper-miracles-of-old have there been recently? We live on very old stories from books, which people and organisations have then translated and commented on. Maybe it’s all Chinese whispers, where we hear – or mishear – something without experiencing, and pass this on to the next person, and so on; it all becomes more exaggerated … and more holy. It could happen … it’s called rumour and gossip, and causes harm.

When I first had personal interviews with Tibetan lamas, I used to ask, “Should I prostrate to you?” Where did I get that idea from? Why do we bow when passing a shrine? So much is hear-say and hear-do. Respect is one thing, but worshipful display that was meant to counteract our pride now actually displays it. It’s all monkey-see, monkey-do.

Thinking that enlightenment is super-duper, we live in hope of something unattainable, and so we’re never good enough; we feel poverty-stricken, when all round us, people are fawning. I’ve done some daft things that counteracted genuine experience.

What if enlightenment was simply knowing what we are, and whatever obscures this knowingness? In this way, we can easily live a happier life, not dependent on memories from days of old.

Do we have to sit in meditation for six years, non-stop?

Meditation is a tool:
when we don’t need it, we put it down.