“You are not letting go of your goal to attain enlightenment, you’re letting go of your ego’s attachment to enlightenment by killing any and all Buddhas you may discover along the path.” G Z McGee
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt” –Immanuel Kant
Here’s the thing: enlightenment is an illusion, but the path toward enlightenment is exceptionally real. It seems like a contradiction, but it’s not. The essence of the sublime is letting go of our attachment to the goal and allowing the journey to be the thing.
There are roadblocks and tripwires and briar patches galore, but even they are an essential aspect of the journey. In fact, the most fulfilling moments in the journey are when we gain the capacity to transform roadblocks into stepping stones, tripwires into jump ropes, and briar patches into crowns of thorn.
Here are seven hang-ups in particular to let go of in order to attain a state of sublime impeccability.
1. Let go of Fear
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” –Plato Continue reading →
“Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains. “If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling.”” S Marohn
Malidoma Patrice Somé
In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.
What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.
One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness. When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.
“I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.” What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation. As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.” Continue reading →
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt” –Immanuel Kant