Why I Took Up Self-help After Enlightenment

There I was, all decked out in resplendent white robes, a hint of a halo around my head...

Nah, doesn't happen that way.

Alan Watts was fun of repeating the old Chinese proverb:
"Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
"After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water."

The trick is that life goes on.

You can get all Zen and Mindful and such, living in The Zone or The Moment. All this is good and gives you peace.

Meanwhile, life goes on around you.

So Life After Enlightenment can be endless peace, or you can set goals as a game to play.

I'd spend most of my life sorting out self-help books and materials, including investing 20 years of my life in a corporate cult devoted to deluding their staff and public about their "one road out."

(To which a truly enlightened person would tell you some koan about "there is no end, only the journey" or "heaven and hell are both metaphors for what you're already experiencing." Said the Red Queen to Alice, "You have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place.")

Anyway, I already knew all these authors and their titles. So I might as well make a game out of that somehow. So I started publishing them (as there were so many in the public domain) and making a living from that. And the game of "making a living" requires goals and plans and whatnot. Perfect for "whiling away the idle hour."

Sure, I know all this enlightenment stuff, and keep busy at pushing people toward it. But I also know it's a very un-serious activity, that people are already there and only have to accept it fully.

Any job is an amusement, a source of entertainment. Nothing more. The difference between people who are going through life being entertained and people who are entertained going through life is both very slight and a huge gulf.

It may take some study to understand that sentence fully. But that's where I am, and why I do what I do.

Luck to us all.

Pushing Toward Grace

It's not hard to survive living on this planet - but like Alice, you have to run as hard as you can to stay in the same place.

Sorry I haven't written you lately.

But my running has kept me very, very busy.

And that's the point today.

Remember the old Huna, "Energy flows where attention goes."

This is life in this universe, in this world, in our neighborhood - and in this body you occupy Now.

What you want and need in this world is right outside you. Just reach out and grasp it, or let it go. Doesn't matter which. For the "world is as you think it."

When you set goals, you are setting yourself running toward a path. When you've decided you have attained that goal, then it arrives. The rest of it, and all the work you do, is just the journey.

Simple.

And every step you take is just as you've wanted it to be all this time.

Where you ultimately wind up is Grace. Or not. Your choice.

Grace = Zen = Christ Consciousness = etc., etc.  Call it anything you want.

There is a point where nothing really matters, because Nothing really matters. (And when that statement makes sense, so will the rest of this.)

All the work I've been doing lately has more than kept me amused. I've managed to get enough books selling to not have to have a day job anymore, which is some relief.  It lets me do and think whatever I want. (Like I don't have to shave but once a week - and then only because it starts itching too much.) And running around in t-shirts and blue jeans every day is quite comfortable. The most major decisions I have about wardrobe is what color t-shirt to wear.  (In winter, I put a heavy coat over when I go outside, so the color is moot - but an amusing split-second of living.)

OK - I've been working at assembling a bunch of material for you, so you can buy it and these books and whatnot will help you on your way to wherever you want to wind up.

How this can be done is that I've narrowed down life's work into four separate, interacting elements and then populated them all with a selection of different books written by different people and published by me - just for you.

Those four elements (Mind, Body, Value, and Bliss) all add up to Grace.

As I covered in "Freedom Is" - you can wind up at Grace whenever you want. Or go there and come back and then go there again, over and over. Your choice. It can take you months, lifetimes, or you can be there in the next instant.

How long it takes is what you consider the journey to be.

How hard you have to work at it is how hard you consider it is to attain.

Whatever you want around you is exactly what shows up.

Everything else is just entertainment.

Anyway - all the work I've been doing lately is just to simply give you more stuff to entertain yourself with along the journey. Too simple. (And it even only came to me while I was writing this, although I've been here before. Cute, eh? "...where energy flows.")

Soon, I'll have another massive set of books up for you to enjoy. Lots of them. And like Alan Watts, I'll be able to give you audio and video commentary on how these interact with each other and how they can help you improve your life and living - all that sort of stuff.

Lots to do. Lots to keep me and you entertained on our respective journeys.

Today's post was simply to tell you that you're on your way to where you want to be - and that you'll wind up there whenever you want to. Quite simple. Quite deadly earnest.

But the real lesson is to enjoy each moment of your journey as much as you can. Starting Now.

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