Dissolving the Clouds to Enlightenment

Category Enlightenment, God, Surrender

photo by ceoln

A few months back I was on a plane to Chicago. As we soared through the air at 35,000 feet, the sun was bright and intense with no clouds obscuring its light. At this altitude, it was completely obvious that the sun shines continuously and there’s nothing we need to do to “find” the sun or “connect to” the sun. Just simply sit back, relax, and be with the warmth that the sun radiates towards us. Whether we were a good person or a bad person, the sun shines just the same.

Now as we started nearing our destination, we began our descent down into the windy city. On this day, the clouds below us were particularly thick, with no gaps in the clouds. The earth below us wasn’t visible whatsoever. There was this thick cover of grayish white cloudiness obscuring our view of the earth below.

Our descent continued and the plane dropped more and more until we were just skimming the top of the clouds. Then we swooped down into them and noticed that our view of the sun’s direct light was changing as well. Sinking deeper and deeper into the clouds, it became apparent that we couldn’t really see anything at all anymore beyond the thick veil of white fogginess everywhere. There was still light around us, sure, but not really coming from anywhere in particular. It was a glow emanating from everywhere. The source was now obscured, essentially invisible even though its effects were visible.

Descending down even further, we finally popped out of the bottom of the clouds and a whole ‘nother world opened up below us. We could see land, water, buildings, vehicles, roads… What was always there but beyond our range of vision had suddenly popped into awareness.

But where had the sun gone? We intellectually knew the sun was now “above” us somewhere, but all we could see was this continuous blanket of cloudcover. That’s it. Just glowing clouds obscuring the light of the sun.

We need that sunlight. It gives us life-giving warmth and energy. If we were not getting enough sunlight, it would be absolutely silly to try and create more of it. The sunlight is already there.

What’s necessary is to dissolve the clouds obscuring the light.

When the clouds dissolve, the sunlight that was ALWAYS THERE naturally shines forth and is radiantly apparent.

Spiritual growth is just like this.

Instead of trying to become enlightened and reach this state of Oneness with all beings (which is actually the way things already are), simply let go of the veil of separation that apparently comes between you and all others. The veil is the reality created by your mind.

The reality is that God’s Love is unconditional ever-present. Like the light of the sun, it is always shining down upon the earth, no matter what. What’s necessary for us is to simply be open to receiving it, to let it in.

Don’t try to find God or find the sun or find spiritual truth or find enlightenment.

Of the many earnest, and how earnest, people we may observe reading, attending lectures, studying and practicing disciplines, devoting their energies to the attainment of a liberation which is by definition unattainable, how many are not striving via the ego-concept which is itself the only barrier between what they think they are and that which they wish to become but always have been and always will be?

-Wei Wu Wei

Just let go of all resistances to Love, of all false ideas about who you think you are, and what you will discover is that what you have been looking for has been here all along.

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7 Responses to “Dissolving the Clouds to Enlightenment”

Psiplex said:

Grace takes care of everything including not having to find the sun, but nonetheless pointing to the Source of light. Cool to ordinarily be yourself and enjoy life, plane trips, kids and day to day things. Tending to see more of the miraculous in the ordinary and it keeps getting wider and wider. Nice post!

One Love

Psiplexs last blog post..Drop the Concept
Mike said:

I wonder if the fastest growth is simply a matter of wanting Liberation. Lester Levenson and many others say it comes in proportion to how bad you want it, while just as many say that the more you want it the more you push it away. It seems that we have to find the perfect balance. We have to want it with our entire being, free of conflicting unconscious desires, while trusting that it’s already there and not striving. As a perhaps average spiritual seeker, I can get some results by striving, and I can get some by purely allowing. The purely allowing brings much faster and more profound progress, but I can hardly keep it up for more than a few minutes. I suspect this is because I unconsciously want other things more than spiritual growth. All I have to do is identify with awareness and never stop. It’s effortless, and we all say we want it, but it seems like getting it would be like holding your breath for 20 minutes. Simple, easy, all you have to do is want it more than breathing, or all the other things.
Mike said:

Perhaps this is what Hawkins meant by yang intention, yin action.
Ariel Bravy said:

Yeah Mike, there definitely seems to be a balance between the yin and yang energies.

It’s like, you have to have the devotion, dedication, and discipline to commit yourself to spiritual evolution, which is the yang intention, yet the actual operation is more yin-based in that it’s focused on surrender and allowing.

There’s also a big sense of egoic momentum, of doing something a certain way all your life and then deciding to move in another direction. It takes some energy to change direction, but like the rocket ship which takes a tremendous amount of energy to lift up off the ground, given enough time, it can eventually escape the earth’s gravitational pull and simply coast off effortlessly. Spirituality seems a lot like this in that it takes energy to commit to letting go of the ego’s desires, but the path tends to get easier and easier in time as resistance progressively lessens.
Ariel Bravy said:

Oh, Mike, you also mentioned the discrepancy about “wanting” something. It seems that word “want” points to something slightly different depending upon context.

The “good” want is the devotion, the warrior-like commitment, the non-attached dedication, the willingness to choose something beyond continually satisfying the ego, no matter what.

The “bad” want is the craving, the desiring, the inner feeling of lack, the attempt to satisfy the ego.

Psiplex Reply:
October 16th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Enjoying the wisdom in the exchange!

Psiplexs last blog post..Drop the Concept
Mike said:

I totally agree about the two types of wanting. There really should be different words for the desire to go toward god and a desire to go away from god.

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