A man found a ladder. 
He decided that a valuable secret lay at its top,
and determined  that he would 
climb thereto and learn it for himself.

The task proved more difficult than he’d expected, 
for once he began his ascent from the ground 
he found that the only way to 
move up a rung on the ladder was to
make up a new rung as he went along.

Thus when he did reach the top 
the secret he discovered was that 
the ladder was imaginary.

….big surprise, huh?!

As a matter of fact, had it been an ordinary person 
with a mind full of ordinary thoughts --  yes, 
the discovery would have seemed a surprise.
So much so that most likely they would
have quickly found a verbal explanation that handily camouflaged what really occurred.
 
 
 

Ordinary men never, “lose their faith,”
nor do they go from, “error to truth.”
Once thoughts have accepted their own story about a given matter as being its reality
nothing will change the situation other than for the thoughts themselves to
invent a whole new reality-story that they find to be 
an acceptable replacement for the old one.

The “enlightenment” of routine minds is the 
stumbling from one dream to another.

The actual enlightenment of the few minds who actively struggle therefore -- 
--  and who succeed –
is the going from, mental-make-believe,
to, mental-objectivity. 
 

Lean descriptions of, “being awake”
never satisfy
those still asleep.
 
 
 
 
 

It is understandable, and apparently inescapable
that everyone who becomes involved in the,
struggle-to-awaken/search-for-enlightenment 
from the outset, 
thinks of the affair in wholly miraculous terms.
This is the basis for the hero/guru worship so common with such people.
Since they are asleep, and their lives so mundane, 
they think that the awakened must live in a world worthy of the
Bhagavad-Gita.
(This is also behind the more secular romanticizing of
movie stars, sports figures, and the like, 
but at least it is done with  more honestly.)

Ordinary thoughts --   without useful work  --
are going to day dream & just goof around any way,
so what is wrong with them fanaticizing about 
more exciting and interesting lives being led by others?!
For ordinary people  --  nothing is wrong with it,
but for a person who truly,
wants-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-things,
what is right about it?  --  nothing.

Life provides more than a sufficient number of 
phantom cars for your thoughts to chase
without the totally wasteful distraction of you purposefully,
“thinking about some other human being” -- 
much less idolizing them.

The reality behind the injunction urging men not to,
“worship graven images”
has nothing to do with supernatural gods vs their cast-in-plaster competitors,
but rather it is noting that worship-of, and mental-captivation-by
any idea makes the worshiper’s mind graven,
(that is: “set; firmly fixed”),
the antipodal condition of an enlightened one.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wolves will only follow a leader they fear,
and same with men and their physical leaders; 
they may call it respect,
but if they passionately follow him, they fear him.
Men’s thoughts select their 
mental/spiritual/mystical heroes on a similar basis,
but ask yourself: “What the hell is going on here?”

A man who wants you to admire him knows no more than you do.
You’re asleep  --  he’s asleep.
And to get really personal;
no thought in your head that demands to be treated as “more enlightened”,
deserves to be.

Imaginary duck shit is imaginary duck shit
whether it wears feathers & quacks,
or a turban & chants.

To want to, “wake up” is one thing;
but the thing ultimately worthwhile is
wanting to know what, 
“wanting to wake up” is.
 
 
 
 
 

There is an extraordinary road you can walk,
but the only way your efforts will ever take you any where 
is if you finally realize that the 
entire path you trod is one that your thoughts thought up.
   Yeah, they were first triggered by someone else’s,
but it is still the thoughts in your head 
upon which you now imaginarily travel.
 

A man who gets,  “disspirited” by confrontations with reality,
best stay where he is.
 
 
 
 
 
 

One son would go to his father with problems he said appeared in his life
which interfered with his struggle to awaken,
and his elder would always say the same thing:
“Bring the problem and sit it here on my desk, 
and I will take care of it immediately, 
and permanently,”
and the boy became so sick of this that the last time his father spoke the words, 
the son declared:
“That’s it --  I’m never bringing you any of my problems ever again!”
     “Good,” he said, “Now maybe you’ll wake up.”
 
 
 

With ordinary minds,
anguished thoughts can be fun;
bewildered thoughts can be fun;
fantastic thoughts can be fun,
and a mind with no taste for, oh… let us say:
“dirt recognition”…..or…”damp awareness”
is not the mystical explorer it may dream itself to be.
 
 
 

A man who says that he is trying to, “wake up”,
does not understand what he is doing,
and a man who says that he IS awake,
understands even less.
 
 
 
 

One man said to his brother,( who was off on the jaunt):
“Were I to ever stoop so low as to give advice,
mine to you would be:
Leave the exotic day dreams to sexual things,
and keep ‘em far away as possible from your,
wanting-to-awaken-thing.”

Ordinary thoughts want to think of, 
“Enlightened thoughts” as being otherworldly,
and miraculous
for the same reason that routine men’s minds 
engage in the hero worship of another human being.

No doubt about it --  the everyday IS everyday,
and the routine IS routine,
but what IS exceptional and extraordinary
is to SEE everyday, routine life as it really is,and not as your
hum-drum, mental voice-over tells you it is.
 
 

…did you notice that I didn’t say where I am today?
    ......Can you guess by now any way?

                                  Jan