The "reality" of "illusion"

The question for today is this: Is the path to enlightenment irrational?

People who are following a path tend to run into resistance from others who view these paths as "out there" or not real or irrational beliefs that are simply not true.

So, do you have to be crazy to be on the path of enlightenment? The answer is NO.

Irrationality implies that what you are doing is not logical. It is not something that can be proven scientifically. Some might call it superstition. Even we call it "mysticism" some times.

However, it is anything but mystic. Of course, such exotic sounding words come in handy when trying to sell a program to beginners who are seeking an adventure. Not many people would be "new agers" if it was packaged as boring simple reality.

Yet, that is exactly what enlightenment is. Boring simple reality. Only one is completely aware of it as such.

A familiar Zen saying: "Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water; after enlightenment, chopping wood carrying water."

As I said, enlightenment is being completely aware of reality with no illusions.

A lot of the gurus use that word-illusions all the time. They say we must strip away our illusions-whatever that means.

Some people think the world around us is all "illusion" nothing is real-we create everything in our own minds.

But in fact, what "illusions" are is really our perceptions of the world. From the moment we are born, we begin to form perceptions of the world. We adopt habits based on where we live, what we do, who we live with, what we eat, etc.etc.

Over time, many of these perceptions become fixed. We begin to see the world as we expect it to be-not as it really is.

So, in essence, the purpose of the path is to strip away these illusions. As many know, this is not a simple task.

It takes time and real effort to release the pin that fixes us in the world, but that is what we must do.

Think about it. All of the paths from zen to meditation are designed to put us into situations outside of our envelope. In such situations, our normal perceptions are "out of focus". That forces us to see the situation differently.

Little by little our fixed perception is degraded until all that is left is reality. When that happens, you are enlightened!

And, might I add, completely rational

More later