Who Is Stopping You?

Who is it that is restraining you from being happy? From being at peace? From reaching enlightenment? From seeing right now the unity between yourself and all things? From understanding the great mysteries of life?

When I have asked myself these questions, the answer always come back the same. The answer is me. The individual. You are what separates yourself from the experience you desire, or the person you want to be. You are what separates yourself from what is eternal. There is no real separation at all other than that which you yourself create. If you go right down to it there is no real state of enlightenment other than that which you might create, nothing to understand other than that which you feel you don't. If you look for an understanding through words or symbols, something that can be expressed, you will not find one. Any state of spirituality cannot be experienced other than one you have already experienced. We are unable to imagine anything unless it has already been. You are the seeker, and you are the one who hides. So if you want to realize anything, all you need to do is get out of your own way. Nothing and no one can teach you anything unless you have the power of learning it and putting it into practice.

In my experience I have found that there are very few sources that let us in on the secret. We are taught by the media, many of our elders, the religions, the government, and our peers that the answers to our problems, our questions is outside of us. That whatever it is we are seeking it cannot be found within. We are taught to feel estranged in our bodies, and that there is something that is just not right about us. That every action we take can be scrutinized, either praised or blamed, and this, among few other things, is who we are. We should not have the courage or the nerve to believe that you are god. That you are everything that is. No matter what you do, you cannot make a mistake. We are taught that each one of us is a small little you in this great big universe and you really don't matter much at all. You are so small and could never be so great. In our culture you should have to suffer and work and earn privileges like enlightenment or respectability or status or whatever it is that people desire to be. And if you haven't suffered, you have no right to reap good things. And that is true if you believe it. But you don't have to. If you want, you can stare right into the eyes of the eternal. It takes no time at all. It takes no effort. No work. No practice of any kind. Other people may tell you otherwise, but that is their path. It does not have to be yours.

You already know that you are the center of your experience. All life happens through you. But for some reason in our culture that sounds vain. Our life is our personal experience. It is you who turns the vibrations of light into images, the vibrations of sound into sounds. You. Not anyone else. So is it so inconceivable to think that you are all that is? Why is this so? I think that most people have the concept that whatever is eternal knows all, understands all, and controls all. Why? We do not know how we pump our blood, or move our legs when we walk, or even how we breathe, and yet we can do these things with the greatest mastery. We never had a single lesson and yet we are all masters. If this is true about yourself, could that not also be true about what is eternal? It is possible to have the nerve to see this. Children have this kind of nerve. That is until various people start to condition it out of them. Children see right through the games we play. You don't need to tell a child that they are one with everything that is. You don't need to tell a child to appreciate life. To them it is not a concept to be realized, life is already realized. There is not a self and an other, it all goes together.

So I say to you, if there is something that you want to realize, who is stopping you? If you find that is you, then simply stop standing in your own way. Go into who that person is. Who they REALLY are? If you can do this all problems will fade away.