The reason enlightenment is the end of all suffering has very little to do with enlightenment itself.
The real reason is because all our belief systems are toxic. Our beliefs cause suffering, and you have to drop the belief systems in order to become enlightened. So the fact that you end up without this toxic belief system, dragging your spirit into despair, is a fortunate side effect.
Dissolving belief systems gets you closer to enlightnment. This is why so many non-duality teachers, enlightenment teachers, talk about how you can tell that belief systems are silly and unnecessary.
One of the most toxic belief systems we have is believing in love and peace and harmony.
Like, what? Right? You’d think that would be a really good thing to believe in. But the problem is that life is what life is.
We are human beings. We’re living in a complicated society. Attaining pure love, attaining global peace, and attaining your particular idea of harmony can’t really be done. So you’re constantly living in the angst of that. It’s so toxic, because if you believe in love and harmony and peace, you’re going to notice that the reason love, harmony, and peace don’t work is because of everybody else. Then you’re going to live in a constant state of blame and agony that things aren’t as they should be.
Enlightenment itself is wonderful. You are living in a state of unity with everything, accepting of everything, even things that aren’t that great.
But that state itself doesn’t bring about the peace. You can be enlightened and still experience anxiety and angst, because you are living with people who are firmly attached to their belief systems. So if you want to interact with people at all, you’re facing this huge wall of resistance with everybody you know.
It’s not comfortable. And most important, all these things are useful aspects of being a human being. Being in angst, feeling anger and despair — all these things are great teachers, because they make us churn and churn and think, “Why is this happening?” It causes us to notice what’s going on, and sometimes even ask for help.
You’ll notice that in native and indigenous cultures, they’re constantly asking for help from each other, from the elders of their tribes, but most important, from all the spirit beings that exist — the trees and the plants and the air and things like cold itself or heat itself. We can ask for help from these things simply by listening.
And then the answers come.
So if you think that becoming enlightened is going to put you into a somnambulant state of not moving, not belonging, not being, you’re never going to get there, because that doesn’t exist.
What exists is the real, true you.
What’s causing your suffering is your belief systems. No matter how beautiful they are, no matter how terrible they are, that is the weight holding you down.
Therapy doesn’t really help. Maybe you have a deep-seated belief that you’re no good, that you’re ugly, that everything you do is wrong. That is a belief system that is going to cause you agony and grief, isn’t it? Fortunately, that kind of belief system can very easily be seen through just simply by being aware.
Is every single thing about you really that ugly? Maybe you don’t have the best face in the world. Maybe you don’t have the best hair. But there are really lots of things about you that aren’t ugly, and all you have to do is look, and you find them.
All these things are good for helping us learn what it’s like to be a human being.
What’s it like to be a human being right now?
This is why self-knowledge is so critical. It is only by knowing who you are, and being seated firmly in your being, that you have a place where you’re coming from. Here your awareness is awake and aware, so you can actually live your life and know.
Don’t go searching for enlightenment thinking that that’s going to solve all your problems, because it’s nothing about that. Enlightenment is simply knowing who you are.
When you know who you are, you know that you are an integral part of everything, because that’s just who you are.
You are not your belief systems. You’re not your fantasies. You’re not your illusions. Those are the things causing misery. Those are the things causing us to not learn from the mistakes in our lives.
Enlightenment isn’t about getting away from suffering. The reduction of suffering is simply a fortunate side effect.