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An
article based on Surprised by Grace which appeared
in Creations Magazine in September 1997, and in Pathways
magazine in October 1997.
ENDING THE MYTH
OF PERSONAL ENLIGHTENMENT
By
Amber Terrell
 When
I set out on the spiritual quest as a young college student
in the late sixties, there were certain images in my mind
of what enlightenment would look like. As an enlightened being
I imagined I would be "me", only with all the unwanted aspects
of my personality corrected. And, having access to the limitless
intelligence of the universe, I would of course be brilliant.
Best of all my life would be transformed into a blissful existence,
a heaven-on-earth of perfect health, perfect thoughts, and
perfect circumstances.
After
more than a quarter of a century had passed--consumed in intense
practice of meditation and yoga, fasting, study, long retreats
in foreign lands, and years of service to an Indian teacher--I
began to wonder, "Why hasn't enlightenment happened? Why hasn't
my personality been fixed? Why doesn't my life look like I
imagined it should look by now?" I began to sense that there
was a missing piece in my spiritual repertoire--but what?
I had done all my practices so devotedly, for so long.
Around
the middle of 1994 I began to ask the question, "Who is it
that gets enlightened?" Is it the ego, the personality, the
mind? No one I queried could shed any light on this question,
but I began to suspect that this so-called search for enlightenment
I had been engaged in for so long might be in reality some
kind of glorified personal improvement program. This person,
"I", wanted to get free. "I" wanted to get pure. "I" wanted
to be perfected. A greediness became apparent that didn't
quite feel right. Yet all the teachers and masters I had studied
with up until then only seemed to feed--with their techniques
and chants and therapies and promises of heaven--this needy,
grasping "I" who wanted enlightenment.
 In the Spring of 1995 a shaft of light pierced
the darkest and most frustrated hour of my spiritual quest.
I met an American teacher named Gangaji who finally stopped
this feeding, actually stopped the "I" itself. Very simply
she said:
That
which you have searched for, cried for, bargained for, sold
for--this is WHO YOU ARE.
But she
didn't just say it and leave me to think about it. Gangaji's
very presence emanated a powerful transmission of Grace that
severed the identification with the personal "I" long enough
for me to see that this "unenlightened" separate individual
I had imagined myself to be never really existed--except in
the mind.
You have
taken on some cloak called body, circumstances, thoughts,
and emotions. No problem with that. Only, if you identify
that you are those things you begin to suffer. Because, you
see, these cloaks, these clothes, begin to disintegrate very
quickly. And if you identify yourself with something that
obviously disintegrates, there is great fear and unnecessary
suffering and a search for that which is permanent.
In the
meeting with Gangaji everything changed in my life, spiritual
and otherwise. In her I saw my true limitless Self reflected
back at me with an awesome clarity and depth. I stopped practicing,
stopped perfecting, stopped hoping, stopped escaping, stopped
searching. I stopped everything. The deep connection and resonance
with her opened my heart to her love, and bared my neck to
her sword. Deeper and deeper the truth that poured from her
cut away the illusion of identification with mind and personality--I
am this body, I am connected to these thoughts, these circumstances
are real.
As the
false identification dropped away a vastness became apparent,
an immovable Presence, a Being-ness not separate from anything
or anyone, which revealed itself to be who I am, and who I
have always been. As the tenacious mind tried to arise again
with its habits of re-identification, Gangaji's simple yet
profound guidance revealed: the habits of mind cannot survive
the willingness to meet whatever arises--without following
them, without repressing them. Just be still.
What ancient
habits of grasping and repressing fell away in this willingness!
What long-winded fears evaporated in this Being-ness that
has no boundary. No longer was it necessary to perfect thoughts,
emotions, or circumstances. All the imperfections of life
could arise, as they inevitably do, without disturbing in
the slightest the vastness, the peace of Being.
It is
only No One that is already perfect. If you can really hear
this then you are willing to notice that everyone is imperfect.
Then you stop this tragic and insane search to make perfect
what is inherently imperfect. And in stopping that search,
stopping the grasping to make form conform to some idea of
perfection, the mind is still. In stillness, perfection is
revealed.
The false
identification with "I" haunts most of us throughout life,
haunts and taints even the spiritual quest itself. There is
such a fervor in the New Age community toward "self-improvement,"
fueled by the sense that one must work on oneself, perfect
something in oneself, attain something for oneself--usually
relating to the mind, the emotions, the body, or the circumstances
of one's life. And all this simply perpetuates the belief
in a "someone" created in the mind, who needs to "get" enlightenment.
This is the irony, the great cosmic joke--when the "person"
who is searching for enlightenment dissolves, then and only
then is the goal of the search revealed--having been obscured
all along by the "me" who wanted it.
What exquisite
simplicity! As Gangaji suggests, it is perhaps just this simplicity
that has held enlightenment as the deepest secret--a mystery
of Grace.
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