My enlightenment is pure efficiency, a life in which no motion is wasted, and therefore no moment is without significance or meaning. The world where the purpose of each moment, motion and individual is visible, quantifiable, understandable. Here, compassion is easy to come by, with no time or energy wasted on fear or ego, no need to protect ourselves from each other, since the only thing we have to offer one another is the time and space to be ourselves. In enlightenment motion is graceful, resulting in a perfect gesture of self-sacrifice and service, but that does not demean, degrade or condescend to the self.
This world of enlightenment is one of fluctuating borders; one of flexibility in which our auras are like the skins of bubbles pressing up against one another, giving when giving is needed, and taking when taking is needed. Enlightenment is neither soft, nor rigid but both. Enlightenment is knowing what is necessary.
I realize that this idea of enlightenment is a fiction, a perfect heaven where the world around me caters to my whim. It is the fantasy of a grouchy egomaniac who wishes to move through the world without hitch or hindrance. I am that grouchy egomaniac. The fact of the matter is that enlightenment isn’t much of the things I listed above, at least not the way that I listed them. Enlightenment is knowing what is necessary, but it’s something entirely different than pure efficiency. It’s the understanding of the impossibility of pure efficiency, and the space and compassion to hold both the desire for pure efficiency and the reality that it is not possible without granting the weight of Truth to either.
Truth is, perhaps, the worst enemy of compassion. Truth so often stems from authenticity, and authenticity is so often a way of separating out what is real and what is not. And so often what is not real is not granted acknowledgement, and deemed inferior, worse than and generally bad. All of these things are hidden under the guise of Truth. I guess Truth can often be like a sack full of pennies, it has very little intrinsic value as currency, but is surprisingly potent as a weapon. And I will say from experience that it is difficult if not impossible to have compassion for someone when I’m beating them with a bag full of pennies.
Perhaps enlightenment is the fulcrum on which Truth is weighed, the pivot point of the scales of Justice. Enlightenment is the possibility of holding all Truths without contradiction, without the need to contradict, to make right, and in making right, also make wrong. Like the ability to meditate and not give into the satisfaction of scratching my nose, so enlightenment is the ability to consistently resist the temptation to succumb to the dangers of Truth.
