A person does not get enlightened; enlightenment simply is the truth

Transcript:

So a misconception that people have is that a person gets enlightened. Right, you think of yourself as a person, a mind, a body, and you think that’s what gets enlightened. But actually ,enlightenment is simply the truth. Enlightenment is simply what is already the case. The entire story of being a person, a body and a mind and essentially a kind of limited entity — this precisely is the story that is false. So, the story of a person who was ignorant and then becomes enlightened, this kind of story is precisely what isn’t the case. So the entire idea that a person could be enlightened is exactly the idea that the truth of enlightenment which is there regardless of how many times the idea may crop up that it isn’t — remains. It’s like a rock, right, and these, these thoughts of being a person to whom enlightenment occurs are just like these shadows. The shadows cannot actually touch the rock which is the simple truth, the matter of fact. And it doesn’t matter how many times one may think differently. The fact is, enlightenment is, and the story of being a limited person isn’t.

Being is simply the constant silence behind thoughts. But that is a thought.

Transcript:

In truth, Self is so simple. Self is simply being without any pretension to hope or to fear, to doing anything else. Self means the total relaxation of all mental effort. It is that space of silence, the hum of the refrigerator, the constant phone tone that underlies your life. You know it. It’s simply what you are, constantly. And if you just relax, that is it. You’re there. But the moment you say “I’m there,” you’re not there. The moment you say, “when I say ‘I’m there, I’m not there,’” now you’re not there. Except that you are. In all those cases, you are there. You are there even when you think you’re not there. The thoughts of not being there are merely thoughts of not being there. In fact, they’re not even thoughts of not being there. The very idea of not being there is just a thought. The very idea that there can be a thought of not being there that afflicts you is a thought. Thoughts cannot affect you. Thoughts cannot afflict you. Thoughts don’t even exist. The very one who says “there is a thought” is a thought. Thoughts are like mirrors put together facing each other. They’re recursive. Move the mirror, even one of them, even slightly, and all the thoughts disappear as if they never were. And in fact, they never are. They never were, they never are. The mirror alone is. Not even the mirror. Because the mirror is contrasted with its reflections, and its reflections are unreal, which means the mirror is just a thought. No, no, something beyond the reflections and the mirror. Not even that. Beyond is a thought.

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