The story posted previously is meant to describe part of the struggles in human life. In this following post I will try to explain what exactly I mean by it.
Being human seems to be a troublesome affair. Throughout life people try to improve their position. Their life obviously is not trouble free. At least that is what we think! The question remains, why does it have to be this way? What makes life that troublesome? Let us start from the beginning.
We are born as naked beings. Not only does this apply in a physical sense but also mentally. We have our genetic material that predetermines many things, but the main factor that later makes us what we are, is what happens after our birth.
We are taught to be human. More importantly we are taught what a human SHOULD be like.
Our parents teach us, our relatives, teachers and friends all have an influence on what we in the end think a human should be. And that is what we turn out to be. But even though everybody seems to have an idea what a human should be like, nobody could really answer the question why? Or maybe the question should be put differently…
What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be human? This is probably the greatest question we could pose ourselves and the interesting thing about it is that literally anybody can ask it themselves. You don’t need a degree in philosophy to try and grasp the answer; you don’t even need to have gone to school. It is a thought that you are free to discover for yourself. And even if you may think differently, the answer lies right before you! It is right there, ready to grasp.
Many great thinkers have tried to find this answer. Most failed, many came close and a few seem to have managed to answer the question.
But the answer is not just a simple word, or an idea or some fantastic knowledge that will automatically enable you to find riches and power. The answer is a point of view, a way of thinking. And the question you should be asking now is not, how did those few people find it, but what made all the other people fail!
The answer to this seems quite simple but it is incredibly complex. Books upon books could be and have been written about this topic but I will try to cut it short.
The main reason why so many people fail on this quest burns down to one thing: Society!
All your life, wherever you are, as long as you are surrounded by people you will be surrounded by society. And even if you think differently, all your life society will have an influence on you and shape you. Humans are social animals after all and they function best in communities.
Society constitutes people influencing each other and the clearest trends will crystallizing out. So whether in the west, the south or the east, there is society and it can only be as good as its members.
The members are obviously influenced by each other. Nobody wants to be left out, nobody wants to be an outsider and not be part of the fun so one has to run along with the flow to get anywhere in life. Everybody does it even without realizing. It does not have to be a bad thing or a good thing, it just happens. School is an invention of society and almost everybody in the developed world takes part in it. Through school society imprints the young children to think what they are supposed to think, to fit in with society and function within it. And society’s ideas change with its powerful members adopting different points of view. For example take the idea of global warming. A few years ago it was only seen as a possible threat and it played no significant role. Now society has adopted the idea and made it mainstream. Al Gore discovered it for himself and so did Leonardo DiCapro. It is found to be undeniable and everywhere. Society has imprinted most of its members with this concept and it leads further to the imprinting of children in school by teaching them about the threats of global warming.
This example illustrates to anybody with a recollection of the past 10 years, how central society is to the way a human is brought up and how he/she will think. One notices these differences when one visits other cultures or societies with different values and mindsets.
What this post is aimed towards is to explain how society influences people’s conception of what is called enlightenment.
One of society’s biggest tools is language. A word such as enlightenment will spark a certain type of idea in a person from a specific society. Some people will think of religion and finding the truth, becoming like Buddha or Jesus. Some people will think of some grand philosophical theory when confronted with this word. Other people will have other mental images of what it means. Whatever their idea though, most people will see enlightenment as some great aspiration that only exceptional people may reach, something that will remain hidden away from a normal person for eternity. And this is where society fails. It is hard for people to grasp different or new ideas. People can’t understand that enlightenment is attainable for anybody. Society makes people think that with all the troubles in the world and in their own lives, nirvana or heaven are otherworldly domains, places unreachable or even unreal. So people turn to the worldly riches, such as money as at least they have a concept of how to find it.
I realize that reading this will not make anybody see enlightenment in the proper light, as what it really is. But this post should give you, the reader, the possibility to understand that enlightenment will never be found in what society sees it as, but in something you just can’t comprehend unless you have seen it for yourself. The difficult but only road to enlightenment, is being open minded and encouraging to new and foreign ideas.
To have the possibility to really grasp a new concept or an unheard of idea, one must ignore all the previously socially imprinted preconceptions about that field. To discover the truth you must start right from the beginning, from 0 and let all the opinions, feelings and memories drop away for the duration of your search. The only way to do this, is to find a quiet place, one where deep concentration is possible and where you are free from interruption by any other member of society. This does not have to be years of isolation in the wilderness of
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