The is the fifth part of an extended series of explorations on \u201cenlightenment\u201d as a human experience. The first, second, third and fourth entries in this series may be found in the archives.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.\u00a0 The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.\u00a0 And that if you don\u2019t do that, you can\u2019t get there.\u00a0 The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In Part Two I wrote of the time when Paramahansa Yogananda, or \u201cMaster\u201d as he was called, came to America bringing a technique for \u201cself-realization\u201d \u2014 which was his phrase meaning \u201cenlightenment.\u201d\u00a0 Self-realization declares that when you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. And Master described himself as having been enlightened.\u00a0 And, by the way, he was enlightened. He was enlightened because he said that he was and, I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.\u00a0 It is quite as simple as that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In Part Three we looked at other \u201cMasters\u201d and other programs leading to \u201cawakening\u201d or \u201cenlightenment,\u201d not only Paramahansa Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship, but also Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation,\u00a0 and, more contemporarily, Werner Erhard and the <\/em>est program.\u00a0 There are many programs, many approaches, many paths developed by many masters. There is a book written called <\/em>Many Lives, Many Masters written by my friend Brian Weiss, and he talks about the fact that there are many ways to reach the mountaintop. Which way, then, should we recommend?\u00a0 Which way, then, should we encourage others to take? And the end of Part Three I indicated that we would look next at the path that the Buddha took. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In Part Four we did just that, and then we ended with a brief look at an out-of-body experience that I had many years ago. I emerged from that experience with a two-word message: “Nothing matters.” I said to myself, “Nothing matters?? How can that be?” And I promised at the end of Part 4 that we would explore the “message behind the message.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n PART FIVE But God said to me, \u201cNeale, nothing matters.\u201d\u00a0 Therefore you are free to make matter what you choose to make matter in your life.\u00a0 And I mean that in two ways:\u00a0 not only to “make matter,” but to make something INTO matter.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 To cause a thing to become<\/em> matter.\u00a0 That is, to make it physical matter in your life.\u00a0 In other words, to manifest in physical reality something that is pure matter out of invisible energy.\u00a0 To turn it into, to turn energy into<\/em>, matter.<\/p>\n I have become so enlightened that I can sometimes barely explain what it is I am trying to say!\u00a0 You know you are enlightened when you can\u2019t even articulate what your thoughts are.\u00a0 Either that or you\u2019re totally crazy, one or the other.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be funny if enlightenment and craziness were one and the same?<\/p>\n So if you think there is a path to enlightenment that is the only path, the best path, the fastest path, the one that everyone has to know about by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, you will suddenly find yourself feeling pressure, stress, upset, and your ego will be deeply involved in convincing as many people as you can that that\u2019s what\u2019s so.\u00a0 And suddenly you will start acting not like a master at all, but like someone who is under a terrific amount of pressure and stress, because it will suddenly matter to you whether I get what you are trying to tell me.<\/p>\n If you are not careful, you will even start having quotas or goals. This is what often happens inside of organizations that begin to think they have “the answer,” and now they have to share it with others as fast as you can. You\u2019ll have to get a certain number of other people to agree with you every week, or every month, or every year.\u00a0 And if you don\u2019t meet those goals you will think that you have not done a good job.\u00a0 And yet, you have<\/em> done a good job if you simply loved without expectation, without requirement, without needing anything in return.<\/p>\n Enlightenment, when it is all said and done, has nothing to do with what you do with your body or your mind.\u00a0 It has to do with what you do with your soul.\u00a0 If you simply love everyone whose life you touch endlessly unconditionally, with nothing needed or wanted in return, you have become enlightened and you have shown everyone whose life you touch how they may be enlightened as well.\u00a0 As fast as any other system that exists, like that.<\/em>\u00a0 As fast as transcendental meditation, like that.\u00a0 As fast as joining the Self-Realization Fellowship, like that.\u00a0 As fast as taking est<\/em>, like that.\u00a0 And if you learn to love yourself unconditionally, as well as everyone else, you heal your entire body without lifting a finger.<\/p>\n Now I want to discuss as well a thing called “health,” because many people believe that you are not enlightened unless you are in good health.\u00a0 Is enlightenment being in good health?\u00a0 And what is “good health” anyway?<\/p>\n Is good health having a body that has nothing wrong with it?\u00a0 Is good health living until you are 90 or 100 or 200 or 500?\u00a0 Is good health having no pain or nothing wrong with your physical form?\u00a0 Is good health the absence of anything that is not perfect or good in your physical experience?\u00a0 Or is good health being okay and in a place of joy and peace, no matter how things are?<\/p>\n What is<\/em> “health”?\u00a0 What is optimum health, if it is not happiness?<\/p>\n I know people who exercise every day, lifting weights and run and work out, and their bodies are in great health, but their minds and their hearts and their souls are desperately sad.\u00a0 And I know people who are hardly able to lift up a toothpick, their bodies are in such bad health, but their hearts and their minds and their souls are so bright and they are so happy.<\/p>\n One such man is Ram Dass.\u00a0 Do you know of whom I speak?\u00a0 Ram Dass is a master, and I have met him personally.\u00a0 And he taught many people for many years.\u00a0 He wrote a book called\u2026Be Here Now.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 And several years ago Ram Dass had a stroke.\u00a0 His body had a stroke and after that he couldn\u2019t move his arm at all, I think it was his left arm that wouldn\u2019t move.\u00a0 He could barely barely talk.\u00a0 And he was still a relatively young man; he was only 63 or something like that.<\/p>\n I met Ram Dass after his stroke, in a hotel room in Denver, and I’ll tell you something.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never met a healthier man.\u00a0 I sat in that room with a real Master.\u00a0 I said, \u201cRam Dass, how are you?\u201d\u00a0 And he sat there in his wheelchair and said, \u201cI…am…won-der-ful.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s health\u2026that\u2019s health.<\/em>\u00a0 That\u2019s peace.\u00a0 That\u2019s joy.<\/p>\n And when you have so much happiness, peace and joy, that you spend your life sharing it with everyone else\u2019s life you touch, that\u2019s enlightenment.\u00a0 You have become a master.\u00a0\u00a0 When your life is no longer about you, has nothing to do with you, but is about everyone whose life you touch, you have become a master.\u00a0 For in the end, that is why you came here.\u00a0 Not to somehow “get better,” not to work on yourself.\u00a0 Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to is already done.\u00a0 All you have to do is know that.\u00a0 Remember the wonderful message from Conversations with God: <\/i>\u201cThere is nothing you have to do, there is no where you have to go and there is no one you have to be, except exactly who you are being right now.\u201d<\/p>\n So this is the time of your liberation. And we’ll speak more about what that looks like in our next entry here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The is the fifth part of an extended series of explorations on \u201cenlightenment\u201d as a human experience. The first, second, third and fourth entries in this series may be found in the archives. 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\nThe message behind the message is that if nothing matters intrinsically, then I am free to declare what I choose to have matter to me.\u00a0 But if something matters intrinsically, that is to say, if something matters to someone other than me, to someone else\u2014shall we say God\u2014then I had darn well better figure out what that is–especially<\/em> if it matters so much to God.\u00a0 Because if I don\u2019t figure out what it is, I will be the thing called “condemned”…or at the very least, “unenlightened.”<\/p>\n