From: mw%ki.fht-mannheim.de (Marc Wachowitz)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Effort vs clinging on the spiritual path
Date: 11 Nov 92 17:23:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.45826
Distribution: world
Organization: Fachhochschule fuer Technik Mannheim

Roger Adams <radams@cerritos.edu> continous the "informal thread" on
effort vs. no-effort :-)

: The spiritual path requires effort with very few exceptions.
What kind of exceptions do you mean - specific persons or different flavours
of practice?

: There was a man who wrote a book some years ago called (I think)
: _The lazy man's way to enlightenment_".
Thaddeus Golas, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" - it's a nice little
book. It seems to be a common misunderstanding that there is either effort or
stagnation (or even regression). That is not so.

Below is a quote from the book; before jumping up against it you may assure
yourself that you have inspected it (and what it means) carefully.

I am a lazy man. Laziness keeps me from believing that enlightenment demands
effort, discipline, strict diet, non-smoking, and other evidences of virtue.
There is a paradise in and around you right now, and to be there you don't even
have to make a move. There is nothing you need to do first in order to be
enlightened. All potential experiences are within you already. You can open up
to them at any time.


: Well, lazy men may write books but they don't find enlightenment.
How do you know?
(What was this about respecting other's ways? :-)

: Ultimate truth sayings like "you are already enlightened" point to the truth
: only
Of course that's the best sayings could do - but he doesn't say that you are
already enlightened. Maybe you prefer expressing it this way:
Whatever "you" do is a more-or-less subtle kind of resistance against
enlightenment - and that does include striving for enligthenment
(and so-called passivity is no exception).
It's comparable to the psychological concept of the persona refusing the
recognition of the "shadow" as part of itself, and therefore in some sense
working against itself (from the "shadow-side"). The solution is not to fight
against the shadow but to recognize it as not different.

A Sufi teaching tells of the man who visited a great mystic to find out how to
let go of his chains of attachment and his prejudices. Instead of answering him
directly, the mystic jumped to his feet and bolted to a nearby pillar, flung
his arms around it, grasping the marble surface as he screamed, "Save me from
this pillar! Save me from this pillar!"
     The man who had asked the question could not believe what he saw. He
thought the mystic was mad. The shouting soon brought a crowd of people. "Why
are you doing that?" the man asked. "I came to you to ask a spiritual question
because I thought you were wise, but obviously you're crazy. *You* are holding
the pillar, the pillar is not holding you. You can simply let go."
     The mystic let go of the pillar and said to the man, "If you can
understand that, you have your answer. Your chains of attachment are not
holding you, you are holding them. You can simply let go."
                                          - Dick Sutphen in "The Oracle Within"

Fighting against windmills and running away from them is the same "problem" :-)

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