The word “enlightenment” is one of those mysterious New Age words that I wanted to understand the moment I heard it. The more I heard about this vague concept of becoming highly spiritual, the more elusive it seemed to be. It was like trying to catch a butterfly: it kept hovering out of reach the more I chased it. In an attempt to understand how each religion believes one is enlightened, I studied it in hopes of grasping it. For six months I studied world religions; I even took a university course in world religion. But for me, an academic understanding was not enough. I also practiced each tradition in an effort to understand and experience them first hand.
I first became the humble student of a Sufi Master who made me sit on a dirty floor and eat yellow rice with raisins while we gazed at each other without speaking for a whole hour … yes, a whole hour. Then I joined a group of “progressive” Muslims and did the spinning dance with devout, tasseled Sufis, quietly taking my place in the last row because I was a woman. I fasted in Ramadon as a Muslim, until my stomach started to sound from hunger. I learned the complex daily prayers of the Talmud and bought a prayer rug. I bowed to the East five times a day, praying with millions of invisible Muslims around the world. I learned from this that Muslims are a dedicated and united group, but they were kind enough to include me.
Next, I tried Buddhism. I built a Buddhist shrine in my living room with statues, offerings, and incense, and I meditated for hours … many, many hours. I was isolated and silently abducted like a nun, observing my own peculiar monkey mind until after months of intense meditation, it turned into a dull roar. I studied the life of Buddha by reading so many books on Buddhism that I lost count. Lastly, I read about the Hindu Babas and the gurus, and I also learned to love them. I renounced the world and Mammon … just as they had. I experienced a mystical state known as Samadhi after practicing transcendental mediation. Finally, something that had the power to drive me out of my mind. In the end! He was on to something … he could feel the impending enlightenment.
Unfortunately, it never came. After six months of sitting on hard floors, starving, praying, meditating, and quitting, I was emaciated. I longed for a soft bed, a second helping, and the freedom to say “No!” to the 5 am call to prayer. Reluctantly, I reverted to my self-centered Western ways, almost as confused as when I began my spiritual journey. It seemed that all my searches had failed. Months after having left all asceticism behind, it occurred to me out of nowhere, when I wasn’t even thinking about it, how the Buddha had attained enlightenment! The illusory answer had been in front of me the entire time … why hadn’t I seen it?
The Buddha started out as a wealthy prince who lived in splendor and luxury, but left his palace to wander the countryside in search of enlightenment. In an effort to humble himself, he was left homeless, starving, whipping and meditating incessantly. A wiser ascetic approached and pointed out that all the severe denial and punishment had brought him no closer to God than when he was still eating. I guess he couldn’t argue, because Siddhartha, now emaciated, hungry and on the verge of death, gave in and started eating one grain of rice at a time, until he regained his strength. Having done everything he knew how to do to understand God and the nature of reality, the Buddha parked himself under a Bodhi tree. He said to God (paraphrased): ‘I will not move until you show me the truth of who you are and why we are here.’ He realized that this might be the hill he would die on, but still, he vowed not to move from that place until the answer came.
For the first time, Siddhartha stood still; he was not chasing enlightenment. For the first time, he was not persecuting God, but humbly asking God to come and find him. For the first time, he was receiving and not “earning” God’s attention. By sitting still, the Buddha was making a statement. He was admitting the only truth that he had avoided for so long: that God is unfathomable, and our limited minds will never fully understand the Divine.. Beneath that tree, the Buddha waved a silent white flag of surrender and admitted the truth: that he was a human being and that God was God. He humbled himself, admitting with silent resignation that God was unknowable, unfathomable. As he did so, it is said that the evil spirits came to oppose the Buddha, to attack and frighten him, hoping to bring him out from under the tree, his place of beautiful delivery. He let out a single sigh, and like a rushing wind … pop! The demons were demolished. The Buddha sat even longer … humble, small and completely unanswered, until the enlightenment, that elusive butterfly, landed on his shoulder. The second he landed, he was the omniscient man, and he became what his name means: the awakened one.
The secret of Buddha? Found lighting hewhile all his effort could not find enlightenment.
Then I realized that I had made the same mistake as the Buddha in my zeal for spirituality: I had been looking for something that only comes once we are humbled, still, fully human … and surrendered. The day I discovered Buddha’s secret, I stopped pursuing enlightenment. Now when I am asked how to become more spiritual, I recommend it, as the Sufi poet Rumi said: “Let the butterflies come to you.”