Layla’s Story
Whoever is unacquainted with love
is a stranger to us, altogether.
Love is the basis of creation,
through which everything exists, altogether…
The Basis of Creation
Without love, the world is a tribulation, altogether, a place of affliction and disappointment, altogether.
Throughout my life, I was on a quest for the attainment of enlightenment until eventually I surrendered the need for it. This article was born out of the insights and inspirations I received from my search, and I am guided to share these words with you. However, this is only my subjective reality, yours may be very different — and equally perfect.
Divinity
As a child, I spent countless hours poring over spiritual literature and wondering when I’d be able to find a Bodhi tree to meditate under so I could become enlightened like Siddhartha.
Throughout my life, I was on a quest for the attainment of enlightenment until eventually I surrendered the need for it. This article was born out of the insights and inspirations I received from my search, and I am guided to share these words with you. However, this is only my subjective reality, yours may be very different — and equally perfect.
I began meditating at a young age inspired by stories of those who attained enlightenment through meditation or obtained divine guidance in meditations. To me, meditation was one of the paths that would lead me to that enlightened place. For a while, I was fixated on the idea of having an extraordinary divine encounter where an ascended master would either appear as a result of my devotion and share a few pointers with me, or take me into another dimension where all secrets of the universe would be revealed to me. I searched high and low for the extraordinary in different places and engaged in different spiritual practices, but no divine being ever came.
When my awakening occurred, it took me on a journey to go inward and the more I went in, the more I realized the divinity I had been looking for has been inside me all along, and it is inside all of us.
Lesson #1: Enlightenment is the divinity housed within us and expressed through us.
Dream
We did not come here to play God, that would be too easy and almost pointless like taking an exam after having been given the answer key. We came here to play non-God.
In Chinese mythology, there is a Lady of Forgetfulness called Meng Po and she serves the realm of the dead. She brews a special bittersweet drink called Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness so that each soul, before it leaves the realm of the dead to reincarnate into a new body, drinks the tea of instant amnesia and forgets who he/she was and all the memories are lost. This is obviously a folk story, but it seems this is what happens when we choose to take on the human body.
Within us are the swirling universe and all its mysteries, yet it is much more exciting for us to go on this unpredictable adventure pretending we are mere mortals. After all, how convincing can a play get if the actors are constantly behaving like themselves without acting, drama and an interesting plot full of twists and turns?
Lesson #2: Enlightenment is the dream we are in, the process of dreaming, as well as the realization that we are all the dreamers in the dream and the creator of the dream.
Nothing
The pursuit of enlightenment can easily be mistaken for an objective, an idea, an experience, or a way of life, but it is none of these things. The great paradox here is that enlightenment is No-Thing. The moment we place words, thoughts, feelings or actions around it, we are distracting ourselves with form when in truth, each one of us, and everything at the core is infinite, unmanifested and formless No-Thing dreaming ourselves to be something.
Enlightenment is not something to be had, found or owned. It has nothing to do with superiority or wisdom, and if one is not careful, he or she can easily get lost in the search for enlightenment while missing the entire forest for the sake of staring at one tree — while having forgotten that in the ultimate reality, there is neither a forest nor trees.
Lesson # 3: Enlightenment is the great emptiness. Enlightenment is No-Thing.
Self
It is through our bodies, minds, and souls that Oneness experiences itself. Through our eyes, Source is seeing the beauty of its own grand creations. Through our ears, the divine orchestra of all sounds is composing its most seductive melody. When we taste the sweetness and bitterness of life, Source is ravishing in the deliciousness of life itself.
With our every thought, feeling, decision and action, Source is ever deciding, evolving, creating, expanding and revering at its own infinite creative power. The Self is merely the vehicle through which Source can receive its miraculous experiences of creation, and every experience is to be savored. Within the Self contains every concept, invention, desire, need, experience, choice, possibility and outcome. Nothing is outside of Source, hence nothing is outside of the Self.
Though the dual human mind may deem certain experiences negative, unspiritual and unenlightened; in the perspective of Source, everything is a gift that allows it to express, fulfill, be and become.
Lesson # 5: Enlightenment is the Self. Enlightenment is the moment-to-moment life experienced through the Self. Enlightenment is the anger when we feel betrayed, the belly deep laughter when we are caught in a moment of innocence, the gut wrenching pain when we bid farewell to our loved ones, the heart melting love when we embrace our soulmates, and the fulfillment that courses through our veins when we reunite with our divine mission. We are enlightenment.
Final Thoughts
Instead of waiting for life to happen once we obtain something whether it is enlightenment, a lover, or a dream house, why not be present, show up, surrender to it, taste it, live it and embrace it?
We are all of it.
We are the demons that frighten us, and the angels that cradle us.
We are the darkness and the light.
We are the body that carries out our divine will.
We are the ego that drowns us in its fears.
We are Source that smiles at all the splendid opportunities of knowing itself, whether through joy or pain.
We are Gods playing human.
We are human dreaming of Gods.
There is no enlightenment, or non-enlightenment.
There is only,
I Am.
Work With Me
Are you ready for a profound change in your life? There are many ways I can support your journey.