Something Other than This

So I had a thought which is very simple. Imagine that this whatever life is for you just the way it is for you. The way it is today and the way it was yesterday and when you wake up in the morning and every moment of your day and right up to this moment. Just imagine that this and you and everything about it that this that this was it. That this this was heaven. This was enlightenment. This was as good as it's ever going to get. Imagine if [Laughter] Yeah. Frightening, huh? or fantastic depending on your point of view. But of course, it's ironic because whenever I mention that, I always get a whole variety of reactions, you know, from relief to horror to everything in between. And the the funny thing about it is that that is that's what enlightenment is. The realization that this this is it. This is it. Period. That's it. That's the enlightenment experience. This is it. There's nowhere else. Anywhere else, everywhere else was, is and always will be a fantasy. A fantasy that mo for most people dies extraordinarily hard even though it's painful to the core, right? It's painful through and through. The fancy this that that always insists that some something other than this as it is is it some other world other than this somewhere I'm going to go somewhere else where it's going to be a lot better. It's funny how the people that believe that are terrified when they die for the most part. Why would you be concerned? It seems like you'd just be waiting around to get a terminal disease or something. You know, you have cancer, you'll be dead in six months. You'd just be, you know, thrilled. Wonderful. I'm going to the promised land. Good. I haven't seen too many people that take it like that. So, not only if this is it as the world, but this was it as yourself. This this was it. You were it. Because that's the realization that you're it. This is it. And everything else was just a an idea. For most people that's frightening. This is it. This anything but this. Not this. Not this. Not now. Not as it is. How about as it will be? How about as it might become? And yet that is the very illusion that propels. That's the very illusion that keeps illusion alive. That's the very illusion through which separation feeds on and lives on and continues. That's that is the best way to awaken is to insist that this isn't it. That's the most powerful way to stay completely asleep at the wheel. That this as it is, that you as you are, that they as they are, that this is not it. It would seem that this would be very obvious, would it not? Especially for students which there's a lot around today of eastern religions and philosophies which and also western many westerns which basically say it's all one. All one means this is it. Nobody, not mo many people that I talked to have ever realized that or thought, well, if it's all one, then of course this is it. It must be it because it's all one. Of course, you must be it. It meaning the ultimate. As high as it gets, as good as it gets, as blissful as it gets, as wonderful it gets, as holy and divine as it gets. If it's all one, then this is it. And it always has amazed me how many people I meet that would believe shows you what belief is worth. They would believe in the idea of oneness or unity. And yet at the same time they have a deep belief that this isn't it. I'm not it. You're not it. They're not it. And we're not it. And there seems to be lots of evidence to support that this isn't it. mental evidence. But of course, all the evidence that seems to support that this isn't it, this isn't the ultimate reality, all that support comes from basically human beings believing that this isn't it? What if everybody believed this is it? Better than that, what if everybody knew this is it? What would we fight over, right? It's not going to get any We'll have a war and it won't get any better because this is it. We're going to have an argument, but it's not going to change much because this is it. And if I win, you're still it. And if I lose, you're still it. It'd be revolutionary, wouldn't it? Revolutionary. But of course this is what the typically what's been known as ego or the illusion of a separate self. This is what it feeds on. This is how the illusion is sustained by an insistence. Usually in most human beings totally unconscious insistence deeply unconscious. But the way that the separate illusion of self is maintained is that this this isn't it. This isn't right. This isn't the way it should be. This isn't divine. This isn't holy. This isn't beautiful. Whatever you're looking for, the way that separation sustains itself is that this isn't it. We are getting there, but we're not there yet. That's what sustains illusion. We're always getting there, right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not being happy, pursuing happiness. Doesn't say life, liberty, and being happy, pursuit of happiness. It's written right into our constitution. [Laughter] And we think it's so noble, right? Wow. We're the only people in the face of the globe where they've written into their constitution that they get to pursue happiness. Nothing about being happy, but we're getting there. Anyway, interesting that the most unhappy place in the whole world, which is where you are, by the way, did you know that? United States. I mean, not that I want to be anywhere else. Don't get me wrong. I love being here. I don't want to go anywhere else because wherever you go, that's it. But the funny thing is, every time we send out our own psychologists all around the world to study happiness of societies, guess who comes out on the losing end every single time? You're living in it. I wonder if it has something to do with that we're all pursuing happiness.