So, a funny thing happened” back in 2019 when the book Watching Your Life came through, I made a promise to all of myfrends that I would work on a new book called The “Folly of Enlightenment,” which would be out within a year or so. And then I discovered that the ‘folly’ that is enlightenment also confirms the folly of writing a book about it. So it was never written or completed. Then I was posting an answer on Quora, and I noticed I had written the entire “Folly of Enlightenment.” Except it was only one page long…which is great, because who needs another whole thick book about enlightenment! 🙂

So instead of publishing a book, I figured I would share the folly of enlightenment, the open secret about enlightenment, right here, transcribed from the video.

No human can attain, or has I ever attained, enlightenment.

Yes, this does include all the apparent ancient spiritual sages and revered religious figures who claimed enlightenment and then offered a path, any path, for all non-enlightened ’humans’ to follow, practice and ‘attain enlightenment, too.’

Personal enlightenment is an oxymoron, because there never was a ‘separate person,’ separate from Wholeness (or Oneness, or the Self, or the Beloved, whatever you like) who had to ‘attain’ or ‘reunify with’ Wholeness.

Ramana Maharshi said it best. “The Self is always the Self and there is no such thing as ‘attaining it.’ “Who” is to ‘attain’ what, and how, when all that exists is the Self?”

The collapsing of that false construct of a ‘separate me’ is what some me-minds have called ‘liberation’ or ‘enlightenment,’ but nothing actually happened because that which collapsed was only an illusion, and that which it appeared to have collapsed into was just reality, the natural reality.

So the whole “I’m enlightened, you are not yet, but you should be (it’s your ‘purpose’ in life,) and here’s a ‘path’ or set of practices to ‘attain’ what ‘I’ have ‘attained,” is total bullocks, total illusion within the dream.

And if enlightenment was supposed to be a concept to give humanity a sense of purpose, boy, did it fail miserably! 🙂

At any given point in the illusion of ‘human history,’ no more than 1% have ever even set the ‘goal’ of enlightenment as their sole purpose, and of those, less than .01% (probably less than .0001%) have ever ‘experienced’ the illusory dissolution of the false “me” identity, such that someone other illusory “me’s” would call them liberated or ‘enlightened.’

The only thing that gives the dream “me” (humanity) a sense of purpose is perpetuating the myth of “me,” survival, and trying to negotiate a better ‘life-experience.’ That’s it.

Here’s how that illusory sense of purpose appears to come about:

When we are a baby, there is only Oneness, this Everything, no separation from the Wholeness.

Then somebody calls us a name, tells us we are an individual, and must live a worthy life, be a good student, parent, provider, etc. Thus, we form a false center called “me,” which is ‘separate’ from everything and every other “me” outside it, and from which we constantly attempt to negotiate life with an imagined ‘free will.’

But in the end, there’s Nothing happening. Just Nothing appearing as Everything. Just an appearance.

Now, mind cannot “get” this, so it will argue we are real and have to strive to attain this Wholeness/Nothingness that we never lost, that we already are.

If, as a “me-mind,” you want to argue the “we” must do something, attain something, go ahead, pick a path, find a teacher/guru/ and practice like hell to ‘attain enlightenment. The “me” loves it’s ‘seeking,’ and its story.

Perhaps at one moment in the imagined ‘future,’ you will see through the illusory Everything to the No-thing that only appears to be ‘projecting’ it. At that moment, your entire path, practice and world will crumble.

And perhaps in that moment you will see the whole thing was a charade. A causeless, purposeless Is-ness and a dream.