From my limited experience, my hypothesis of a way to become “enlightened” is to imagine that your chains will never be broken, you will never be free, and you will always be tormented. Then get ok with that. Once that striving part of you is dead, you will still strive, but not in a delusional “I’m going to finally be bigger than my enemies!” kinda way.
What is enlightenment? It is peace enough to be able to love everything and everyone. What is it not? Getting the magic answer to take your pain away, unless your pain is caused by neurotic striving, which it very well might be.
And achieving enlightenment is not imperative. It’s just a return to where you were before you convinced yourself that you are alone and separate. It’s an end to the game, and honestly, people like the game. God likes the game. It’s not inherently a bad thing to be in this game.
But inside of us is this crystallized voice that will say until death that this “IS NOT A GAME MOTHERFUCKER!!” You know that voice. It’s a game, and you can tell the voice that “we’ll always be chained, we’ll never be free, and we will always be tormented.”
The voice will work on convincing you for decades if you take that stance. And it’s a good fucking lawyer. Give up and die to this idea of “beating the game.” Then you’ll realize that your striving was the window blinds, and now the light can get in, and that the light was in your heart the whole time. Your mind just drew the shades because it was threatened.
