Buddha Enlightenment

Written by Mathew Naismith

As it was asked recently:

What exactly do you gain from withholding love, kindness and honour from yourself and others?

My Reply: "Wealth and power." Also; "Is enlightenment, as in Buddha enlightenment, of wealth and power? It is simply of letting go of what is controlling you, this also means your own control. Enlightenment is all about letting go of control therefore wealth and power.

Can enlightenment feel like wealth and powerful to human consciousness? Yes, in the process negating real enlightenment. The trick to real enlightenment, love, kindness and honour is to not see it as taking control and turning it into any kind of wealth and empowerment as this simply refers to control.

Look at it this way Tawny, what are you doing when you take yourself away from an unbecoming circumstance or person? You are not controlling them but you are also not allowing them to control you simply through letting go of control. Let's be honest here, any kind of wealth and power is all about control, the very same thing we are suppose to be letting go of!!"   

You could also call this enlightenment Yogic, shamanic, God, sage, Shiva, Jesus or what ever enlightenment, to me it is still of the same enlightenment.

Love, kindness and honour are naturally a part of enlightenment without any intentions of energy expended to gain love, kindness and honour. If you have to expend a lot of energy to gain enlightenment, it is often known in the western mind as not being of Buddha enlightenment.

You may think honour has nothing to do with enlightenment. Honour in this case is like humbling oneself, bestowing honour upon all that is without prejudice or bias. This is not easy for the ego to do.

So does the ego have to expend a lot of energy to gain awareness to the point of becoming enlightened?

You are actually letting go of expending energy with enlightenment, but to the ego this will feel like expending energy. Expending means to have something to payout for something received for this expenditure. Within an enlightened state there is nothing you own to expend, also, nothing to receive for something you owned you had to expend to gain enlightenment. Even in relation to time expended, you don't own time to payout in the first place to gain enlightenment. Enlightenment is the realisation that you are not expending any kind of energy to gain enlightenment, for there is nothing to gain in the first place!!