Religions Are Designed To Make You Unhappy

Most religions are designed to make you unhappy.

They emphasize that you are a sinner and need salvation.

They are instruments designed to control their followers, and control their message, even if it varies from the truth.

Many sects are designed to enrich the pastors.

What you have to do, is use your rational senses to determine the truth. If you were told the things that religion tells you in any other context, you wouldn't believe it. Yet millions of people believe the most fantastic stories of organized religion that go counter to scientific proof.

Think for yourself, and find enlightenment.

How To Find Happiness

Finding happiness is like chasing butterflies. If you actually chase a butterfly, you will never catch it.

But if you sit quietly, it may alight upon you.

Sit quietly.

Get to know yourself.

Find the things that are significant to you in your life.

Do them.

That is the recipe for finding happiness.

Be Confident

You have a lot more power than you think you have.

You have a lot more energy than you think you have.

You have a lot more confidence than you think you have.

You have a lot more courage than you think you have.

You have a lot more love than you think you have.

You have a lot more abilities than you think you have.

You have a lot more capacity for happiness than you think you have.

You have a lot more options than you think you have.

You have a lot more paths than you think you have.

Be Confident.

Think For Yourself

Never follow the crowd.

Or if you decide to follow a crowd, make sure completely that it is a crowd that you want to follow.

Most crowds are wrong.

Think for yourself.

The path to enlightenment is not crowded at all.

Embracing Change

Embrace change.

If you do not embrace change, you are standing still. However the earth does not stand still, nor does time. If you are standing still, you are actually regressing.

So to move forward, you must embrace change. Although change puts you out of your comfort zone, it takes you to new places and fertile new environments where one can grow as a person.

Embrace change.

Don't Wallow in the Mud

Don't wallow in the mud of the human condition.

Rise above it.

The crowd enjoys the slime of the lowest common denominator.

Don't pander to it.

Enlightenment means that you see the baseness of the animal side of being human, and you transcend it.

Humans are the only beings that can think beyond their intrinsic selves as organisms.

That is a rare power. Use it.

Grasping at the Straws of Life

If persons are ignorant, they cannot reason correctly and safely.

As they yield to the desires of the inconsequential, grasping and clinging, the attachment to the wrong things inevitably follows.

It is this constant grasping at every pleasant thing seen and heard that leads people to delusion.

Testing of Faith

We are human beings. We have a collective and individual human experience. They are the gifts of being cognitive, sentient beings.

We must use our individual human experience as the crucible in which to test faith.

In Life, we put our faith in many people who ultimately fail us. We usually learn from those mistakes, and the smart ones among us, try not to repeat them.

We must do the same with our faith in ideas. We must test them in the crucible of human experience, and reject those which fail us in any way.

Two Impediments To Enlightenment

There are only two impediments to enlightenment.

The first is delusion of reasoning.

The second obstacle to an enlightened life is delusion of practice.

These are the two Big Delusions.

The delusion of reasoning is based on ignorance and perhaps a refusal to accept the literal truth and concrete evidence for that truth.

Delusion of practice means that we let our base wants and desires get in the way of actions that contribute to our enlightenment. This includes greed, gluttony, lascivious behavior and generally vices of all kinds including the soft vices of laziness and procrastination.

The Solution to a Happy Life

The solution to a happy life lies in the following precepts:

• Jettison the things that are holding you back.

• Change the things in your life that you want to change.

• Embrace change.

• Grow your mind.
• Grow your life.
• Do the little things right.
• Diminish your ego.
• Strive for joy, peace and contentment.
• Inject some discipline into your habits.
• Enjoy the moments.

It really is simple.

Pure Gold

Pure gold is procured by melting ore and removing all pure substances.

If people would melt the ore of their minds and remove all of the impurities of worldly pursuits and false dogma, they would all recover the same pure enlightenment.

Ignorance is not bliss.

It's all fairy tales ...

There are many variants of human nature. By nature, it is meant intrinsic characteristics.

There are men, women, Blacks, Whites, there are many different languages and cultures, and there are many different value systems.

Ultimately, the only universal characteristic of life on this planet is the worldview that stands the test of truth as to who we are and why we are here. Finding this is Enlightenment.

Everything else is just fairy tales.

Your Destiny Will Be Bright

There is one way to insure that your destiny will be bright.

Seek out the truth.

Seek out the truth about Life.

Seek out the truth about your Self.

Seek out the truth about the World.

Seek out the truth.

Truth is Like a Diamond

The diamond is the hardest known natural substance. It cannot be crushed.

Sand and stones can be ground to powder, but diamonds remain unscratched.

The truth about enlightenment is the same way. Many people assault the truth with false doctrines and ideas, but the simple truth always stands without contrived explanations. That is the hallmark of truth.

The Most Precious of All Human Commodities

The most precious human commodity is hope.

Hope gives us the courage to face each day, particularly if our life circumstances are not to our liking or unpleasant.

With hope and courage, comes revival of optimism. This gives us the necessary boost to put one foot in front of the other on the journey to our desired horizons.

At first, progress may seem slow, but each footstep chops away at the distance of our goals until arrival because imminent and inevitable.

The journey begins with Hope.

The Fable of the Magic Medicine

There is a fable told in India of a mysterious medical herb that was hidden in the tall grasses of the Himalaya mountains. It was a medicine that seemed to magically heal many sicknesses.

For a long time men sought for it in vain. However at long last, a wise man located it by concentrating on the sweet smell of the herb.

As long as the man lived, he collected the herb in a tub and hid it in a far-off place in the mountains where he mixed it with sweet spring water from a nearby spring.

After his death, the sweet elixir turned sour and useless.

In the same way, if you find the elixir called truth, you must take it, ingest it and make it part of your being. Otherwise it is useless to you, and you will continue to suffer the ills of disillusionment.

Milk is Always White, No Matter the Color of the Cow

Just as milk is always white no matter the color of the hide of the cow, truth and enlightenment always have the same qualities.

It brings serenity, tranquility and wisdom, once it is accepted.

Sometimes the truth is hard to accept. Once it is faced and embraced, it becomes a bastion of strength for you.

No Matter How Deep You Are Covered in Failure

No matter how deep you are covered in despair, misery, failure, poverty, anger, false religious doctrines, or any other malaise affecting the human condition, the capacity for enlightenment, peace and serenity still abides in you.

Your ability to transcend the negative parts of life is part of your intrinsic nature.

Use it. Find it. Find peace, serenity and enlightenment. It is in your mind within your grasp.

A Parable -- The Wrestler and Gem

A wrestler was accustomed to wearing a precious gem on his forehead as an ornament that was part of his wrestling costume.

One day, he was wrestling and the stone was crushed into the flesh of his forehead. He thought that he had lost the gem.

When he went to the surgeon to have the wound dressed, the surgeon found the gem embedded in his flesh, all covered up with dirt and blood. The precious gem was retrieved.

Enlightenment is like the precious gem in this parable. It can become covered up with the dirt and dust of other interests, dogmas, false beliefs and untruths. People may think that they have lost enlightenment, but the truth recovers it again.

Enlightenment is Like an Unopened Box

A woman was bequeathed a box by one of her relatives who had died.

Not knowing that the box contained money, gold and valuables, she continued to live in poverty.

Another person eventually opened the box and showed her the treasure.

This is the way that enlightenment works. Some discover it for themselves and others are shown it.

Enlightenment -- yours to discover.

Lazy People Don't Get Enlightened - The Secret to a Meaningful Life

Lazy people don't put rigor in their thought.

They will read something if it momentarily holds their attention, and it is not too long.

They will stare for hours doing nothing at a television screen.

These people are not meant for enlightenment.

Enlightenment takes a lot thought, retrospection and rigorous thinking. It takes action that is both altruistic and wisdom-building. It takes work to be enlightened.

The reward for this work is happiness, serenity and a meaningful life.

Art of Patience - Seeing Changes in Your Life

If you choose the path to enlightenment and rational thought, then you have taken the first steps to shedding false thoughts, beliefs, doctrines and world views.

You begin to cultivate habits of truthfulness, truth to oneself, and wisdom.

Then you wonder why you do not see changes in your life.

The answer is quite simple. You must cultivate the art of patience. You must cultivate the art of trust on yourself.

Just as a gardener trusts his seeds to grow in vegetables and flowers, you must trust the seeds of enlightenment to grow into serenity, peace and wisdom.

Cultivate the Art of Patience. Cultivate the Art of Trust in Yourself.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

A king gathered some blind men around an elephant. He asked them to describe what an elephant was like.

The first blind man felt the tusk and said that an elephant was like a giant carrot.

Another blind man happened to touch the ear of the elephant and said that it was like a big fan.

A third man touched the trunk and said it was like a pestle. His compatriot felt the leg and said it was like a mortar.

The last blind man grabbed the tail and said that it was like a rope. Not one of them was able to describe to the king, the elephants real form.

In the same way, Enlightenment is described in parts that seem to be true, but in fact are not. One must come to see the whole picture through rational thought. Once you see the big picture, you begin to discern the nature of things and enlightenment.

Enlightenment Takes Work

Enlightenment does not appear without diligent and faithful effort. Finding the truth requires rational, disciplined thinking.

One of the features of this world, is that the real truth is easily obscured by people and organizations who want to maintain their power over the people with their worldview.

However, once found, the truth does set you free.

Why Your Life is Dull and You Feel Stuck

Sentient people who recognize that their life experience has been dulled by inaction or the wrong path are actually one step further ahead to enlightenment than others who meander through their existence without goals or objectives.

People who do not retrospect ease the dullness with worldly distractions like drugs and alcohol or mindless entertainment.

Having identified a problem is not the same is solving it. One solves problems with actions. Procrastination is the single biggest life-dulling agent ever. Putting off action results in a turbid, dull daily experience.

One must start to move towards one goals. It is later than you think.

The Things That You Can Control Today

There are things in your life that you can control today.

You can control your perceptions of events in your day. By controlling your perceptions, you can make many happy moments in your day.

You can control your work habits. By doing something useful, you will contribute to your sense of satisfaction.

You can control your emotions. By doing so, you will contribute to your serenity.

You can control your thoughts. By doing so, you will add rigor, discipline and rationality to your mental processes and you will achieve Enlightenment.

Never Give Up Hope - The Wheel of Change is Always Turning

Buried in the morass of a chaotic world, or in the defilement of the human condition, there is never a reason to give up hope.

However forgotten the path to enlightenment may become, the human affinity for enlightenment is never completely extinguished.

If your circumstances seem to indicate that hope is lost, you must put one foot in front of the other, and continue walking. The wheel of change is always turning and more favorable circumstances will present themselves.

A Parable -- The Drunken Man and The Jewel

There is a story of a man who became drunk and fell fast asleep. His friend stayed with him as long as he could, but eventually he just had to leave his drunk friend lying there.

Fearing that the man would wake up and might be in want, the good friend hid a jewel in the drunken man's garments. The jewel could be sold for a substantial amount of money.

When the drunken man recovered, he did not know that his friend had hidden the jewel in his clothing, so he wandered about in hunger and poverty.

A long time afterwards, the two friends met again, and the friend told the poor man about the jewel.

The moral of this tale, is that you may be wandering through life, unenlightened, poor in spirit, believing wrong things and deep within you, is the answer to how to find enlightenment and a highly significant happy life.

Search yourself.

You Need To Struggle To Find Happiness and Enlightenment

If your accumulation of false ideas, programming and beliefs are cleared away, Enlightenment will appear.

But, strangely enough, in an ironic twist, when people attain Enlightenment, they will realize that without all of the false ideas, dogmas, programming and belief, there could be no Enlightenment.

You have to struggle through the morass and mud of human existence to reach a high plane of living, a higher plane of happiness and a fuller existence.

In other words, you need to experience the struggle to find enlightenment and happiness.

Live Today And Find Enlightenment

When a person seeks enlightenment, they must not put off living in the present.

Waiting for enlightenment and not participating fully in life is like burning money and wasting time.

Finding enlightenment is like catching butterflies. If you go out with the intent of catching butterflies, you may not find any.

But if you go merrily upon your way, and keep your eye out for butterflies, soon you will see them.

Once finding butterflies, you may exhaust yourself chasing them. However if you sit quietly, they will alight upon you.

Don't waste the moments of your life.

Foolish and Unnecessary Stress

It is foolish and unnecessary for a person to go on in an angst-filled world because that person does not find enlightenment where they expect to find it.

There are many false ideas and movements in the world.

In Enlightenment, there is no true failure. The failure lies in the person seeking enlightenment, and not attaining it, does not shed the old ideas that led them to their failures.

Never Lament the Past

Never lament the past.

By doing so, you are wasting the present.

You are also frittering away the future.

Invest in the future, by letting go of the past.

Work in the present to make the future what you want it to be.

Unpleasant Fact of Life

Here is one of the more unpleasant facts of life.

Due to the nature of the universe, the key to success, happiness and enlightenment is ....

....

....

work!

You have to work at what you want to achieve. Sometimes the road to success is the steepest hardest road.

The Lens of Human Wisdom

One can get fire if you hold a lens between the sun and some tinder, but where does the fire come from?

The lens is an enormous distance from the sun, but the fire appears on the tinder by means of the lens.

If the tinder did not have the innate nature to kindle, there would be no fire.

In the same fashion if the truth of Enlightenment is concentrated on the human mind, its true nature will be illuminated and its light will illuminate the minds of other people by its brightness.

Hold the lens of human wisdom before your mind.

Giving Up Mind Attachments

If people would only give up their mental attachments to false discriminations and ideas, and restore the rationality of their original minds, then their minds, bodies and life would be free from false ideas and useless ways of thinking and living. They will find a new freedom.

Once this happens, you will know the peacefulness that goes with that mental and physical freedom.

When Events in Life Are Not Going Your Way

There are two things to remember when events in your life are not going your way.

The first precept that you must remember is that you must never lose confidence in yourself.

The second thing to remember is that the way out is often right under your nose, and not immediately obvious to you because it is so close at hand.

Daily living requires courage when events in life are not going your way. That courage is very life-affirming.

Shapes of The Unenlightened Mind

Water is round in a round receptacle.

In a square container, water is square, but water itself has no particular shape.

In the same manner, the unenlightened mind takes the shape of its circumstances and surroundings.

Profound Thought - Find Meaning In this for Yourself

It is only the unenlightened mind that dwells on the fact that a place is light because of daylight or dark because of night.

You will have to find the meaning of this for yourself.

If Things Aren't Going Your Way -- How to Change your Circumstances

If things are not going your way on your Life's journey, and you are stuck, you must remember that the situation is not permanent.

The wheels of change are always turning and soon you will find yourself in different circumstances.

However, if you want to accelerate the process, you can possibly do it by the confronting the biggest fear that is holding you back.

What is your biggest fear related to the situation that you are in? You must seize the bull by the holes and tackle your biggest fear. In time, it will melt into nothingness and you will be in an entirely different set of better circumstances. When it comes to faith, you must have faith in yourself.

The Nature of Enlightenment

Think of a lecture hall.

During the day, it is well lit.

At night it is totally dark.

The mind is nothing like a lecture hall.

Once you light up a mind with enlightenment, it stays bright.

A mind in the morass of ignorance is always in the dark.

Changing Your Mind -- I hope the new one works better

We know that change is continuous. In spite of the continual rate of change, our true mind must never stray from the true path.

The human mind that changes with with changing external conditions is NOT the true nature of the human mind.

Once you find the truth of Enlightenment, you must not let external conditions change your mind.

Serenity in Surrender - Do Not Seek Revenge

As we travel Life's road, and seek enlightenment, sometimes the dark forces of evil in other persons meets us head on.

The easiest way to overcome this, is to pick ourselves up, and carry on our own road, leaving the evil person and situation behind us.

On the road to enlightenment, there is no room for revenge. Exacting revenge consumes too much energy and resources that could be spent gaining advantage for ourselves.

There is serenity in surrendering the urge to gain retribution and revenge. It is not a very satisfactory strategy and it sucks happiness from our lives. The goal is serenity and from that, one can see clearly towards enlightenment.

Derailing the Path To Enlightenment

What derails the mind on its way to Enlightenment?

If you unduly react to trivial circumstances, you derail your ability to think clearly.

If you let negative passions like greed, avarice and jealousy occupy your mind, you derail your ability to think clearly.

If you subsume changing external circumstances, you derail your ability to think clearly.

It is the mind that is trained not to be disturbed by trivial things and circumstances is the mind that can achieve enlightenment.

Remember, the mind should be the master, and should not be influenced by lesser things.

The Truth is Out There

People must continually remind themselves that the truth is available to the clear-thinking inquiring mind.

To find it, they must undergo a continuously awakening within themselves, to the pure ideals of Enlightenment.

Normally people wander through life deluded by ideas that are not true or perverted by the world of delusion.

The Moon Is Often Hidden By The Clouds

The moon is often hidden by the clouds, but it is not moved by them. Its integrity and purity remains untarnished and unblemished by the clouds.

The true mind is often hidden by the clouds of socialization, discontent, and worldly, unwise longings and desires.

However in spite of being hidden, it is still true and capable of enlightenment.

What Happens To Our Minds -- Socialization

Fundamentally, everyone has good mind to start with. However, it is usually covered over with messages and dust from worldly socialization that has arisen from one's Life circumstances.

This is not the essence of your true nature, but rather something added like an intruder or a guest in your home. It is not the host.

You must wade through the socialization to find Enlightenment.

Knowing Thyself

One would think, that if you live in a house, you would get to know every single nook and cranny of the house. It would be foolish to just live in one room of the house closest to the door without opening the other doors.

Yet people do this with their minds. They do not explore the depths and recesses of their minds. They do not know themselves inside out. Rather, they seek external distractions without thinking deeply.

Doing this is like living in one room of a house closest to the door. Every time that you want to do something, you run outside to look for something to do.

Knowing yourself means exploring every room in your mind, and thinking for yourself.

Getting the Bigger Picture -- Self Awareness

When a person is in a house and opens their eyes, they will first notice the interior of the room.

Only later will they see the view outside the window.

In the same fashion, we cannot conceive the eye or our senses noticing external things before there is coordination of the eye or senses with the things within us.

This is the path to total self awareness.

The World Can Be Unfair

The world can be unfair. Unfairness doesn't make wrong things right.

The world is chaotic. The world is evil. We provide the balance with altruism, fairness, hope and goodness.

It is this that makes us transcend the animals and adds significance to our lives. Leave the animals to the animals -- including the human animals.

Getting to the Root of the Problem

If a king is plagued by bandits, he must find out where their camp is before he can attack them.

So when people are beset by unhealthy thoughts, desires and passions, they should first ascertain their origins. Knowing this begins the path to Enlightenment.

You cannot solve a problem unless you get to the root of it.