I’d like to talk a bit about this “search,” this quest for Enlightenment or Self-Realization, because the real quest, the real search is always a living thing. It’s about real things, about real persons, here and now.
Only leaning on the “ancient masters,” the Gurus of the past, will almost always bring ambiguity, because those who are dead cannot keep us from misinterpretations.
The dead Gurus cannot defend themselves when their sayings and wisdom are being appropriated and re-formed into something with unrecognizable features, when so-called “experts” start to explain “what they have meant.” It’s a catastrophe.
One could elucidate on Gurdjieff, U.G. Krishnamurti, Paul Brunton, Nisargadatta Maharaj, on Nietzsche, or Plotinus … on Socrates, or Nagarjuna, or on Huang-Po. One could “explain” the whole lot and a lot more, and say “very meaningful” things about their teachings.
But that’s not the point. It’s of primordial importance to connect with those who live now, those who are here now among us, those who know what-the-truth-is from out this living experience and can (re)act from out that.
Our own search is a living search and can only come to an end by mirroring that to a living counterpart. It’s taking up the courage to go into a living, real connection, without taking any authority for granted. That may only be temporarily, but it’s almost inevitable that it’s needed at some point in our lives.
It’s connecting with those who also search, with those who are “at the breach,” and with those who have “realized,” to finally let go of all of that, and finding it (in) yourself and living it.