The perfect imperfection

 You don’t awaken—you vanish.

What you call “yourself” is the obstruction,

not the candidate, for enlightenment.

Emily Snow

 

It’s pretty obvious that for a seeker “enlightenment” is a concept, a carrot dangling in front of the spiritual donkey. That is, the notion of complete alignment with life as is, the end of suffering and the knowledge to be one in a million (or billion).

 

Yet, when we accept our shortcomings and face life as is, we have in fact a shot of perceiving the Light; a chance to look through the illusionary stories in our head that make us afraid of life or desire it to be different, not to mention the realization that this imagined personhood does not exist.

 

There are the friends who tell us about the harmony of being, and there are the friends who give practical advice to the spiritual seeker—keep an eye on both! The paradox of enlightenment is that by embracing life’s imperfections the perfect imperfection finally shines through.