Ordinary Enlightenment

'Layam vraja: dissolve now.' ~Ashtavakra Gita

They say that dissolving the 'I' is enlightenment, and this is extraordinary. But didn't it happen when you were a child, in ordinary moments of wonder, every day? Wonder at a caterpillar, wonder in the eyes of a new friend on the playground, wonder of a shooting star?

Doesn't it happen now, when you give yourself completely to your grief, and dissolve into a tear? When you give yourself completely to your joy, and dissolve into laughter? When you give yourself completely to the sound of Miles, a Monet water lily, a sonnet of Keats, and dissolve into beauty? When you give yourself completely to the Friend, this touch of divine breath, and dissolve into love?

In such an ordinary moment of no-thing, who is left? Doesn't enlightenment happen a thousand times a day?


Painting by Claudia Olivos