Ilchi Lee Day Celebrations » Enlightenment

Ilchi Lee: Cain and Abel

juckduck — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:12:11 +0000

Our history is one of struggle and conflict rising out of the need for power and strength. It is a history of hate and animosity. This happened because we didn’t let the farmer in us take over and lead us on to the path. If you don’t allow your True Self to shine through, you will always live in the midst of fear and darkness, in effect, allowing yourself to run around in the fields when the path was right there in front of you. And in darkness, you fall into the trap of self-serving emotions, eogtism, and complexes, Within this trap, it is impossible to develop understanding and sense of cooperation.

Hate has been building up for decades, centruries, and millennia, and we do not know when this will explode. It has almost been our birthrighgt to inherit the hates and prejudices that our ancestors held. This is the Original Sin. In the Bible, there are Cain and Abel. Who did Cain kill? His brother, Abel. They say all human beings descended from Cain. They say we have the blood of a murderer coursing through our veins. But we also have the blood of the saints running through our veins. We have the blood of the countelss enlightened ones, whether they are known or not, intermixing with Cain’s blood and giving us life.

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Ilchi Lee: search within your petty needs and greed

juckduck — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:12:01 +0000

Which of the two do yu have more of in you? The cow or the farmer? In many of us, the cow is stronger and is dragging the farmer around, wandering all over the field, lost, and without a specific destination. It is only when you let the farmer take hand and direct the cow that you will find yourself on the right path, because your True Self knows where it wants to go.

Why do you feel anxious and fearful? Why do you feel a tearing of your emotions? It is because you are letting the cow lead the farmer.

Your True Self is the light, the beacon by which you should guide your life. Your have to let it shine. Otherwise, you are living in darkness, wandering helplessly among the fears and anxieties that surround us. In the darkness, even the fleeting light of the firefly looks bright. And you spend all your energies chasing after these lights, not even realizing that a far greater light lies inside you. Don’t spend all your time chasing after a momentary high. The single biggest source of health and happiness lies within your True Self. If you search within your True Self, you will find absolute health and everlasting happiness. If you search within your petty needs and greed, you will wander the darkness forever. Without lighting up your True Self, you won’t find out what health and happiness truly mean.

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Enlightenment is Not the End But the Beginning

Phil — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:34:13 +0000

The journey consists of a single seed of thought, which flowers and withers, returning to its original place.

People often call the end of this journey “enlightenment

”.

What does enlightenment mean? What do you have to know to be enlightened?

Is enlightenment the end?

What could be behind enlightenment?

The crux of enlightenment is that there is nothing to be enlightened about.

When you realize that there is nothing to be enlightened about, that is enlightenment.

Does it sound funny? Fishy?

Ilchi Lee: Only your True Self stands alone

juckduck — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:50:38 +0000

Once you pass this stage, the farmer (your True Self) can direct you by his voice alone, without having to pull on the rope. You have developed a mechanism to control your greed and appeties. You feel the old urges, but you know how to control them without needing someone else’s help.

Soon, the farmer can direct you without even a word. He just plays his flute as he rides along, and you know where to go automatically. It is at this stage that you can see the farmer clearly and the farmer sees you. There is harmony to the relationship. Your ego-self recognizes your True Self.

In the last stage, there is no cow. Only the farmer is left. Only your True Self stands alone, because you have learned to shed your layers of greed and appetites. At this point , there is no need for a cow (yur ego). Your own feet can carry you to wherever you wish.

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Ilchi Lee: a farmer leading a cow

juckduck — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:09:24 +0000

The cow represents your greed, needs, and appetites. The farmer represents your True Self—who you truly are beneath all these shells of personality, emotions, fear, and everything else that has been weighing you down. At first, we mistake sum of our needs, appetites, and greed. Basically, we are what we want, without any deeper considerations. At this level, we are like animals. We eat when we want, we sleep when we want, we urinate and excrete wherever we feel like it, and have sex when the desire comes over us. Just because we surround ourselves with modern conveniences and some social affectations doesn’t mean that we are spiritually any better than a dog or a cow. At this level, we are happy when our needs are fulfilled, and we are unhappy when they are not. At this level, we have no doubts, no questions about life itself. At this level, you have completely lost touch with your True Self. You are just like that calf running amok among the crops, creating paths of destruction without care or knowledge.

Then the farmer places a ring through your nose, a painful process but a necessary one to teach you where you need to go. He tugs you here and there with a ripe, teaching you the things that you can do and places that you can go and tapes you with a stick to gently keep you awake. As you go through this stage, you slowly realize that there are easier ways to get to where you want to be. More importantly, you are discovering how to get there.

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Ilchi Lee: Enlightenment-Yuln’yo

juckduck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:39:27 +0000

Enlightenment as True Self

Your heart is the Heaven. It is the space itself. It is time. Inside your heart lies the cosmos. Your are the eternal Heaven. You are an insignificant space dust. You cna exist as the smallest life-form while simultaneously encompassing the whole Heaven without beginning or end, limitless space, and eternal time. You are all these and more.

When you go to a Buddhist temple in the Orient, you will see a series of pictures of a farmer leading a cow. In the first frame, there is only a calf running around in the fields, stepping on the crops and wreaking general havoc. The second frame has the now-grown calf with a nose ring and getting a spanking from the farmer for misbehaving. Teh third frame has the farmer leading the cow slowly down a path, guiding it left and right. The fourth frame has the farmer riding the cow, directin it with the playing of a flute.

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Ilchi Lee: We have forgotten the divinity whithin.

juckduck — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:30:56 +0000

Incredible advances in technology have been made possible by the forces of democracy and capitalism, this everyone knows. Democracy has made great strides in expanding personal freedom and the ability to use talents. Capitalism hs created a worldwide stage on which to showcase our talents and be rewarded for them. But we enjoy the technological luxuries today at the cost of making constant competition the sole arbitrator of success, with its brutal efficiency and merciless execution. Competition has led us into constant anxiety about our very existence, deepending our self-destructive need for security, recognition, and donination. Overwhelmed by these destructive needs, we have lost touch with that which makes us human: True Love. we have ignored our True Self. We have forgotten the divinity whithin.

Now it’s time for another amazing turn in the history of humankind.

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Ilchil Lee: It has to be created

juckduck — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:00:45 +0000

Ah, let us all imagine the wonderful possibilities.

Can you imagine a world in which the highest value is placed upon the creation of harmony and cooperation? Can you not imagine a society in which the highest goals would be to seek the fulfillment and completion of your souls? A place in which spiritual goals are placed higher on the totem pole than how much money you earn? Is such a place possible?

More than possible. It has to be created. It is not an option.

History is filled with amazing twists and turns. Until the Middle Ages, humankind was mired in the fearsome world of the arbitrary God who was the center of their universe. Starting with the Renaissance, humans developed the intellectual skills and courage to break out of this suffocation divine dictatorship and start the road on which reason regned supreme. And this road has led us to the present, the Age of Materialism, in which Man is king.

Materialism has provided us with myriad creature comforts and benefits, for who would have thought that we could land on Mars and fly to the ends of the Earth in a few hours? All these advances in such a short itme! Yet, it has cost us dearly in terms of our collective humanity. Personal egotism and group centrism, a form of trbalism, constantly fed through our unending competition, have robbed us of our true nature and created a framework of fear and anxiety in which to live. One doesn,t have to be a prophet to see that we will self-destruct if we stay on this road.

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Ilchi Lee: For how long are we going to continue to learn only?

juckduck — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:35:26 +0000

For how long are we going to continue to learn only? For how long are we just going to study the Truths spoken by Jesus, Buddha, and other Wise Teachers? Now it is time to live out this Truth. We all need to discover the light of divinity that we possess inside and then let this light illuminate the road that we take. Alone superhero is no longer enough to carry all our hopes. Our hopes can only be carried by the multitude who accept and let this light of divinity blossom forth from their collective hearts. When you open your mind, it can cover thae universe. When you close your mind, it will become smaller than the smallest pinprick.

I declare that it is time to open up our minds and greet the dawn. I declare that it is time for an Enlightenment Revolution to forever cure the ills of our society. I declare that it is time for a Spiritual-Cultural Movement to uplift the whole of humanity to its spiritual heritage. And if enough peoiple join in and open up their minds and reach for their divine potential within…

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Ilchi Lee: harmony and cooperation, coexistence

juckduck — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:26:12 +0000

By learning about and spreading such a treasure-trove of spiritual heritage throughout the globe, we may finally produce a worldwide Spiritual-Cultural Movement that surpasses and encompasses the varied religions, governments, and economies around the world. Only through such a movement can we produce a cure for what ails the individual, the nation, and humanity. The problems we face now cannot be solved in parts only. They require a comprehensive solution. What is needed is an Enlightenment Revolution.

To make enlightenment an everyday and worldwide reality, we need three separate yet related phases: the enlightenment of the individual, the enlightenment of the group, and the enlightenment of all of humanity.

The first will be accomplished with Brain Respiration, through which the individual will learn how to get in touch with the Creator Within and access the highest Truthm riding on a stream of his or her own energy into a higher awareness. The second will be accomplished through a culture of New Human Society, in which enlightened individuals join together in harmony to help others reach the Creator Within and share their enlightenment with as many as possible. “New Human” is just another word for “Hong-Ik Ingan,” the traditional Korean term for someone who lives for the betterment of all. The third will be accomplished via a worldwide Spritual-Cultural Movement that sweeps the Earth in a blaze of harmony and cooperation, led by those New Humans who have made enlightenment a natural and obvious part of our society. The underlying principles of this movement lie in harmony and cooperation and coexistence. Harmony is the most beautiful flower that blossomes out of a society.
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