Chapter 1 - Whose Game Are You Playing?

Imagine you are at a carnival. On the midway. Laughter and smiles abound. A man calls out for your attention. Knock three bottles from a small table with a softball and you will be a winner. He demonstrates. He glances at the target and gently lobs the ball. The bottles tumble to the ground. What could be easier? You pay the man a dollar, take the ball in hand, and with perfect aim you let it go. The bottles rock some but don’t fall. You try again. And again. Occasionally one or two fall, but never all three. In disgust, you turn to leave but the man and the others around you urge you to try again. The man demonstrates once more, then tosses you the ball. Your friends tell you to be a good sport. Smile. Have fun. Don’t give up. You force a smile and continue to play. Now, everyone is laughing, smiling, having a grand time. Except for you. The bottles will not fall. In fact, the bottles will never fall for the game is rigged. You cannot win. You can smile and pretend all you want. Your friends can offer encouragement till the end of time, but you will never win.

You can stop imagining now, because if you are someone who has followed all the rules of life only to be left bitter and disillusioned, this scenario is not make believe. It is your life. And it, too, is rigged.

From birth we have been taught to behave in ways we cannot sustain, to strive for things that do not exist and to expect things that can never occur. Left undetected and unchallenged, these teachings guarantee a life of frustration and failure for those who try to practice them. But for those who teach them, they guarantee an endless supply of “lost souls” desperate for someone to show them where they’ve gone wrong. And unfortunately for the seekers, the answers they receive come out of a system in which only the teachers can win. Of course this fact is hidden, cloaked in beautiful language, intriguing riddles, in the promise of miracles and magic. For as long as the fact is concealed, the game will go on. The students will struggle and the teachers will thrive.

For those of you who have somehow managed to find happiness living within this system or have created a new one that works for you, I suggest you set this book aside. Save it for another time. Life is too precious. Too short. Why waste a moment analyzing it when you can go out and live it?

When my daughter was about six years old we gave her the game Twister for her birthday. She had seen other children playing the game on television and knew just what to do. I remember watching her as she spread the plastic mat on the floor and tied herself in knots placing her left foot on yellow, right hand on green, right foot on blue, etc. Soon, my wife and I joined in the fun. We must have played like that for about ten minutes when my daughter suddenly stopped and asked, “How do you win?”

Until that moment, we didn’t even realize we weren’t playing by the rules. We were simply enjoying ourselves and making it up as we went along. We decided we’d better get the instructions out of the box and find out how to play the game. Within minutes of playing according to the official rules, my daughter grew bored and walked away from the game. We never played it again.

Now there’s nothing wrong with playing the game according to the rules, if you enjoy doing so. But if the rules you’ve been given aren’t working for you, maybe it’s time to question them. Maybe it’s time to write your own. Or maybe it’s time to play a different game altogether.

Enlightenment - A Glimpse

For the record, I have no formal training in psychology, philosophy, theology or any other field that generally spawns teachers of enlightenment. I cannot levitate, heal the sick, summon the spirits of the dead, cleanse your aura or predict your future. In other words, I’m probably not that much different than you.

Though my formal education and professional background has led me into other fields, namely Information Systems and Broadcasting, I have had a lifelong interest in areas such as self-improvement, psychology, and spirituality. Ever since I was 13 years old, I have studied everything I could to learn more about each of these areas, all with one goal in mind: enlightenment. Of course, when I was starting out I didn’t even know what enlightenment was, or what it was supposed to be. I just knew there was “something” out there - some “big secret” I just had to uncover.

But despite my efforts, for the first 37 years of my life the closest I came to being enlightened was when some guy in a sheet and sandals scammed me out of twenty dollars at an airport. Within the last few years, however, all this has changed. I now regularly have what I believe are enlightenment experiences and, for the most part, they don’t look like what I’d been led to believe they would. In fact, I am now convinced that I even had such experiences before my recent discoveries, but since I was duped into looking for someone else’s idea of enlightenment, I had missed my own all along. I’ll even go one step further; if you’ve experienced similar disappointments in your quest for enlightenment, I’ll bet the same is true of you. You’ve missed out on some of the greatest learning experiences of your life because you’ve been led to believe in something that does not exist.

It is my position that enlightenment is not necessarily the elusive mystical experience it has been made out to be. It doesn’t require years of struggle to attain. It doesn’t require that you chant in lotus position at the feet of some guru. And it doesn’t require that you separate yourself from your family and friends, give away all your possessions and move to a compound on the outskirts of town. You may find it through one of these methods, but it isn’t necessary to do so. In fact, enlightenment is available to each of us, wherever we happen to find ourselves and at any given moment, if we know what it is we’re looking for. With that in mind, let me clear up perhaps the biggest misconception about enlightenment right at the start.

In June of 2000, late night talk show host Conan O’Brien gave a hysterical commencement address at Harvard, his Alma Mater, in which he warned those graduating that they would now and forever be subject to the line, “And you graduated from Harvard?” He said if they asked someone how jumper cables worked, they would be asked, “And you graduated from Harvard?” If they ever forgot their underwear went on the inside of their pants rather than the outside, others would ask, “And you graduated from Harvard?” I have discovered that the label “enlightenment” comes with a similar curse. Now, whenever I lose my temper, become frustrated or am unable to find the pen I have neatly clipped to my shirt pocket, those closest to me take great glee in asking, “And you call yourself enlightened?”

The fact is I do not call myself enlightened. To be more specific, I do not claim to be enlightened. I simply claim to have experienced enlightenment. The key word is experienced. That’s what enlightenment is, an experience. It is not a state of being. This is the biggest misconception people have about enlightenment. They think that if they could only “become enlightened” that their lives would somehow become magical and perfect.

So before we go any further let me assure you that there is absolutely no guarantee that enlightenment will make you happy, rich, famous or even “better” than you were before. It might do some of these things. Maybe. It might also lead to something else. Just like falling in love might lead to a lifelong romance or a quickie divorce. The end result doesn’t validate or invalidate the experience that led to the results. Our experience of love can be deep, intense and as real as the hair on our heads, but that is no guarantee that it will last. And our experience of enlightenment is no different.

Enlightenment doesn’t guarantee that you will be immune to the emotional trials and tribulations of life. As long as you are alive these dark times will make their appearances in your life. Why? Because they are part of the human experience and as long as you are human, you’re going to experience them. Occasionally we hear of people who had dedicated their lives to worthy causes such as the prevention of disease, abuse or violence only to end up dying from the very things they fought. We find these cases tragically ironic but we recognize that despite their good intentions, these people weren’t immune to the human experience. And despite what you may have come to believe, those who claim to have experienced enlightenment, myself included, are no different.

No doubt you’ve heard the saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” While the saying is true, it doesn’t go far enough. Perhaps, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, experience joy and frustration. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, experience joy and frustration,” would be more accurate as it includes not just the physical experiences but the emotional ones as well.

Why Seek Enlightenment?

If you’re wondering why anyone should seek enlightenment if it is not the magic bullet we’ve been lead to believe, there are two good reasons.

First, while enlightenment is not going to solve all of our problems, it gives us a degree of power over our lives that can hardly be imagined by those who haven’t experienced it. It provides opportunities for us to more consciously participate in life and, as a result, have more impact, not just in our lives, but also in the lives of others. No, when you experience enlightenment magical things will not suddenly begin to happen in your life. Instead, you will become aware of the magical things that are already occurring in your life.

And second, those who truly seek enlightenment have little choice in the matter. For the vast majority of people, enlightenment is nothing more than a vague concept that catches their attention every so often. Some may dabble a bit in its pursuit, but after a weekend seminar or reading a few books on the subject, their interests quickly take them in other directions. But there are others for whom the quest isn’t so casual. For them, it is an obsession. I know this because I was one of them.

My first “enlightenment” experience occurred just over three years ago, and until now I’ve only shared the insights I’ve gained since then with a handful of people. Each one of them, without fail, has encouraged me to share these ideas with others. This book is a result of their encouragement.

For months after I finally “got it” I jotted down my thoughts in hopes they would add up to something that others would find useful. As I went back through the material, I was taken aback by some of the things I had written. Quite frankly, many of them contradicted the traditional teachings I’d encountered over the years. I now know why.

A dangerous thing happens when a man discovers his own truth. Suddenly, he no longer finds himself at the feet of some guru. He no longer buys into the pretty pictures his teachers once held up for him as bait. He no longer finds himself bound by the dogma of some body of thought that supposedly holds the keys to his salvation. He has fought his way out of the cage and earned his freedom. And no one who controls him or hopes to in the future wants to see that happen.

The fact is no one holds the key to your own enlightenment except you. It is yours to use at any time you choose. It is my position that the only reason you haven’t recognized this before is that others have, knowingly or unknowingly, encouraged you to look elsewhere for that key and you believed them. You don’t need to chant, believe in spirits, shave your head or give your life over to a guru. Again, you can do these things and find enlightenment. But, if you’re like me and turned off by such approaches yet still feel pulled toward enlightenment, there is another way.

In fact, my purpose in writing this book is simply this: to get you to stop looking “out there” for the answer and, instead, simply recognize the power you have had all along, a power some would rather you never discover.

Exercise

At this point I want you to do the first and only exercise you will find in this book. It's simple to do and should only take a few minutes to complete. If you're like me, you'll be tempted to simply read the instructions and move on rather than actually completing the exercise. Don't do it this time! We will be returning to this exercise at the end of the book and you'll only be cheating yourself if you haven't completed it at that time.

Now, think of a time when you were absolutely certain about your view of reality, but then experienced an unexpected, sudden and dramatic change in your perceptions. When this type of experience occurs, it typically does so in the face of an apparently, unforgiving reality. That is, you are absolutely certain of the hard reality of your “facts” when all of a sudden they give way and leave you with a new understanding of reality itself.

Perhaps you learned that a dear friend was really cheating you behind your back and, in an instant, the relationship was destroyed. Maybe you discovered that your boss didn't have a grudge against you at all but was simply experiencing problems at home and, in an instant, you became friends.

Recently, I had an experience like this when I caught my children playing on our computer without my permission. Like any good father, I had to teach them a lesson. I banned them from the computer and sent them to their rooms. When I found out that my wife had given them permission and that they had been designing a birthday card for me, I experienced a profound change in attitude to say the least.

Your new understanding of reality could be trivial or profound. All that matters is that the change in your perspective was unexpected, sudden and dramatic. If you'd like, you can come up with several such experiences, but you only need one. Once you've identified an appropriate experience, all you need to do at this point is be able to remember it when we reach the end of this book. Write it down if necessary. But whatever you do, please do this before continuing.