Enlightenment & The Compassionate Lie

A quote by Andrew Cohen: "The revelation of enlightenment reveals to us directly the perennial truth that real happiness and contentment lie within us as the nature of consciousness itself, as our own natural state, already full and complete as it is." A Response: The perennial truth is not that real happiness and contentment lie within us as the nature of consciousness itself. This has been one of the perennial instructions which is an entirely different from the Truth or Realization itself. To look within and not outside of oneself is an instruction often passed down from teacher to student yet ultimately it doesn't hold the Truth. The Truth is realized only after you've looked within and still you do not find real happiness and contentment nor do you ever find the nature of consciousness. So you ask your teacher, and again the instruction is "look within." Again, instruction is not reality. If the teacher does say to the student "it lies within" the instruction is now what I call a "compassionate lie." It's compassionate in that looking within is the fastest way to exhaust the seeking motion of the "personal self." It is often in the cessation of one's attachment to this personal self - the total and complete cessation of seeking - that the nature of consciousness and true happiness is realized. It's a lie in that this does not reside within. Mature realization knows without a doubt true happiness and the nature of consciousness does not lie within; however, it is the searching within that appears to be one of the quickest ways to this realization. There's some perennial 2 cents... Thanks for the compassionate lie Andrew. ~R Link to Andrew's full Quote of the Week: http://www.andrewcohen.org/quote/?ifr=hp-hilite