Jed McKenna

“It’s amazing how desperately we cling to our beliefs…”

“…As history shows, the fastest way to reduce otherwise decent people to a state of savagery is by tampering with their belief system.

The word for someone who does so is heretic, and historically the punishments reserved for him are more brutal than for any other class of offender.

The point is that by the time people come to me, their beliefs are securely in place. No one approaches me and asks to have their hard-won beliefs demolished. They come to build upon what they already have and to continue along the course they’ve already begun.

Demolition, though, is exactly what they need. If, that is, they want to wake up.” – Jed McKenna

Here’s a simple test.

“If it’s soothing or comforting, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy; if it’s about getting into pleasant emotional or mental states; if it’s about peace, love, tranquility, silence or bliss; if it’s about a brighter future or a better tomorrow; if it makes you feelgood about yourself or boosts your self-esteem, tells you you’re okay, tells you everything’s just fine the way it is; if it offers to improve, benefit or elevate you, or if it suggests that someone else is better or above you; if it’s about belief or faith or worship; if it raises or alters consciousness; if it combats stress or deepens relaxation, or if it’s therapeutic or healing, or if it promises happiness or relief from unhappiness, if it’s about any of these or similar things, then it’s not about waking up.

Then it’s about living in the dream state, not smashing out of it.

On the other hand, if it feels like you’re being skinned alive, if it feels like a prolonged evisceration, if you feel your identity unraveling, if it twists you up physically and drains your health and derails your life, if you feel love dying inside you, if it seems like death would be better, then it’s probably the process of awakening” – Jed Mckenna

It’s perfectly pointless

Maya (the dog)

‘Awakening to your true nature is like dying; it’s a certainty, inevitable. You’re going to get there no matter what you do, so why rush? Enjoy your life, it’s free. Cosmic Consciousness and Altered States and Universal Mind are the names of rides in this vast and fascinating dualistic amusement park. So are Poverty and Disease and Despair. Enlightenment, though, is not another ride. Enlightenment means leaving the park altogether, but why leave the park? In the park you can be a saint or a yogi or a billionaire or a world leader or a warlord. Be good, be evil. Happiness, misery, bliss, agony, victory, defeat, it’s all here. What’s the big rush? When the time comes to leave the park, you’ll know and you’ll go, but there’s certainly nothing to be gained by it.’ – Jed McKenna SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT: THE DAMNEDEST THING

There’s nowhere to go because there’s nowhere to be

“Evolution is just a name we give to the illusion of motion, and wisdom is just a mirage. Despite all the talk of journeys and progress and growth, no one has ever moved an inch. You appear in the amusement park and you play the games and ride the rides and when it’s over you go out the way you came in. There was never any chance of making a difference because you were as much an illusion as the rest of it.” Jed McKenna – Dreamstate: A Conspiracy Theory

In reality, there’s only one thing going on.

“There’s only one game being played in life, and these people have arrayed their mental and emotional forces expertly so as to convince themselves that they’re on the field in the thick of it while actually standing in line at the snackbar. The American dream of freedom and abundance is just a child’s rendering of true freedom and abundance, and serves only to convince people who haven’t gone anywhere that they’ve already arrived.” -Jed McKenna, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment

Blues for Buddha

Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come,
then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became
a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13

BEING CRITICAL OF BUDDHISM ISN’T EASY. Buddhism is the most likable of the major religions, and Buddhists are the perennial good guys of modern spirituality. Beautiful traditions, lovely architecture, inspiring statuary, ancient history, the Dalai Lama; what’s not to like?

Everything about Buddhism is just so—nice. No fatwahs or jihads, no inquisitions or crusades, no terrorists or pederasts, just nice people being nice. In fact, Buddhism means niceness. Nice-ism.

At least, it should.

Buddha means Awakened One, so Buddhism can be taken to mean Awake-ism. Awakism. It would therefore be natural to think that if you were looking to wake up, then Buddhism, i.e., Awakism, would be the place to look.

THE LIGHT IS BETTER OVER HERE
Such thinking, however, would reveal a dangerous lack of respect for the opposition. Maya, goddess of delusion, has been doing her job with supreme mastery since the first spark of self-awareness flickered in some monkey’s brainbox, and the idea that the neophyte truthseeker can just sign up with the Buddhists, read some books, embrace some new concepts and slam her to the mat would be a bit on the naive side, (as billions of sincere but unsuccessful seekers over the last twenty-five centuries might grudgingly attest).

On the other hand, why not? How’d this get so turned around? It’s just truth. Shouldn’t truth be, like, the simplest thing? Shouldn’t someone who wants to find something as ubiquitous and unchanging as truth be able to do so? How can anyone manage to not find truth? And here’s this venerable organization supposedly dedicated to just that very thing, even named for it, and it’s a total flop.

So what’s the problem?
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Spiritual Enlightenment by Jed McKenna

http://www.wisefoolpress.com

From a Spiritual Master Unlike Any, A Spiritual Masterpiece Like No Other

AUTHOR, TEACHER AND SPIRITUAL MASTER Jed McKenna tells it like it’s never been told before. A true American original, Jed succeeds where countless others have failed by reducing this highest of attainments — Spiritual Enlightenment — to the simplest of terms.

Effectively demystifying the mystical, Jed astonishes the reader not by adding to the world’s collected spiritual wisdom, but by taking the spirituality out of spiritual enlightenment. Never before has this elusive topic been treated in so engaging and accessible a manner.

A masterpiece of illuminative writing, Spiritual Enlightenment is mandatory reading for anyone following a spiritual path. Part exposé and part how-to manual, this is the first book to explain why failure seems to be the rule in the search for enlightenment — and how the rule can be broken.

Says Jed:
The truth is that enlightenment is neither remote nor unattainable. It is closer than your skin and more immediate than your next breath. If we wonder why so few seem able to find that which can never be lost, we might recall the child who was looking in the light for a coin he dropped in the dark because “the light is better over here”.

Mankind has spent ages looking in the light for a coin that awaits us not in light and not in dark, but beyond all opposites. That is the message of this book: Spiritual Enlightenment, pure and simple.

Interview with Jed McKenna

The truth is that enlightenment is neither remote nor unattainable. It is closer than your skin and more immediate than your next breath. If we wonder why so few seem able to find that which can never be lost, we might recall the child who was looking in the light for a coin he dropped in the dark because “the light is better over here.” – Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment, the damnedest thing

I make coffee

“We prepare a tray with cups and cream and sugar and some sweet stuff and carry it all back to the couch in the living room, which is positioned to provide an unobstructed view of the turbulent clouds through large west-facing windows.

This conversation is more interesting to me than many because I’m clarifying it for myself as we go along. When the topic is enlightenment, I can speak with the perfect authority of a true master and my only real challenge is how to transmit thoughts and ideas more succinctly. But when the topic is the nature of delusion, the ego, false constructs, and human nature, I’m just a guy with a little experience, a lot of interest, and good seats. Yes, I’ve gone through the transformative process and yes, I remember a good deal from my own before and during periods, but whereas enlightenment is exactly the same for anyone, anytime, anyplace, the journey to it is as unique and varied as there are people to make it.
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In the Ward of Fevered Minds

Bed after bed, child after child.
Some calm, some thrashing.
Some laughing, some wailing.
Calling for mommy.
Calling for God.

One sits up, eyes open, asking.
I go to him, sit, answer.
He nods, falls back, gone again.

I was once in a bed like them—fevered, deluded.
Now I’m in a chair—I suppose it’s better.
A roomful of loonies.

I return to my crossword puzzle
Until the next one sits up, asks.
– Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment, The Damnedest Thing

Arthur tells me he wants a technique.

Rather, he wants the technique. I really only have one technique and everybody who comes to the house soon learns what it is from other students, but, oddly, nobody seems to practice it until they receive it from me. I’ve laid it out many times and tried to put it in the public domain for the use of whoever wants it, but it has remained strangely proprietary, as if the only way it can work is if it comes directly from me. There’s really not much to it, but I guess there’s not much to closing your eyes and repeating a mantra or counting your breaths either.
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What do you want?

I look at her, trying to gauge the intent of the question. Seeing my confusion, she holds her notes up for me to see. “Right there, question fourteen; ‘What does Jed want?'”

It’s still not clear to me what she means, but the answer is probably the same no matter how the question is interpreted. “I don’t want anything. I don’t want.”
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Inspiration

A.H. Almaas http://www.ahalmaas.com/
Adyashanti http://www.adyashanti.org/
Jed McKenna http://www.wisefoolpress.com/
Osho http://www.osho.com
Ra Uru Hu http://www.jovianarchive.com
Richard Rudd http://www.genekeys.com
Wayne Liqourman http://www.advaita.org/
Sitara Mittag http://www.astro-sitara.de/engl_advaitavedanta1.html
Jordan B. Peterson https://jordanbpeterson.com/

Spiritual Disclaimer

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN: BY CONTINUING BEYOND THIS POINT, the reader acknowledges and agrees that the state of Spiritual Enlightenment discussed herein conveys upon the seeker-aspirant-victim no benefits, boons, blessings, or special powers and bears little or no resemblance to assorted New Age or Eastern varieties widely dispensed under the same name. Orgasmic euphoria, orgiastic bliss, obscene wealth, perfect health, eternal peace, angelic ascension, cosmic consciousness, purified aura, astral projection, pan-dimensional travel, extra-sensory perception, access to akashic records, profound wisdom, sagely demeanor, radiant countenance, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and opening of the third eye are not likely to result. Tuning, harmonizing, balancing, energizing, reversing or opening of the chakras should not be expected. The kundalini serpent dwelling at the base of the spine will not be awakened, poked, prodded, raised, or otherwise molested.
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