THE UNSUNG BEAUTY OF ORDINARY ENLIGHTENMENT

EMILIA ELISABET LAHTI, PhD, explores a strength greater than willpower waiting to be accessed.

- EMILIA ELISABET LAHTI

I RECENTLY HEARD a recording of an old lecture by Ram Dass, the one-time Harvard psychology professor whose spiritual journey spanned over half a century. In the lecture, he tells a story of how, years into his spiritual awakening, he was struggling with a feeling of being stuck “between heaven and earth.” He yearned to get even closer to God, but then an imaginary teacher set him straight. The inner commentator said, “Ram, you are a human, right? So why don’t you take the curriculum.”

The temptation with spiritual work for me, too, has been to get carried away with the heavens. I want to speed on to holier realms and pursuits and get away from having to deal with the sticky pettiness of our human predicament. The trouble is that by doing so, we separate ourselves from the most potent (and toughest) paths to what we like to call enlightenment.

Working through one’s character, blind spots, and finding inner sobriety by learning to love—or perhaps to apologize—when all we want to do is close off and leave the scene, is the true and most humbling test for our “holiness.” To attend to the curriculum of real-life enlightenment is a time-tested crucible for forging character and learning to be a human.