The Perpetual Intentional Choosing

FINDING THE MOST DIRECT MEANS TO INNER PEACE AND LIBERATION

Looking back at the progress of my life, from being desperately empty, lost and almost always depressed to now knowing peace more easily and quickly at almost any given moment, it seems likely that “enlightenment” could occur within this lifetime. Maybe?

I am reading a new book: The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.

Reading this is almost like experiencing the author grabbing your face with both hands and directing you exactly where to look. It is not wordy and complicated like A Course in Miracles. Instead, The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss is to the point. No games. No mumbo jumbo or extraneous esoteric jargon to learn.

It requires slow and multiple readings in order to let the material sink in. But that’s OK, it’s a very easy read. That is, if you’re open enough for it.

CHOOSING LIBERATION MEANS NOT FEARING LIBERATION

So far, this is what I’ve gotten from this book:

1) The Ego is Thought. Thought is the Ego.
2) We are being deceived by the Ego almost continuously, all day long, yet we don’t realize this.
3) The most important step toward Liberation is to awaken “the extremely intense desire for Liberation” (or ‘enlightenment’).
4) The Ego wants us to avoid Liberation, and usually does this through fear. To counter this, one must be aware of the many ways the Ego fools us into avoiding Liberation.
5) Awakening the extremely intense desire for Liberation makes the Ego less powerful.
6) Liberation is all that matters. Choose Liberation!

And that’s about it up to chapter 5…oh, except for this other little thing:

7) In order to attain Liberation, one must drop all unnecessary activities to spend more time on spiritual practice.

And then the author lists a ton of spiritual practices in later chapters.

So every day I read chapter 5, and every day I think about how great Liberation is and how I shouldn’t fear it (which I do!) or see it as some kind of brainwashing thing.

I think Gee, Liberation means Joy and Bliss and Freedom and all kinds of cool stuff that I’m not even capable of being aware of right now. I DO want Liberation.

And then sometimes I think things like:
But then what if I wanted to experience something like, say, I don’t know…the joys of motherhood, for example, because Liberation is just going to get in the way of that, right? (Or vise versa.)
What if I wanted this? What if Liberation prevents me from getting that? It might be boring. It might take me away from all the things I know and love. Etc.

So every day, at various moments when I’m feeling doubtful or annoyed or generally unhappy, I know that I am NOT choosing Liberation. And I convince myself that Liberation is a thing so awesome that I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE IT and that the only way to experience that awesomeness is to trust that, yes, it is a good thing and that, yes, I REALLY DO WANT IT.

FOCUSING ON DESIRING THE MOST AWESOME OF AWESOMENESS

The more I desire something, the more I feel like I’m becoming that which I desire. Isn’t that weird? It’s a basic law of attraction rule, I suppose. Life is supposed to work that way somehow?

I can feel my self focusing in on this desire and the flow of this ‘liberation’. I can do this quite easily now. KNOWING (believing) that liberation actually exists in the first place is key.

So when I tune into this desire for liberation, I am also turning away from the ego and can instantly feel relief from my “hot spot” issues. The issues no longer exist because my focus is on my desire for something awesome.

Keep in mind that I am not even doing any spiritual practices yet, just fine tuning my desire.

Intense desire, like that of wanting to breath while being held underwater, is probably the only step one needs to accomplish, because everything else naturally follows and takes its course. I’m pretty sure of that.