Lesson 2 homework.

Lesson 2 presents lists of qualities supposedly pertaining to enlightenment. The homework is:

"Take your time to look over all the ideals and put a check next to every one you have at least 

some residual belief in. Please be honest with yourself about this. Remember, I’m not asking 

you to drop any of your beliefs, just to examine them. When you’re done, please count how 

many you’ve checked. After that, please write in your journal what this brought up for you."

I did not check very many. Here are those that I did check.

Here are a few things Enlightenment will supposedly free you from…

! Anger, fear, pain, sadness, sorrow, suffering X

! Petty irritations and jealousy X

OK, now here’s how Enlightenment will supposedly make you feel…

 Expanded, infinite, huge, or cosmic X

OK, enough of the groovy benefits. Now let’s look at how you were supposed to get

enlightened…

! By meditating – a lot

My comments: A year or two ago I would have checked many more. But in the past several years I have dropped most of my long-held expectations for awakening and what it would do for me. Instrumental in this dropping was the  book by Robert KC Forman "Enlightenment is not what it's cracked up to be". But also having a friend who has had pure consciousness 24x7 for many many years and knowing that she still faces the same types of problems that we all face made me start to realize that things are not always what we have been led to believe in the TM Movement.

The items I checked I still believe might be true to some extent, though of course not 100%. I also still meditate, even though I realize it is not a very good gateway to the transcendent for me personally. But it does work for some people.