An Immaculate Condition

An Immaculate Condition W hat distinguishes a person who is awake from someone who is not is that they are able to recognize that which is true. Someone who is awake is able to see much more of what is actually there than someone who is not. This is because the quality of their attention has become vast, subtle and profound. The word “Enlightenment” does not only refer to the awareness of being or to the experience of bliss. Enlighten­ment means being aware of what is always right in front of us. If we seek only to acquire a specific experience, a particular feeling, a certain spiritual event, then we will not necessarily become enlightened. The reason for that is because we will always only be focused on a fixed idea about what it is that we are looking for. The goal is to realize a condition in which with all of our being all we want to know is that which is true. At the same time, in that condition emotionally we are not attached in any way to what that truth should be. I’m speaking about realizing a condition in which our deepest desire is simply to know what’s true for its own sake. That means we want to know, from the depths of our being we want to know. But in that passion to know there are no fixed ideas about that which will be known. When we come to that point where we want to know what is true more than anything else and hold no fixed ideas, there will be room to find out what is actually true. But there is more. Even when we discover that which is true, the desire to know that which is true for its own sake must remain constant. That means that even when we do know, we still do not shift from our original position. Even then we still only want to know what is true. That’s why we never rest. Because in spite of the fact that we have discovered that which is true, we do not become fixed. We still only want to know what is true. Once again, in that passion to know there can be no fixed ideas. We simply see, and the conclusions drawn about what is being seen are based on that which is living and present. For revelation to have liberating power it must be living. In order for revelation to remain alive, that condition in which we are attached to no fixed ideas must be our own. In such a condition it not only becomes possible to realize that which is true, but it is that very condition that makes it possible to always know that which is true. Again, that condition is one where our most fundamental desire and longing is a passionate interest in what is true for its own sake. And that passion must be supported by no fixed ideas whatsoever. If it’s any other way, even if we do discover that which is true, our interpretation of our experience will always be corrupted by those ideas. That is the difference between religion that is dead and revelation that is alive. This matter is delicate. Only if you passionately want to know what is true, and at the same time have the courage and fearless interest to not impose any fixed or rigid ideas upon that which is discovered, have you realized a condition that could be called immaculate. It is this, the immacu­late condition, that makes it possible to know that which is ever new.