The One Reason Why Most Westerners Can’t Attain Enlightenment

To transcend is to abandon all inferior identifications.

Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash

If thousands of people all around the world, from different civilizations, throughout very different centuries, all discovered the same thing, what would you call it?

An empirically testable science. A truth. Certainly not woo-woo, low-IQ, dogmatic “religion.”

But if you actually bother to study the contemplative traditions of humanity (ie. not book-bound Prophet-based commandment systems) they all have one central teaching.

Remembrance.

In Buddhism and advaita (“nondual”) Hinduism, one constantly remembers mindfulness: the light of pure awareness, whose power leads us to an ultimately permanent, blissful reality.

In Sikhism, one existentially bows to the sacred nature of existence, by repeating the name (or names), of whichever conceptualization of divinity suits us best. We remember the deity-Guru at all times, to receive its guidance.

In the indigenous spirituality of North America, the Great Spirit is recognized in all things — the elements, wildlife, and people no matter how strange. It’s meant to be impossible to forget.