Enlightenment
What You Seek
By William Hodgetts
May 5, 2008

If I said to you that there are only two things in life that you search for, would you know what they are?

If I said they were security (feeling safe) and pleasure (happiness) what would you think?

For the first question, you would probably answer, love and truth. You may also say things like, ‘I seek answers to the meaning of my life’ ‘Is there life after death?’ ‘What is my purpose in life?’ Whatever your answer is, you must look at the reason for it.

For the second question you would probably say, ‘To seek security and pleasure for myself would be selfish’. So let us take an honest look. Let’s get out of the branches and down to the root.

If you seek the confirmation of life after death, are you not seeking the security of your continued existence? In seeking love, are you not seeking the greatest pleasure of all?

In seeking the meaning and purpose of your life, are you not seeking the pleasure of contentment and the security in that knowledge? Is there not pleasure in security? In seeking enlightenment, are you not seeking ESP; Eternal Security and Pleasure. Enlightenment is Extra Sensory Perception; it is perceiving that which is beyond the physical senses.

Incidentally, the greatest pleasure is not Love; the greatest pleasure comes from Love’s fulfilment.

Scenario:
You are sitting on a chair with your puppy on your lap. You are stroking it gently and it looks at you with contented eyes.
Understanding:
The puppy is feeling both security and pleasure and you are feeling the security and pleasure of companionship and loyalty. Do you not see that animals also feel Love and that they will also make sacrifices to protect that Love? If you showed that puppy rejection, you would see its insecurity and fear. Animals have souls too. All souls have the capacity to Love.

There are a million ways to fulfil your love and in doing so, receive pleasure and security; some are small and some are greater. Love is that which is good and right. No pleasure received from that which is good and right can ever be wrong.

Wealth and Power are not the root of all evil, neither is selfishness, rather it is lack of knowledge and understanding, and where were you ever given these? You cannot use correctly that which you do not fully understand. This is one of the reasons why people blame Love for their hurt. It is not the Love that has caused the hurt, it is a misjudgement due to lack of understanding.

Scenario:
David steals money from Paul, thinking that it will make his life more secure and give him access to greater pleasures. However, Paul finds out what David has done.

Result:
David has now lost his security and pleasure because of the threat of retaliation by Paul. Even if Paul hadn’t found out that David had stolen the money, David would still have been left with the worry of being found out, thereby losing the pleasure and security that he thought he had gained. If David had a conscience, how then would he regain his security and pleasure?

Selfishness is the gaining of a reward for the self. Everything we do is ultimately for the self, for one’s own security and pleasure. This may sound bad, but only because of what you have been lead to believe and your understanding is not yet complete.

You see there are selfish things that we do that bring us pleasure and do not affect the security and pleasure of others. There are selfish things that we do that bring both ourselves and others pleasure and security.

Finally, there is the cause of all the suffering in the world:

The cause of all the suffering in the world is the gaining of personal pleasure and perceived security for oneself, at the cost of others pleasure and security. We do not realise that in doing so, we have surrendered our security and invited pain as the price; we have caused conflict of interest and opposition.

We believe our security and pleasure is in the strength of our numbers and our domination. In Truth, domination always causes separation and opposition. It is always a threat to someone else security and pleasure and by affecting theirs, we affect our own.

There is selfishness that is good, and selfishness that is wrong, one leads to peace, one leads to war.

In ignorance we walk in the darkness.
With knowledge and understanding we walk in the Light.
We reap what we sow.

My security and pleasure comes from yours, this is the true essence of Love.

In truth, a person will only choose to suffer if they believe that the reward gained from that suffering, in security and pleasure, is greater than the suffering.

There is only pleasure, pain or nothing and in seeking nothing, do we not seek death? While there is awareness there is life, so in life we can never experience being nothing, we can never experience nothingness. Peace is not the absence of feeling, or the awareness of nothingness. It is security and pleasure.

There can be no peace while one is opposing or being opposed.

So now you must ask yourself once more, what it is that you seek and why?
Is it not security and pleasure for yourself?
Is it not feeling safe and being happy?
Is it not sharing that security and pleasure with others so that you do not feel alone?
Is it not Love?