RAPT: THE RICH LIFE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

What did Proust and Jesus both know? What is it that people expect to hear at the feet of gurus? Why do fools fall in love? What is the secret to the joy on a child’s face? And why do people spend a lifetime trying to recapture it?

It’s nothing other than this: look within!

Proust’s scenes are picked out by a dazzling inner light which reveals the intense enchantment to be found in the same reality more often dismissed as “everyday”. His kind of seeing has a lot in common with “Behold! The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!” It is the reason why the Buddha closes his eyes on the mountainside in India. It also quickens hearts worldwide as a lover’s lingering gaze is returned. It’s why the child is so reluctant to leave his absorbing game.

What can these seemingly disparate phenomena have in common? It is the quality of concentration that counts, being alive in a moment that will never return. Enraptured and held. And the problems that were assailing us moments before have disappeared, ghosts banished by the morning sunlight, only shades - of possible pasts and futures.

It's an ego-less state, though it may be imbued with an awareness of a kind of higher Self, the Atman of the Upanishads.

“Why turn within? Because it is the Heaven that you have always looked for. Because it is the joy that you have always looked for.”

It’s the Message of the Ages, rehashed.

I wonder what the difference is, if any, between Enlightenment and mere distraction?