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Is meditation necessary for enlightenment? ~ Reposted from the internet (Enlightenment comes from Divine Grace, which is attracted to Love and the human seeking Spirit)

“A day will come when you will laugh at your previous efforts. What you realize on the day you laugh is also available now.” - Sri Ramana Maharshi

Many enlightened people spent years doing spiritual practices prior to attaining Self-Realization. Almost to a person, they claim their spiritual practices had nothing to do with it. Sudden, total enlightenment regularly strikes people who have no interest in spirituality, like alien abductions of the heart.

What are we to make of this? I think it’s like falling in love.

Someone strikes your fancy and you want to get to know them. Your heart is in your throat when you send that first, unnerving text.

There are mishaps and misadventures, as in any good love story.

At the same time, you get the strangest feeling that your love is in the stars. You tell your friends your partner is your soulmate and your destiny.

This isn’t like you. You’re a hard-nosed, “show me” realist, and now you’re going around like a half-cracked mystic.

But you’re right. You’re not pursuing a relationship - the eternal Relationship is pursuing you on the apparent, temporal plane.

It’s the same with meditation.

You think you’re meditating to attain enlightenment, but you’re meditating because enlightenment has already claimed you.

You think you’re setting out at dawn to find your quarry, but the “hound of heaven” has pursued you this whole time.

There are no “selves” trying to reach enlightenment or God-Consciousness - there is only God playing the eternal game of hide-and-seek.