For more than thirty years I spent countless hours meditating in pursuit of enlightenment. I have followed many techniques, disciplines, masters, gurus, and teachers.  To be sure there were common threads to all, and all their differences as well.  One thing that seemed to be common for all the techniques was the idea that you should not go into meditation with any pre-conceived notions, ideas, goals, or expectations.  The goal should be that you have no goal, and you are there just to observe or be aware.  Eventually, after years of doing this, you can expect to have a major spiritual experience and then enlightenment should follow. During the last two years of my quest for enlightenment I was meditating for one hour twice a day. For a person like myself who has trouble sitting still for more than five to ten minutes at a time, this was a tremendous accomplishment.  I have read of people who would meditate for eight hours at a time and a few who could do it non stop for days with zero breaks. It began to get more and more productive, that is, I was getting to a non-cluttered state of mind quicker and enjoying the experience more each time.

Eventually, I began to have some pretty extraordinary experiences during my meditations and became even more obsessive in my practice and more importantly, in my study and contemplation of enlightenment.  I reread many of the dozens of books I had collected over the years and began to think more about that idea about not having any expectations or goals during meditation.  The more I thought about the more I realized that I did have a huge goal.  My ultimate goal was enlightenment.  No matter how I justified that I did not have a goal, I realized that I did, it was enlightenment.  In addition, I had expectations of what the enlightenment experience was supposed to be like from all the gurus and teachers, because they told you what to expect.

Putting this all together I could become the passive observer I needed to be, and I could realize enlightenment.  I could attain here and now awareness. Ninety nine percent of everything that I had learned and the hours I spent meditating were not necessary to become enlightened.  There is a simple path with only a few difficult obstacles to surpass.  These obstacles do not require a spiritual pedigree to overcome.  You do not have to be chosen for enlightenment.  You do not have to spend a lifetime of disciplined meditation or right living. You do have to spend a lot of money on gurus and teachers.  If you really, really want to attain enlightenment you can.  You just need to be pointed in the right direction.  If you want to learn more about enlightenment go to the website .