When do we know that we are delivered?
When do we know that we are awakened?
This happens at the moment we know we are no longer attached and restrained. It does not mean that everything falls apart, but we actually live with material things, a physical body with all sense organs created by the Divine, and all the ordinary human characteristics like greed, hate, and delusion, without being pulled and led by them.
At this stage we know our feelings and habits, but it is not complete. We also need to have a strong and enduring willpower to decide what to do and to accomplish our chosen path. If we know and see but still lack a strong and enduring willpower, our seeing and knowing only give us pride and arrogance but do not help us at all.
Knowing and seeing do not mean that we cannot be on a wrong path, since besides being tempted by our human body and personality we may be influenced by others around us. Knowing and seeing does not mean that we are not overpowered by others’ knowing and seeing; everyone might think that his or her knowing and seeing are the best, since they are not within the scope of reason. Those who argue and reason well might have the upper hand, but they do not necessarily see what is right, because enlightenment is not about reason.
Being awakened is about knowing and seeing and about accomplishing what we know and see. The journey to the knowing and seeing is a challenge, but the task of accomplishment is even more challenging.
How can we accomplish what we see and know with those who see and know in a different way?
First, we must accept loneliness and suffering, and sometimes even humiliation, because we can be misunderstood. We can stop here with our seeing and knowing, and consider it an enhancement of our spiritual life. Likewise, we can also think of it as a corner in the sky to which we wander in order to unburden our struggle with society and family life. It will not hurt us or our family, if we know how to maintain a balance between the spiritual life and material life. However, if we try to suppress and restrain it in the depth of our inner life, it may harm us someday when it bursts out because of the lack of balance between the spiritual and the material, between ourselves and others. In that event, we realize that we suffer because we are different from others around us, simply because we have the seeing and knowing. At the same time, others may think of us as being foolish, imbalanced, eccentric, and taking the wrong way. Therefore, we should continue on the journey of knowing and seeing to reach the awakening.
At this point the role of willpower is important and indispensible. In order to continue the journey we should have patience and humility to blend in with others, and we should strive to understand them before trying to make them understand us. We should try to avoid a fanatic attitude and approach on the journey to awakening. Fanatics are arrogant people who think they know and see what is right, while others are wrong and ignorant. Fanatic actions only lead to destruction and hatred, to separation between high and low, good and bad, right and wrong.
The journey to awakening is not based on criticism, but only on cooperation and moderation. There is no right and wrong, no high and low, no good and bad, but the way to harmonize between right and wrong, high and low, good and bad, so that everyone can together take the right way leading to success. This way will lead each family to happiness and the community to stable development.