It is said that Prince Gautama Siddhartha, wandering through India sometime during the sixth century A.D., decided to meditate at Bodh Gaya, beneath the Bodhi tree. He sat beneath this tree for three days and three nights, sat and meditated until, suddenly, without warning, he achieved Enlightenment and became the Buddha, or the "Enlightened One". What's interesting here is that when he gave his first sermon near Benares, a sermon popularly known as "Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth", he emphasized the value of his meditative practices as a way to escape suffering. One can only guess what he went through during those three days and nights

And how does one accumulate sufficient spiritual energy? Through suffering, of course, and the equation of suffering presented in an earlier lesson.

J. G. Bennett, teacher and interpreter of such mystical luminaries as G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and the Nepalese Shivapuri Baba, emphasized the need for conscious, intentional suffering as a way to Enlightenment, and is noted for saying, "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering." What's interesting is that he wishes to avoid "unnecessary suffering" and instead seek a controlled, more productive suffering..which is exactly what ascetics and monks have done for hundreds, if not thousands, of years..

In a way, that's what making a religious pilgrimage is all about: you climb a mountain, perhaps barefoot, to reach a particular spirit shrine, as some Southwestern Indian tribes do. In Islam, making the "hajj" involves walking slowly for hours as you make seven revolutions around the Ka'bah shrine, then hiking in the desert through the Mina Valley for three days until you reach Arafat, at which point you are deemed free of sin. In Japan, should you choose to undertake the pilgrimage of Shikoku, you will spend from 40 to 75 days walking to 88 temples. Is this the sort of suffering that will be converted into spiritual energy? Yes, making a pilgrimage is in fact a conscious, intentional, subtle, but entirely valid form of suffering.

As all great spiritual teachers have pointed out, there are many roads to Enlightenment. What's important to understand here is that Enlightenment requires a progression of the soul, a development of the spiritual inner being.

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Take This Job and Sh---- It
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Life After Death
Men of the Cloth
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