Is Enlightenment Individual or Collective

I’ve noticed over the years that many or even most Spiritual Wannabees believe that Spirituality is entirely in the Self Help column of things, that is, that their Spiritual Goals are entirely up to themselves  and really bear no relationship to any outside Force or Condition, that is, that whether they are spiritually enlightened or not is entirely in their own hands. 

Yes, this is exactly in keeping with the now Globalized American Export of the ‘Rugged Individual Philosophy’ whereby we have the Idea that the Individual is Invincible, or at least the most important 1% are.   If that 1% Individual, who is born of the ‘right’ parents or who is scheming, ruthless, connected or devious enough to make the grade, wants to be Enlightened  and works for it really hard, and manages to destroy all of his competition, then, dagnabit (an American word that really isn’t a word, but a euphemism for various ‘cuss’ words), well, he DESERVES to be enlightened. 

However, let’s pump the brakes for a bit and take a quick look at Spirituality from its Traditional contexts.   If we remember Spirituality from the old literatures, before America conquered the World and imposed the New Way of Seeing Everything, then we can see that Spiritual Enlightenment implied something of a Meld and Partnership between the Individual and Something Higher… something VERY Higher, a God, or at least some very significant Universal Oneness, some Central Modal Point, some kind of Cosmic Consciousness that transcended the Self…the most important point being that the decision was not entirely up to the Individual, but was rather in the hands of the more Superior Being involved.   

So traditionally we have the view that God, or Whatever, decides whether we can be Enlightened or not.  Yes,  today we roll our eyes and wave off with our hands the idea that the Universe might have anything to do in the matter and assert that Enlightenment is, ‘dagnabit’, ours for the grabbing.  Well, it is understood that there are some stipulations, for instance ,the New Age Movement insists we can get absolutely nowhere unless we exercise the most proper Techniques, and they, entirely for our convenience,  certainly make the knowledge of them available to us… in outline form in their reasonably priced books, but for all the important details you should probably need to go to one of their weekend seminars, for about $700 dollars.   Not bad considering that it includes complimentary drinks at the hotel bar.   

Well, if this Modern American view of Spirituality is so correct, then, please, where are all the Spiritually Enlightened People?   It seems that Spiritually Enlightened People are like Unicorns – we here all about them but never see any.  

The Big Problem with this Non-Attainment of Spiritual Enlightenment by anybody might be because the Great Cosmic Consciousness has put some kind of a Hold on it.  I remember from years ago, this very old Zen Master in Japan was worried that nobody was attaining Satori anymore, and so he arranged in Japan a huge national workshop and convention that was to go on for weeks, that is, all the time it used to take to drive prepared Zen Monks into the Satori Zone.  It was a very big deal and all of the best Monks in Japan showed up for it.  Guess what?  The Placebo Effect was well in force and many Monks rolled on the floor in Blissful Response to all of the Scheduled goings on.  But the Old Man who organized it all questioned everybody and went over all of the results afterward in the clear light of day , and guess what?  It was all for nothing, except to find out that it seemed that all of the Traditional Techniques were now quite useless.  Nobody attained Satori.  

You know, well, we all know, that Collectively Speaking, the World has quite Rejected God, or the Cosmic Being, or whatever we want to call It.  We now, collectively, with far too few exceptions to matter, worship the Individual, like they do in America where everyone, or everyone that ‘matters’, is so successful.  And if we, collectively, thank God for anything, it is that God choses to reward people who put the most effort into advancing their own personal agendas, that is, we thank God for being a such a good Presbyterian .  We thank God that He finally came around and reconsidered and decided that Lucifer had been right all along.   

But what if God were a Moral God, and not this Satanic Construct created by the Modern World, and what if this Real Moral God looked at the prevailing wave of selfish greed and Individualism as some kind of vast plebiscite, a vote by humanity, between basic Good or basic  Evil, and since Humanity had voted for Evil, then He, the God of Goodness, decided that we should all be Collectively Rejected. 

We might now be in a situation where there really is no Enlightenment anymore.  Spirituality, as a Source Spring, has All been turned off.   We are a hateful selfish contemptible bunch of slimy worms staining the face of a planet that used to be clean and blue until we took it over and pushed it headlong into decadence and ruin.  The Grace of God is Gone.  We, collectively, no longer deserve it.  And there is nothing any individual can do about it.