When you’re feeling enlightened, slap yourself in the face

There are times when you’re meditating really hard and you start to have some feeling of enlightenment. You walk around and think, “La la la la la, I’m feeling pretty good about how I’m feeling, la la la la la.” When that happens, the best thing you can do is slap yourself in the face really hard, or have someone else do it for you.

The most recent example for me came a few months ago when I was practicing really hard and reading the book, Polishing the Mirror, by Ram Dass. It’s one of my favorite spiritual books, and in it he talks about how the Maharaji (Neem Karoli Baba) was a true guru here on Earth. Not a teacher, but a real guru, an enlightened being. It was sad that he could read people’s minds, and that students used to bow down and wash and kiss his feet.

I went from this book to another book called love everyone, by Parvati Markus, which is a book about the Maharaji and his many famous students. It seemed like a natural reading progression, and I had high hopes for it.

So, feeling all self-enlightened and “la la la la la” like, I opened the book, saw a picture of the Maharaji, and instantly thought, “Wow, he’s fat. Really, really fat. He’s huge! I don’t even like to look at pictures of myself, and this guy might be twice my size. I don’t want to see pictures of this guy without his shirt on.”

Being all enlightened like, you’d think that I might have calmed down quickly, but a few moments later I thought, “Wow, Ram Dass said the Maharaji was a true spiritual being here on Earth, a real guru, but he couldn’t even control his own weight.” I was totally blown away by how fat this guy was. Previously I could relate to the guy because his face looked like own of my uncles, but this just stopped me in my tracks.

After some period of time I did come to accept things as they are, but this was a real slap in the face for me: “So, you think you’re enlightened? How about this? How are those preconceived notions treating you now? Didn’t know you had them, did you? Bam!”

(In a slight defense of myself, I have since learned that many other people had the same initial reaction to Maharaji’s size. Even Ram Dass mentions it as one of his initial reactions to seeing him.)