What did the Buddha ask for at the hot dog stand?

There is an old joke. What did the Buddha ask for at the hot dog stand? He said, "Make me one with everything." This is a light-hearted reference to what we call illusion OR duality OR maya, and asking to be made ONE (non-duality) with everything (the Universe, the cosmos, everyone and everything in our environment) . It is what the sages talk about, and exhort us to develop an understanding of. Life as we know it is an illusion - to go beyond this illusion is Enlightenment. Couched in these words makes Enlightenment a difficult goal, because words like Illusion, Duality, and Maya appear to be out of the realm of an average person, no matter how intelligent (intelligence and spirituality are not synonyms).

Reams and reams and reams have been written about this subject. My penchant for simplicity of thought, no matter how complex the subject, to make this profound truth easy to understand is one of the primary reasons for writing this blog. From where I stand, a result of the knowledge garnered along the way while on my own journey of searching for the experience of 'truth' I'd like to say, 'yes, this is hard' and 'yes, this is easy'. It will be hard, so long as we refuse to be open to hearing new information, which most people do because it sounds so foreign to their existing belief system. And yet, it can be so easy, if we allow a ray of light, to light up the dark space inside us, which certainly needs courage because we are on uncharted territory, and it is natural to feel fear.

In the early days of my journey, I remember tellig a friend, 'I am walking where there is no path - there isn't even any flat gorund where I'm walking. But the compulsion and desire to search for my truth is so strong that I have hewn paths on rocks - paths that were non-existant.'

Are you curious? Do you have the courage?

Kiki ;-)
P.S. My request to those who 'borrow' from this blog is to please give adequate credit to the source of the borrowed information - whether me, or books and people I quote from. Thank you.