Acharya Mahaprajna
Human birth is a rare thing and enlightenment is rarer. The time of death of the Jewish saint, Monees, was drawing near. A priest standing nearby was reciting an invocation. He said: "Think of Christ! The last moment is come." Monees opened his eyes and said, "Get away from here! Do not invoke the name of Christ before me!" The priest was stunned; so were all others. What had happened to Monees? The priest said, "All your life you sang his praises; thousands of people too own him. And what are you doing now? Undoing all your reputation!" Monees said: "I know. But I am faced with an individual problem. Christ would not ask why I did not become Christ; he would demand why I could not be wholly Monees."
To be what one is, is enlightenment. He, who, having found all else, has missed enlightenment, has really found nothing. And he who has found enlightenment, even though he has failed to find anything else, has really found everything. After death, one is cut off from everything. All is lost: it is not one's property. But enlightenment is always one's own: it is the thing to be sought. One passes through innumerable births and deaths, but does not come to realize one's true individuality. The wholeness, which exists before birth and after death - to go in search of that, is the objective of the bhavana of enlightenment.
Acharya Shubhchandra has said: “The sadhak who roams in bhavanas, has a glimpse of radiant bliss in this very life. The fire of passions dies in him, attachment to heterogeneous substances is ended, ignorance uprooted, and the lamp of understanding is ignited in his heart."
