An Article By Christopher Pei

 

The Path to Enlightenment 

 

Life doesn't have answers. Life only gives out experiences. What we do with those experiences is totally up to us: use them to grow spiritually or use them to be dragged down. In the end, it is what we have learned from our experiences and what we have done with that information that causes a transformation. 

In the search for the truth of life, also known as seeking enlightenment, we find ourselves mentally battling with many different conflicting and opposing ideas before understanding comes to us. 

As we begin to change our ideas, there is a period of confusion and frustration. The changes occur gradually, but the enlightenment is a sudden realization or understanding. 

Teaching a child studying arithmetic the concept of division provides a good example of dealing with conflicting and opposing ideas: To understand how to divide, the child has to first understand how to multiply. Before understanding multiplication, the child must understand the principles of addition. To check addition problems, it is necessary to understand how subtraction works. Before all of this is possible, the value of each number needs to be recognized. 

You can see the confusion and frustration on a child's face as he grapples with these ideas. But, out of nowhere, the child will cry out, "I understand, now." 

Many events that we face in our daily life have the same contradictions. The question we should ask ourselves is can we understand the differences and learn from them.