how long does it take?

So, how long is it going to take, this spiritual journey?

Nobody knows at the outset but typically, from beginning a spiritual search to reaching enlightenment might take about twenty years. This is the time frame you should be accepting when you embark on this journey. Of course it can happen quicker to some lucky souls and for others even their whole life is not enough. Yet, if you search diligently, if you strive, if you can find the humility then, in a sense, enlightenment is guaranteed.

This is one of the paradoxes that becomes apparent as we undertake the journey. In terms of the commitment, yes, forget about doing anything else for the rest of your life and if you are lucky, in a couple of decades, you will find yourself in paradise but by then you will not be worried about whether you reach enlightenment or not. The later stages of the path are full of paradox but we are not there yet, we are at the beginning of the path. Here we should feel that we are looking after some newborn baby, our spirit, waiting to grow within us, needing to be nurtured, protected, fed. How long would you look after a newborn child for? Ten years at least, fifteen years normally, twenty years perhaps. This is the same sort of timeframe that our spirit needs nurturing before it can stand alone, whole, magnificent, at rest in life, in beauty and in truth.

Do not expect everything to be over quickly, probably within a year or two you will think yourself to be enlightened, and probably you’ll be deluding yourself. Stick with it, continue through the ups and downs. There will be many benefits along the way. You’ll become more peaceful even early on in the journey. But accept that this spiritual journey has its own rhythm, its own timeframe. For most of us that is many years. Do not worry too much about attaining enlightenment quickly. Actually when it comes you will have the feeling that it arrived at just the right time. In any case, at that moment, you will feel yourself to have always been enlightened, so there was no need to rush.