Elaine Harris

a prawn of the universe

In this episode, in this series on Received Wisdom, I'm going to be talking about Elaine Harris. Elaine was my reiki master. She taught me the master level of Reiki. But she also embodied the enlightened state of being. And though she doesn't sell herself as a spiritual teacher, for me, that's exactly what she is.

And when I think of Elaine, there are a couple of phrases that she used to use fairly often that spring to mind. The first is: I am a prawn of the universe. What she means by this is each of us is nothing but a pawn – or in her humorous turn of phrase, a prawn – a pawn of the universe, we're pushed around on a chessboard. We're part of a game that's being played, but we're not in control.

We want to be in control. We like to think that we are in control of our life. We like to think that we are in control of all sorts of things. We are not. That's the simple truth. Each of us is a pawn, or rather a prawn, drifting around, being pushed this way and that by the currents of life.

The other phrase, though, that I want to talk more about, was the most challenging teaching for me, one that I resisted till the very end. And that teaching is: enlightenment doesn't change a thing.

I didn't want to hear that during my years of searching. There was a huge resistance to it in me. And it's quite simple to see why. Most of us embark on the spiritual search through dissatisfaction. We are malcontents. There's something wrong in our life, and we've tried all the normal ways of being happy: earning lots of money, having sex, relationships, homebuilding, stable job. You know all the things that society thinks that we should have, and we expect them to make us happy. And sometimes some of them do, briefly. But in the end, we are let down by all these things that are supposed to bring us happiness.

And that's the reason most of us turn to spirituality. It's another way to find happiness. We want to be fixed, we want to be changed. We're really trying to escape from this dissatisfaction and we think enlightenment will do that for us. And if we're being honest, that's what's's driving us. It's not really that we simply long to come home to god. It's not that we really want to live in truth, for the sake of truth. What we're really after is an escape from misery. And as long as our spiritual quest is one of an escape, we're not going to get anywhere.

And that's why it's important to take on board this teaching of Elaine's. Enlightenment doesn't change a thing. It's shocking. But only if you accept that, can your spiritual path become one that is not an escape.

And it's absolutely correct, enlightenment doesn't change a thing. You've probably heard a similar teaching in different words, that you are already enlightened, you just haven't realised it yet. And when enlightenment comes, you'll realise that: you've always been enlightened. And enlightenment is not suddenly a great change in who you are. and the outer circumstances of life don't suddenly change. Nothing changes in that sense.

What does happen is that this urge to escape, this demand for things to be different to how they are, can disappear. But in that, enlightenment hasn't changed anything in your life. It's just your response to life has changed.

So it was a tough teaching for me, and one that took many years to sink into me, to reach the marrow. And now I give thanks to Elaine for that difficult teaching. That enlightenment doesn't change a thing.