“Do I have to become a monk and sit in a cave to have wild incredible states of enlightenment, pure bliss, pure joy, pure ecstasy? Or can I continue to participate in the world?”
This is what one of my clients asked me when he began to investigate the idea of killing his drunk monkey. The death of the drunk monkey is how you reach an enlightened state–the drunk monkey doesn’t talk to you anymore. And believe me, it will be the happiest day of your life!
So, my client says, “I’m afraid because I’m on Wall Street and I’m successful. What if I go to a place of total detachment and just want to bow out in life and not do anything?” and said, “Yo, that is your drunk monkey being afraid of getting into a place of enlightened joy. No, you don’t have to sit in the cave. You don’t have to deprive yourself of life. You don’t have to renounce the world in order for you to get into unbelievable states of joy.” In fact, you can speed up the process of getting to joy by being in these contrasting states that you experience in your world; consider that everything in your world right now is an opportunity to give you more joy, more peace, more love, more fulfillment by demonstrating or showing you the opposite; contrast is the key.
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