You have to understand one thing: that enlightenment is not an escape from pain but an understanding of pain, an understanding of your anguish, an understanding of your misery — not a cover-up, not a substitute, but a deep insight: “Why am I miserable, why is there so much anxiety, why is there so much anguish, what are the causes in me that are creating it?” And to see those causes clearly is to be free from them. Just an insight into your misery brings a freedom from misery. And what remains is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that comes to you. It is when pain and misery and anguish and anxiety have been understood perfectly well and they have evaporated because now they have no cause to exist in you — that state is enlightenment.
