There are many of us who question and search, trying somehow to resolve our inner feelings of chaos. You study different philosophies and religions, turning to art, spiritual exercises, prayer and meditation. Sometimes do you think you have it all finally figured out, but then the answers don’t stick. The deeper you go, the more difficult the questions become. The intellectual approach doesn’t resolve anything satisfactorily. You need to find an answer that is complete and final, which puts all the chaos into some kind of order, so you find a teacher, join a class and it feels like the right way to go. Maybe it’s Kototama, Zen, or something else. You spend some time seriously practicing and find yourself expecting immediate enlightenment or the mastery of some special power. This is a mistake. There is a general misunderstanding about exactly this, especially among young people.

No one receives instant enlightenment or power, no matter how serious they are. Some historical records might give this impression, but it just isn’t so. If something like that did happen to you, it would be very dangerous. You shouldn’t expect it.

If we could understand I AM, what it is to be a human being, the manifestation itself of the total universe, it would really be the greatest enlightenment. Nothing can be bigger than the totality; no more magnificent or beautiful.

My Past Way of Budo (M.M. Nakazono,1978)