What is awakening like?

What is awakening like?

There’s a story about Ramirez.
He is old and living up there in his castle on a hill.
He looks out the window (he’s in bed and paralyzed) and he sees his enemy.
Old as he is, leaning on a cane, his enemy is climbing up the hill - slowly, painfully.
It takes him about two and a half hours to get up the hill.
There’s nothing Ramirez can do because the servants have the day off.
So his enemy opens the door, comes straight to the bedroom, puts his hand inside his cloak, and pulls out a gun.
He says, “At last, Ramirez, we’re going to settle scores!”
Ramirez tries his level best to talk him out of it.
He says, “Come on, Borgia, you can’t do that.
You know I’m no longer the man who ill-treated you as that youngster years ago, and you’re no longer that youngster. Come off it!”
“Oh no,” says his enemy, “your sweet words aren’t going to deter me from this divine mission of mine. It’s revenge I want and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
And Ramirez says, “But there is!”
“What?” asks his enemy.
“I can wake up,” says Ramirez. And he did; he woke up!

That’s what enlightenment is like.
When someone tells you, “There is nothing you can do about it,”
you say, “There is, I can wake up!”

Awareness

Anthony de Mello