If you want to experience the fullest and noblest expression of being a human being, great.

Few choose for this. Most, most of the time, choose for comfort and the delights of the senses.

Fewer still have the capacity to go all the way to the top of the mountain, and come into that beautiful, rarified expression of sat-chit-anand.

This is due to the nature of path. It is, for the majority of the time, a steep and grueling uphill climb with few periods of rest. (If it gets you there, does that matter?)

For the entire journey, you will be in a broken state—constantly battling, in one form or another, some impediment that prevents you from taking the next step and the one after that. All the while wondering, “Why am I doing this?”

While the manifestations of them are endless, these impediments are, in essence, our attachments to people, places, and things—the most challenging of which, being the attachment to who we think we are, or the “I-thought” as many have called it.

One-by-one-by-one, according to our readiness and ability to bear the discomfort that will be caused by their release, these attachments are plucked—making us lighter and more transparent as we go.

Enlightenment, you could say, is really best thought of in terms of the loss of weight.