Trying to find peace and enlightenment

 Peace and enlightenment come from realizing you are already enlightened. 

I can remember driving to a remote fire lookout around 1985 when I worked for the State of California as a Fire Lookout in addition to my then wife and I owning several businesses. Mainly the health insurance for the 5 of us (three kids) I couldn't pass up then because health insurance (for the whole family) is very hard to afford for most people who are small business owners here in the U.S. and this was in 1985.

And I was driving near sunset across ranch land to get to my lookout which overlooks all the way across the Sacramento Valley to the Sierras. So, on a clear day you can literally "See Forever" including the snow capped peaks of the Sierras on a clear day from the lookout then around April or May of 1985.

I looked over and it was sort of getting gold out from the sun nearly setting and I saw a beautiful Buck Deer with huge antlers like Bambi's Dad in the Bambi movie and I was completely blown away because I realized this guy might have never seen a human being in his whole life because he lived so remote from people in these mountains. And he walked up to the lake which was glistening in the fading sunlight and I experienced "The Enlightenment" of Pure Being watching this Buck who didn't see me and I have never been the same since that moment.

I realized in that one moment that none of us really need to do anything to become enlightened but just to BE really who we are. That is enlightenment where you are not believing anything anyone else is telling you and you are completely purely yourself out in nature. I experienced what enlightenment was in that one pure moment and it has changed me ever since.

Then within a few months I traveled with my family for 4 to 5 months from December of 1985 until April of 1986 to Thailand and India and Nepal until I had to get back to the lookout for one season again for May 1986. 

And while I was in India and Nepal with my family and a friend who was a Tibetan Lama he told me what enlightenment really was from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. This is what he told me: 

He said: "enlightenment is like you are on a stage and someone draws the curtain back and you realize you are already there, already enlightened.

It's not about striving to become enlightened because you are inherently already enlightened. There is no forcing it. There is no striving for it because you are already there. 

All you need is to experience that you are enlightened just like that Buck Deer with huge antlers like Bambi's Daddy in the movie.

You are already there. Just experience it!

And once you experience this even for a moment you can go back there over and over and over again until this is a full time experience 24 hours a day.

Stop trying to train yourself to be someone you are not ever going to be.

Just Be Yourself.

Be enlightened in every moment of your life!

Be at peace.

Spread Kindness to yourself and all beings.

"God is here" wherever you are and wherever anyone realizes that they are enlightened to and just experiences it even for a moment's time.

We are all Children of God. Every living thing every living Being in the universe is a child of God whether human, animal or plant or rock or planet or star or nebula or Galaxy.

All are God.

By God's Grace