Jed McKenna

“I don’t see it as my role to save or rescue anybody any more than regular people feel the need to rescue each other from sleeping and dreaming.”

“Wake up first. Wake up, and then you can double back and perhaps be of some use to others if you still have the urge. Wake up first, with pure and unapologetic selfishness, or you’re just another shipwreck victim floundering in the ocean and all the compassion in the world is of absolutely no use to the other victims floundering around you.”

“The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth.”

“There’s nothing left to contend against and nothing left that must be done, and there will never be anything that must be done ever again.”

“The bottom line remains the same: you’re either awake or you’re not.One day, there it is. Nothing. No more enemies, no more battles.”

“The point is to wake up, not to earn a Ph.D. In waking up.”

“I don’t have something you don’t; you believe something I don’t.”

“Enlightenment is the unprogrammed state.”

“It’s ego – the false self – that exalts the guru and declares the teaching sacred, but nothing is exalted or sacred, only true or not true.”

“Enlightenment isn’t when you go there; it’s when there comes here.”

“Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.”

“It is your show.It is your universe.There is no one else here, just you,and nothing is being withheld from you.You are completely on your own.Everything is available for direct knowing.No one else has anything you need.No one else can lead you, pull you, push you or carry you.”