Chapter 9

ENLIGHTENMENT

 

“Attempts to wake before our time are often punished, especially by those who love us most. Because they, bless them, are asleep. They think anyone who wakes up, or who, still asleep, realizes that what is taken to be real is a ‘dream’ is going crazy.”

― R.D. Laing

 

Another synonym for awakening is “enlightenment,” and in any tradition is a tricky, loaded, and often misunderstood word. It has some misleading connotations because it conjures up so many things. For example, if you believe that ‘you’ as an individual person are enlightened, there may be some confusion about the relative aspect of this.

According to Vedanta, if ‘you,’ the buddhi, (‘intuitive intelligence’ or ‘the higher mind’) knows this, then it’s not the same as thinking that ‘you’ are a separate person. Without this insight, akhandakara vrritti, (formless or undivided thought form), there is no realization. Vedanta says the bottom line is that you can’t have an insight without the buddhi aspect of the mind to recognize this akhandakara vrritti.

If you don’t have certain pre-requisites, you will never know it. The same way that a cow or a goat may have no thoughts or an unconditioned mind, but that doesn’t mean it has the buddhi aspect of the mind to realize it. So you could ask, does a cow have Buddha nature? Yes they do, but they don’t have a buddhi to realize their Buddha nature. To be enlightened you have to be enlightened on an empirical day-to-day, moment-to-moment level. What you come to realize is that there is no one on an absolute level to be enlightened, no one to attain anything, and no one who can make this claim. Awareness is not enlightened because who you are, meaning non-dual awareness, was always this. Still, that doesn’t mean that an apparent person does not exist, or that an apparent person doesn’t have to know this. The identification to this unclear, obstructed, fettered, ignorant mind is the problem, and the mind is also the solution.

‘Enlightenment’ in Vedanta is the moment in time when ‘you’ know that you are non-dual awareness or that Atman (the self), which equals Brahman or the self with a capital S. In the Vedanta tradition one understands the relationship between awareness and all other objects—subtle and gross, external and internal. The ignorance is removed to reveal what is already there and the gnosis of what has occurred. A metaphor often used is about being like a burning corpse in a funeral pyre. The mind is like the stick that prods the corpse. At some point this stick ignites and gets consumed by the flames, and the stick and the corpse both end in the same ashes.

The Vedanta tradition says that enlightenment is knowing that you are a case of mistaken identity. They often use the term neti neti, which means knowing what you are not. This can be seen through a process of negation (neti neti), knowing that you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not your feelings or your thoughts, and so on. The next step is seeing what you are and what is there, which is nothing and everything. What you are (awareness) is not really ‘seeable,’ but can be known through self-inquiry, meditation, shock, or some kind of mystical experience. It could be anything that suddenly shuts down the mind. This nothingness/everything-ness, when the body/mind is not there, is awareness, and this awareness is you.

However, you have to know what you are and who you are, even if you can't describe it. You have to know beyond symbols, pointers, and words such as awareness, consciousness, love, being-ness, etc. Then, understanding that this nothingness/everythingness that is seen in the mystical experiences of oneness is what you are.

This is when the subject/object dissolves. Then comes the understanding that what is seen is paradoxically not in the seer. Subsequently, it is understanding that this level of the absolute and the everyday level of empirical reality are paradoxically one. This ‘one’ is the absolute unchanging, timeless, infinite, ever-present reality. It is ineffable and cannot be seen or understood with the mind because the mind is finite. Only the reflection of this can be seen by the buddhi, which manifests as nothingness/everythingness.

What is seen is impermanent and changing; the empirical and relative reality we call existence, being, and life. This is a dependent reality. On an absolute level, it is not real (even though it is to a degree), but no more real than a dream, because it is transient and because enlightenment takes place in the mind of the person whose self-ignorance has been eradicated.

There still is a mind (thoughts, images, sounds), but it’s not belonging to anyone. Then the mind becomes aware that it was ignorant, and as a result of this a kind of resignation, and surrender occurs. Acceptance happens. A sublation takes place and the struggle and fight between who you are and the seeking comes to an end.

Enlightenment is also knowing without a doubt that you are not your mind, your thoughts, your ego, or your body, and knowing that you are not a separate entity. 

If you were not born like Ramana Maharshi, free of negative samskara, then there can be degrees of this holiness in terms of the jiva (soul or self) aspect. The jiva may still not be so pure. That is if one no longer has any attachments, cravings, or desires. One may be a sage, wise about this knowledge, like a philosopher such as Plato, but not be truly liberated.

In Vedanta true liberation is referred to as ‘one without a second,’ or Brahman. They say this is a crucial part of Vedantic understanding: seeing that your sense of self (ego) is clearly a false fabrication. Usually what follows is an unfolding or a flowering. However, in either case, awakening /enlightenment /liberation is seldom static. It is more of an evolving state of inner transformation.

The problem, it seems, is that people can realize this but still have conditionings that cause problems for themselves or others. They may know that they are God, so to speak, on an absolute level, but on this ordinary mundane level of the relative world, they do not behave or act like God, meaning that they are free from all the worldly afflictions of greed and ill will on a relative level and not just on an absolve level. 

Sri Nisargadatta, an Indian Advaita sage, (but not a traditional Vedanta teacher) suggests working on the mental purification and the cleaning of the psyche: “Just as a speck in the eye may cause inflammation and may wipe out the world, so is the mistaken idea, ‘I am the body/mind.’” This, however, can take years, even a lifetime, before one is ready for self-inquiry. The knowledge will not necessarily stick if there are residual conditionings, because one will repeatedly fall back into Samsara by one’s actions, thoughts, desires, aversions, and choices that are brought on by these conditionings. It would be like attempting to climb Mount Everest on a daily basis. You can practice this with anything. Whatever you do, work or play, do it with complete awareness and the understanding and focus that what you are doing is not a personal doing. Make everything your guru, your teacher, no matter what it is. Everything is an opportunity to learn about oneself, to test oneself, to find out how free one really is.

Two traditional ways of doing this are through the process of negation (neti neti) and self-inquiry. Through these two ways one can come to the realization that one is not the mind/body complex, but rather non-dual awareness. It is like unraveling the layers of an onion. This is much more than simply asking the question “Who am I?” It involves paying attention and deeply watching oneself at all times from the point of the higher witness, Awareness Itself. It’s the same as the process of Vipassana. Watching one’s feelings, instincts, impulses, reactions, perceptions, and imaginations in every situation, no matter what you are doing or saying, then looking for the source from where all of these things arise. When this source is found, one can stay there and witness the false egoic self from this place.

Sri Ramana Maharshi once said, “We are all born into this world within a physical body, but we existed long before this physical incarnation, and we will exist long after this physical body expires.” In asking the question “Who am I?” one can begin to see that one is not one’s cognitive sensory organs of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. That one is not the movement of the body, the location of the body, the excreting, the grasping, or the sexual procreating of the body. One is not the breath, the blood, the flesh, or the biological functions of the body. One is not the mind, the thoughts, or the impressions of the mind. One is awareness, pure consciousness, which is never born and will never die.

One way of looking at it could be that the purpose of this physical body is to learn why it’s even there and how to use it to find release from it. The senses of the body, the eyes, ears, and so on, are like the windows and doors of awareness. However, the body is not a container for awareness. Awareness cannot be contained or put into a box or localized in a separate shell (a bag of skin).

There is just one awareness. Awareness isn’t like an individual soul. The nature of the mind is analogous to an internal video—an auditory, tactile, olfactory, and sensory collection of one’s past and one’s projection of the future. The external world is the internal product of this one mind—awareness—and there is no independent world from this mind, meaning that it is all awareness, both subject and object. This is where it becomes confusing because the ego comes in and claims this as being ‘my mind,’ ‘my reasoning,’ ‘my intellect,’ ‘my thought processes,’ ‘my perceptions,’ etc.

However, before you get to this final step, you have to first see that the mind is like a stream. For example, in deep sleep or in deep states of meditation (samadhi), there is no world. There is only pure awareness, a pure wave-less ocean. This awareness is always there. It is the one constant that never leaves. This cannot be negated no matter how hard you try. Everything else can, but not this. Even in a near death experience this is still there. In a coma it is still there. Only in waking states or in dreams is there a world or waves that seem to arise. In the waking state, the worldly experience seems real, just as it does in the dream state.

The internal reality of arising objects—the perceptions and thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, pain, etc.—that the mind believes it sees and interprets is such-ness or is-ness. What happens is that these get distorted through one’s beliefs, views, opinions, values, conditionings, education, and cognitive interpretations through one’s senses and filters.

The goal is to see through all the filters, views, opinions, conditionings, judgments, all values, all movements of the mind and perceptions of the body, and anything else that is superimposed on awareness. When these are all striped away, you can see reality as it clearly is: as pure awareness in every single moment throughout the day. It is seamless because in reality, there are not even moments.

There is no past, present, or even a future. Neither is there a now. You cannot break down infinite and eternal awareness into time fragments. Awareness is outside of psychological time and space. In actuality, this physical world that we interpret through our neurochemistry and sensory organs is in no way complete reality. For example, the reality of a bat and its use of sound for aerial navigation is not the same as the reality of a cat. A dolphin’s reality is not the same as the reality of an owl with its extraordinary night vision. Scientists have discovered that robins can see the earth’s magnetic field and use this for navigation. What we are able to see through our sense of sight is not all there is. There are documented cases of people with psychic abilities that have x-ray vision and can see cancer tumors growing in the bones. The ordinary small mind is a finite instrument that does not have the capability to perceive an infinite world, but one’s awareness can because that’s what it is.

In order for this awareness to recognize itself, the instrument of this small mind has to be enlightened to this fact. It has to know what it is—a mistaken identity.

When one is able to see the reality that one’s true nature is body-less and eternal, only then is one liberated from the distortions, illusions, and ignorance of the mechanical mind/brain and ego structure. You won’t be able to see awareness with the mind, because the mind is an object, but it is all about this. Many have tried to set up all sorts of novel ways of doing this.

The Russian mystic George Gurdjieff attempted to devise methods of doing this. He synthesized strands from Buddhism, yogic, and Western alchemical views, Christian Gnosticism, as well as incorporating ideas available from science and psychology. The three traditional ways of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi require withdrawal from worldly life in order for one to make spiritual progress. This meant a life of austere body, mind, and emotion, but according to Gurdjieff, spiritual advancement can be made while living in everyday situations and normal circumstances. ‘Self-remembering’ was a set of principles he used to help create self-awareness and to guide one's actions. Self-remembering is based on Vipassana meditation. Satipathana more or less means the same as ‘self-remembering.’ Gurdjieff said, “To self-remember, one needs to be aware of one's actions throughout the day, including observation of one’s identification with various mental habits, such as inner dialogue, imagination, daydreaming, and so on.” In addition, Gurdjieff taught similar ways of creating a gap between one’s mind and this awareness. For example, whenever one felt a desire to eat, sneeze, scratch oneself, or to drink, he would ask them to consider it for a moment and then to suddenly stop, to ‘freeze and don’t do it.’

The intention of doing these exercises was to be in a constant state of self-awareness and to experience the witness and the higher consciousness at all times. You can do this in all activities no matter what they are.

THERAVADA BUDDHISM

In Theravada Buddhism, enlightenment is the result of a deep understanding of the Four Noble Truths and a series of many insights (about 16) that lead to wisdom. But there is some danger in even reading about these, because the suggestible mind can start playing games with itself, like make believe that it’s already at a certain stage and all sorts of self-delusion. To name just one of these insights: is the dukkha phase and the insight/knowledge derived from this are often referred to in Western traditions as ‘the dark night of the soul.’ 

According to Vedanta, a true jivanmukta (someone or a soul that is liberated) is similar to the first and final stage of enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism attributed to an árhat or arahant,[1] which is Sanskrit for ‘enlightened one, holy one’ or ‘one worthy of worship.’ An arahant is a combination of a saint and a sage, both wise and holy. (See chapter on nirvana for more about the arahant and wrong views associated with this.)

Enlightenment, or Nibanna in Theravada Buddhism, is the end of the line and a peaceful state of mind where one is free from all cravings, desires, anger, and other afflictive emotional states. There is no more craving to be reborn. It can take a long time for this to become clear and for the next stage to occur. This next stage, enlightenment, is the permanent and complete liberation from the negative conditioning and bad habits, which in turn allows for the cultivation and expression of positive actions like compassion, patience, equanimity, joy, generosity, loving kindness, and so much more. Vedanta refers to this as Self-realization or actualization, when you live and embody this day to day.

But again, self-realization will only happen with the right practice and self-discipline mentioned above. Without it, the odds are that you will end up with a ‘psychological enlightenment’ or a theoretical, philosophical kind of unbalanced, lopsided, or unstable enlightenment. At worst, you will find yourself with a depersonalization or a dissociative disorder, which can lead to all sorts of instability. It’s actually quite common for this to happen with contemporary non-dual teachings.

If there is a process involved as far as the understanding is concerned, it is not so much a linear process, but a natural flowering. It blossoms on its own. It is more like a seamless, gradual unveiling, a knowing and understanding, an unraveling and unbinding. It’s kind of like unwinding a ball of string with knots in it. This is why one person may have relinquished all fears and desires while another continues to have fears and desires even after enlightenment. The process involves one’s practice and karma. This has to be one of the most misunderstood aspects of enlightenment and is the cause of much suffering and disillusionment.

Being aware of one’s thought processes, one’s emotions, and one’s ego could be effective in the stages after an initial awakening to check, identify, and see if there are any traces of self or ego left. Something to watch for is the presence of lingering triggers. There are many ways of practicing this.

Continue to Part 10