Ahh, the perennial ‘enlightenment’ question.
Does enlightenment really exist? Does anybody really get ‘enlightened?’ If it’s not sham, how do we do it?
I’m working on a new book, “The Folly of Enlightenment” (out late 2019 - early 2020) Here’s an excerpt from it that, hopefully, will help simplify this nagging question:
ENLIGHTENMENT SIMPLIFIED
There is no enlightenment. ‘Enlightenment’ is a human mind word, and ‘transcending’ into the ‘enlightened state’ is a human mind concept, born out of mind’s yearning to end suffering. Everything is already perfect, exactly as it is. Only the human mind (and apparently only the human species,) ever assesses & concludes that moving from its current state to an ‘enlightened state’ is desirable or paramount.
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What appears to be a lack of ‘enlightenment’ or lack of being in one’s natural state is simply the mind identifying itself as a separate entity. Nothing more.
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The instant this false identity called mind or “me’ is disbelieved fully, and collapses, all that’s left is the One Reality and the natural Flow of Life. There is no longer sense of a separate ‘self’ that exists, or ever existed, apart from That. Like a momentarily upthrust water droplet collapsing back into the River and flow, unaware of ever being separate.
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Like any entity that believes it’s real, the mind will do everything to protect and survive itself, to keep from dying or collapsing. As such, mind will never allow ‘us’ to collapse it, to bring it to ‘enlightenment,’ permanently silence it, transcend it or even invalidate it. Not only because it fears its own ‘death,’ but moreover, because it likes itself, likes the familiarity of the world its created, likes and is attached to ‘good’ feelings (love, sex, eating, accomplishment, pride) it can experience, and even the ‘tough’ times & challenges (illness, insolvency, depression, tragedy, loss) it encounters. It likes the challenge of applying itself to ‘figure things out,’ and prove it can be the arbiter of a successful solution, thus validating its ‘reality.’ That’s just mind being mind. Doing it’s job. Mind isn’t supposed to ‘get enlightened.’ The mind is addicted to the ‘known,’ because it’s addicted to control so it doesn’t ‘die.’ It will get very freaked out if it wakes up and everything is radically different and uncontrollable, which is what it would have to experience if it collapsed.
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This collapse of separate me-mind cannot be caused by desire, despair, trauma, any ‘spiritual practices,’ inquiry, learning or any mind-activity reduction/renouncing like meditation, because all those yearnings, practices and activities emanate from mind, and therefore only serve to reinforce the belief that mind is real, a real separate entity, rather than inducing its collapse. It can only be a sudden, stunning, all-encompassing and totally spontaneous collapse that happens or not, out of ‘our’ control (Actually nothing ‘happens’, since That which mind collapses into is what We already ‘are,’ All That Is.)
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It is erroneous to say that the only thing that can or does cause that collapse is Reality or Grace Itself, when Itdeems (although, in the interim, that is more ‘spiritually accurate’ than saying mind-me-practicer is the ‘doer’ and ‘causer,’) because Reality is incapable of caring if some imaginary phantom, that doesn’t exist, does or doesn’t ‘get enlightened.’ It sees only its Whole Self. It doesn’t see ‘individuals’ struggling against human suffering or un-enlightenment. Even to say Reality ‘sees’ its Whole Self is erroneous because Reality doesn’t see anything, Reality just Is, and is pure spontaneous function.
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The collapse of the false mind-me has a ready analogy in night dreaming. Every night, we hallucinate a dream world and a dream entity/identity that, while in it, we swear is totally real and totally happening. Upon waking in the morning, that entire world and all ‘selves’ in it completely collapses, as does any belief that it was real. Yet, while the dream was happening, no one could convince you it was unreal. If a friend walked with you in your dream on a narrow road and said, “This is just a dream. If a car comes, it can’t hurt us, we can stand in front of it and let it pass right through us,” you would not believe them, and will still jump out of the way if a dream car comes barreling around the corner.
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So, once again, mind cannot cause its own collapse and demise, it’s own disbelief in itself, so there can be no practices that lead to ’enlightenment.’ They may lead to enjoyable, blissful, even ( transitory) transcendent ‘experiences,’ samadhis and ‘ego-less,’ non-dual ‘states,’ but not full, supreme collapse or ‘enlightenment.’ That collapse will either (seem to) happen or not, and apparently (out of some 250 billion humans that have lived & died on Earth,) it happens very rarely. Maybe once in a 25 million humans (.01%.)
So do whatever you do, including spiritual practices, simply because you love it, and relax. ‘You’ need have no concern over whether ‘enlightenment’ is real or whether you’re ever going to ‘get there.’ That’s just your mind, standing in the way of It. You’re fine and will always be fine.
Reading this will, of course, not ‘make you enlightened.’ But I hope it was enjoyable, and I sincerely hope it makes you relax about all that mental nonsense and enjoy your life.
If you desire another detailed perspective on enlightenment, posted on Quora back in Feb. 2019 and also featured in “The Folly of Enlightenment,” you can link here:
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