Is enlightenment the freedom we seek, or the greatest myth of our
age?
By enlightenment, I don't refer to a European intellectual movement of the
17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and
humanity were synthesized into a world view that gained revolutionary
developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Here, I am writing about
spiritual enlightenment.
In English language enlightenment means the state of understanding something.
My main goal in life is to gain enlightenment, the understanding of my
existence. I want to be WHO-I-AM. In Hinduism and Buddhism, enlightenment is
the highest spiritual state that human consciousness can achieve.
Enlightenment, that I am after, is also known as self-realization, awakening,
liberation, moksha.
Self-realization literally means peeling away fabricated layers of one's own
personality to understand and experience the true self and the true nature of
reality.
Moksha is a key concept in Yoga, a state of "awakening", liberation and the
highest freedom in this life. It is again, the freedom of personal self, the
freedom of self-imposed ideas and concepts...
Are we living in a prison?
Those familiar with conspiracy theories may have heard of the idea that Earth
is a kind of "prison planet." Some versions of this theory involve the
moon and human souls being continually recycled on this planet, forced to
reincarnate again and again. I am not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes, I
can write only about my experience...
After spending 60 years here on Earth I have concluded that I indeed, just
like the rest of humanity, live in a prison. We are all slaves.
I doubt is the prison a right word for all this. By living this kind of life,
actually we are being cruelly punished. We are just like a livestock,
artificially fed, monitored and experimented on.
At present time, in Toronto, there is an radio ad, I hear it every day, it is about a small girl, they call it Zoe, who is hungry, she can not finish high school because she, being so hungry, cannot concentrate in school. The ad is asking for a public support and money donation for hungry kids in Ontario.
Based on the Canadian Health Survey of Children and Youth, 15.3% of Ontarian children age 1 to 17 lived in food-insecure households - meaning they did not have enough to eat. Can you imagine? In the wealthiest state of Canada, 15% of children have not enough food on the table(?).
Is the world an illusion?
One of the biggest mistake of modern spirituality is that it takes the world
to be an illusion. According to the New Age, when we "wake up" or
become enlightened, we realize that the physical realm of things is just a
dream. The world and all the events that take place in it are seen as a
mirage.
This concept is wrong, it leads to a detached and indifferent attitude to
worldly events. What does it matter if millions of people are suffering from
poverty and starvation? Why should we bother about Zoe? It’s all just part of
the dream, so none of it is of any consequence. This attitude is wrong.
The idea of the world as an illusion is taken from Hindu Advaita Vedanta (or
nonduality) philosophy. The Hindu concept of "maya" is wrongly
translated as “illusion”, its actual meaning is “deception”.
Maya is the force that deceives us into thinking of ourselves and taking
ourselves for what we are not.
How wise are we?
We are living in the Age of Deception. Anthropologists has estimated that at
least 18,000 different gods, goddesses and various animals or objects have
been worshiped by humanity. The worship of others is a human response to fear
and pain.
Watching YouTube videos, browsing Wikipedia and using ChatGPT will make us
appear wise in the eyes of our friends. We can memorize and repeat the useless
facts, so we may talk just about everything imaginable... but really how wise
are we?
Couple years ago, a medical nurse in palliative care (a hospital place for
dying) had collected the major regrets of those dying patients. The vast
majority of them indicated that they regret of working so hard, not having
friends, not doing what they like etc... not a single one mention the regret
of not finding out "who they are".
How do we know ourselves?
The enlightenment is indeed liberation, but it is not liberation from the
cruel world, it is freedom from ourselves.
The world is not an illusion, it is reflection of our confused mind. We are
not living in the world, we are living in our mind. The world is a grand
theater where events are happening reflecting our doubts. We are actually
spending time inside our heads with endless self-fearing and self-calming
dialogs.
What is really true in our life... our I AM sense. We all have it. We have to
find out what it is! How do we know ourselves? How do we know we exist?
Ultimately, my investigation led me discovering spirituality. Before that, I
lived just like a clown, dancing and jumping up and down. Because there was
no purpose, my life was no more than a circus.
Today, there is this uncalled and spontaneous happiness. The realization of
who-am-I is stronger by every passing day. I have stopped comparing myself
to others, I'm not chasing achievement of any kind, I'm pleased and grateful
for what I have, I'm living simple life.
I live by the truth of knowing myself and that gives me peace and joy. I
still live like a clown, dancing and jumping up and down. Because everything
is a lie, my life continues to be no more than a circus.
Enlightened person - no such thing!
We sometimes say that some people are enlightened, but do we really know
what that means?
Wise people appear kind, loving, and humble. While these may indeed be good
qualities, it's mistake to assign it to the enlightenment.
There is no such things as awakened person. The enlightened person is an
oxymoron. A person is basically bunch of memories and habits, string
together by imagination. It has no existence, so how a person can be
awakened or enlightened?
I've been on a spiritual path since January 2, 2002, and I've seen how
people are transformed through spirituality. The transformation is obvious
but this is just a change of personality, nothing else. By spiritual
practices you gain new habits and you lose old ones.
Overall, you may become mindful of yourself, and the world around you.
Furthermore, you become curious about yourself seeing the falseness of
things around you.
Awareness of yourself brings the changes and knowledge of the nature of your
existence... and you do nothing, just observe.
Too much prejudice about enlightenment
Ten years ago, I was practicing zazen meditation and yoga in nearby studio and once I heard two people talking about Nisargadatta Maharaj, discussing his book I am That. At one point in their conversation they concluded that the book is not worth reading just because Nisargadatta was a smoker.
We are living in an age of deception when spirituality is a business, but
the self-realization remains a mystery even for those who are seeking it.
The true authentic spirituality was always hidden to the intellectuals and
philosophers, basically to anyone who thinks too much.
Spiritual path starts with the science which explores the human suffering
and the way out of it. You have to realize that you are a slave living in
a prison of your own mind.
Only then you can rebel and do anything about it. If you don't see your
slavery, suffering and meaninglessness then the first step in
spirituality is not taken. When you completely aware of your own sleep you
are ready to wake up.
Next, you start an investigation of the world around you. You realize the
falseness of personal relationships, untruth of your strongly held
beliefs. This can break your friendships.
Spirituality leads to depression and despair
Isolation is unescapable. You feel different. There is a desire to change
the world and people around yourself. You wonder how others do not follow
you.
Unfortunately, that is an end of spiritual journey for all those who
intellectualize it. Most people do spirituality with their minds so they
became stuck.
In spirituality there is nothing to be learned. You have to UNLEARN
everything in order to understand who you really are. You have to BE.
By now, you understand that whatever you can look is not you so your
feelings, emotions, thoughts, the world are not you. How and by what
you know yourself?
Be aware of who you really are
This understanding cannot happen in life. Enlightenment is not a destiny, it
is not a part of life at all. In order to gain it, we have to step out of
the life, get rid of personality, stay away from our identity and be as "we
are".
There is the true awareness from which comes consciousness, our feeling "I
Am". Being one with our consciousness is all we can do. Enlightenment, the
understanding of who we are, must come to us. We can only watch whatever
happens. Really, there is nothing we can do to get it.
All worries are due to intellect, we have to only continue being in "I Am",
with faith, we have nothing else to do. Realization can "happen" only in the
state of "I Am" which is beyond intellectual thought process. We must let it
happen holding on to the feeling "I Am" regardless of thoughts.
Meditation reveals our true nature
Because of our ignorance, all along we have depended on our mind which was
directing and guiding us so far. Now, we have understood that the mind is
not ours, the mind is apart from us, so stabilization in the sense of "I Am"
apart from the body-mind is the first and the last step.
The trouble is that we don't really understand with conviction that the
body, breath and consciousness are time bound and the beginning and end of
life is a tiny thing that has happened in the state that is permanent.
At the end of life the consciousness will disappear and no one will want to
know the road by which to travel. So now, while we have the body lets step
out of it by being the witness of consciousness.
This world is only a dream and it is just happening. That what makes us
believe that "we are" is the cause of the world and the end of it. It all
depends of our understanding.
Enlightenment is a complete and permanent understanding of who-we-are where
there is no fear of anything that happens.
Best wishes on your spiritual journey!
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