Enlightenment is being aware, yes, but enlightenment is also much deeper than being aware.
Basically, "being aware" means finding consciousness, awareness, which also has been called "awareness which is aware of itself". When this awareness is found, it marks a permanent break of the identification with ego and the beginning of identification with this awareness itself. It feels like this awareness is "the real you". Some people feel like they don’t have any sense of identification at all at this point, which is somewhat premature. That's basically self-realization, but it is not yet enlightenment.
When this awareness is present effortlessly throughout all daily activities, that's what Adya calls the state of "abiding awareness" and what Ramana dubbed Sahaja Samadhi (effortless Samadhi).
But this awareness in itself is also a percept of the mind. It's the same as identifying with your Being, which is incomparably deeper than ego. At this point, there's still ego. The identification with it is broken, and it's broken for good, but it's not gone. But then the path to enlightenment begins.
This awareness, or the identification with it, to be exact, is what's needed for the rest of the ego to dissolve, that is, for the rest of suffering, restlessness, pain, tears and fears to arise and be accepted from this place, because this awareness doesn't differentiate, it accepts everything. Both Adya and Spira talk about it. Adya actually wrote a book about what happens after this awareness is found, it's called "The End of Your World". Spira speaks about it as "the light of consciousness" which illuminates the rest of conditioning.
When it becomes particularly deep, this awareness as the percept of the mind starts to dissolve. The identification moves to what's been described as "transcendental awareness", or awareness which isn't aware of itself. This is much deeper, one realizes his non-Being. By this point, most of the suffering is transcended and emotions almost don't arise. As Osho said, "once you find your Being, your Being starts to hurt you". Until you jump from Being into non-Being, that is. In the case of Ramana, it was described as his "second death". At that point, the ego truly surrenders. You have accepted death itself.
For what is being aware of awareness? Nothing. To realize you’re nothing is to accept death, from which comes the greatest freedom, the absolute freedom. Osho had a fun way of putting it, he once said: “In witnessing the witness, the ultimate ecstasy is created”. Awareness is the witness of the ego. When the ego is sufficiently small, you start to witness awareness itself, and only at that point you become truly nothing, dissolve into the void.
Later still, it is seen that Being and non-Being are one. That's The Absolute. Then even awareness which isn't aware of itself disappears from the mental landscape and you become completely ordinary again, just like you were before, no difference. Just serene and equanimous, but completely ordinary, not “enlightened”, not “aware”.
So, the process is basically realizing your Being, realizing your non-Being, and then realizing The Absolute. Or, in common language, you can say that first you think you're ego, then you realize you're Life itself, then you're realize you're also Death, and then you're realize that you're both and neither for life and death cannot exist without each other, and are just two sides of the same coin.
And thus, at the end of the process, awareness cannot be found. I know this sounds very weird, but I confirm it with my experience. Other people say the same thing. For example, Osho used to say that a completely enlightened person becomes completely unaware. He said, "if you wish, you can call it ignorance also". Ego is forgotten, awareness is forgotten, enlightenment is forgotten. One has relaxed totally. UG once said "the moment you're aware of your awareness, you're not aware". I think he was referring to the same thing. Finally, I think it was in the "Autobiography of a Jnani" where I read this gem: "A jnani cannot be said to be conscious. But neither he can be said to be unconscious". I know this sounds like a direct contradiction, but it’s not, really. It’s just framed this way deliberately, because only when you complete the journey, you will understand it.
The truth is, one doesn't need this spiritual language to describe what's going on. In reality, the moment you become "aware", you actually just become aware of your ego. That's all that is, really. You're always "aware" of your surroundings, that's unquestionable, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to function. But you're not aware of your mind. So when you find that awareness, that's the first time you become aware of your mind and the ego. And then the ego-mind starts to dissolve into it. And at the end of the process, this awareness cannot be found no longer, it served its purpose, simply because there's nothing more to be aware of. And the awareness of your surroundings (you see stuff and you know what you see) has always been there and it will always be there. So that's why a completely enlightened person cannot be said to be aware, and yet he is aware. He's just like he was before it all started, completely innocent in ignorance. Like small children are, like animals are - no baggage. A dreaming person is not aware of his mind and its deep unconscious patterns, one undergoing the transformation is aware of himself and is becoming more and more aware by uncovering and surrendering more of the mind’s conditioning, dissolving it into the light of awareness, whereas for an enlightened person, there’s nothing left to be aware of, his mind is empty, his ego is gone, and in this way, he is similar to an ignorant person and they are outwardly indistinguishable, and even he can no longer tell the difference between the two.
So, paradoxically, it starts with the present moment and it ends with the present moment. It’s just that at the beginning of the journey, the present moment includes self-referential thought, emotion and personality, and in the very end they are all absent, so there’s nothing but the deepest serenity and the pristine purity of the 5 senses. And all of the profound spiritual experiences (including oneness and no-doership), various awarenesses as percepts of the mind, various Samadhis and bodily sensations (kundalini) arise and fall on the way.
And that’s why focusing on the present moment and allowing all your internal experience is the most important thing in the whole journey. Be as you are. It will not necessarily unfold in such easily identifiable linear fashion, but the destination is still the same. Peace, contentment and equanimity.
===========================================================
Ego is basically identity. Anything that is rigid has a side effect of restricting the flow of life, resisting it, on some level. There are many layers of ego, and it’s delusional to think one’s ego is completely destroyed in self-realization.
In the separated state, we identify with our mental self-image. Some people think the separated state is the state of identification with the body, but it’s not true. Such descriptions come from a realized state, yes, but not from complete realization (see below). If that was true, people would never say “I have a body”, they would only say “I am the body”. But for most people, “I have a body” is a much more natural thing to say. So this “I”, which “has” a body, this idea of yourself doesn’t actually exist anywhere but in your mind, and it’s your mental identity, your self-image. This identity corresponds to the “bull” in the famous Ten Bulls pictures of Zen. There are all kinds of clinging to what type of person you are or should be, how life should be for you, how others should treat you, what is “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong” etc. This is the separated state. Most people are in this state and they recognize and relate to each other’s egos.
In self-realization, this identity is seen to be false. One’s identity then moves to Consciousness, Love, Being, God. One basically becomes love itself as the ultimate witness of Existence. Everything is beautiful, there’s joy everywhere, and tons of compassion to other sentient beings that haven’t yet realized the simple truth of life that everything is love. This is sometimes called God Consciousness, and it’s the state of a Bodhisattva, or Jesus Christ. It’s also referred to as “loving awareness”, or Reality/Consciousness/Bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda. This is Atman, the soul. Osho’s “the death of the ego is the birth of the soul” refers to this state. In the Ten Bulls, it corresponds to #7, “The Bull Transcended”. Sayings like “I am not my body”, “you are me” come from this place. There is no doer, Being moves you. There’s still clinging to Being, to life, to love and beauty at this state. This is “I am”, the beginning of non-duality. It is possible to recognize someone in this state since he embodies unconditional love.
But underneath all that love and beauty there’s still pain, hatred and the fear of non-existence. So, in what is most often called enlightenment, even this identity is seen to be false, and so the identity moves to Brahman, the totality of all existence. Atman and Brahman are seen to be one. This identity is way beyond the manifested consciousness, it is unmanifest. This is the state of non-Being, Buddhahood, complete aloneness. Sayings like “I am nothing” come from this place. Maharishi’s “where can I go, I am always here” also comes from this place. There is no love, no beauty here, just emptiness, Shunyata, because only ugliness can remember beauty and only hatred can remember love. As nothingness, one becomes infinite. All emotion is transcended here. One is completely at peace with his fate to dissolve into nothingness from which one has appeared. This is sometimes called the Cosmic Consciousness, the ultimate level of consciousness. In the Ten Bulls, it corresponds to #8, “Both Bull and Self Transcended”, an empty circle. There is no doer, things just happen. It is sometimes called The Absolute, but it’s not The Absolute. There is still a subtle clinging to non-Being, to infinity, and to death at this state. This is “I’m not”, the deepest state of non-duality. It becomes very hard to recognize someone at this state because only a subtle hint of ego remains here and it’s very hard to relate to such person.
But that’s also not all, because the identity of Brahman is also a false identity. Once it is seen, Being and non-Being, manifest and unmanifest are seen to be one. There is no more clinging to life as one truly accepted death, and there is no more clinging to death as a subtle hope that some experience of Brahmanic bliss lies beyond it. This is The Absolute. In the Ten Bulls, it corresponds to #9, “Reaching the Source”. Osho called it “beyond enlightenment” and described it as “my body and my Spirit are finally one”. In Hinduism, they sometimes refer to it as Para Brahman. Euphoria of existence and emptiness of non-existence merge together. Nothing can be said about this state, because this is when one becomes completely, utterly ordinary again. There’s only life, exactly as it is, in its absolute such-ness without either overwhelming love and beauty nor personal detachment of a witness. The identity finally moves to where it belongs - to the body. One is simply his body as all other animals are. The human condition is transcended. This is the end of non-duality and infinity, one becomes finite again. Nothing that doesn’t exist in the physical world, including Brahman, exists anymore. One becomes the doer again, just rid of all the illusions of life. This is what the last picture in the Ten Bulls, “Return to Society” is about. This is Enlightenment. It is strictly impossible to recognize someone at this state, because his identity is his body and everyone has a body. Even people at various stages of non-duality can’t relate to such a person, and he appears completely ignorant to them.
In the words of Kabir, “self-realization is when the dew drops into the ocean and you can’t find it anymore; in enlightenment the ocean drops back into the dewdrop and you can’t find the ocean anymore”.
Of course, not everyone’s unfolding of the dream will be linear as I described it here, and mine wasn’t either. It can be a messy process, but all of that will become obvious in due time if you go through it till the end. The lesson, as usual, is not to cling to anything newly found and always be willing to go deeper and deeper into the truth of your nature, the state of the ultimate relaxation, the ultimate let go.
=========================================================
No, quite the opposite, particularly if it jumped you in dark alley. Enlightenment, the recognition of indivisibility, is not experienced as an achievement if it is experienced authentically. It is rather like walking in on your grandparents going at it like rabbits. There is the feeling that you’ve apprehended something that so deeply undermines your own worldview you can’t help but feel a bit like, “Woah, I shouldn’t have gone there.”
The recognition of indivisibility is the great psychological repression that underlines all other psychological repressions. It is not something to which we all should be aiming, like the holy site at the end of a pilgrimage. Rather, it is the dirty little secret of humanity, the avoidance of which is the animating force behind basically everything that we do.
It is for this reason that, historically, when somebody popped up who had seen the true nature of experience in a deep way, they would often end up being chastised or executed. Human societies simply cannot stand people like this, because we feel too accused by their purity. They don’t confirm all our neuroses, and so cause us to face those ugly parts of ourselves we’d rather not face. Plus, they’re easy to scapegoat and marginalise because they make no attempt conform to the existing power structures in any meaningful way.
However, we do respect the honesty and integrity of these people, and this is how religions are founded. We can’t stand the ambiguous mix of resentment and respect we feel for the enlightened individual, so we execute them horribly and then form a religion about them. We can cope with the image, but not the reality, because the latter can’t be controlled.
The reason why Zen Buddhism is so wise is because it emphasises ‘staying cool’ post-realisation. The ideal Zen person is a bit of a scoundrel. He or she plays the human game with considerable enthusiasm, but does so in such a way that they never get too suckered into it, and so never causes lasting damage. He’s like that inappropriate uncle who often drinks too much and says the naughty stuff that everybody else is thinking, but has that warm ‘what you see is what you get’ quality that people respect. The sincere asshole always causes less trouble than the insincere do-gooder.
The martyr very often makes a mess that is a bitch to clean up. Just look at all the trouble Jesus Christ caused. If only Jesus had been trained in Zen…
=====================================================
Because it’s Kali Yuga, baby!
Everywhere erroring unerringly harrying us. Nowhere to run. No peace in the manifest that satiates the soul’s thirst for the elixir of the mystical. Advaita’s the one sure method that works for everyone no matter how low their level of spirituality. All the other spiritual offers are harder to apply to the cacophony most folks call “my mind.” Most folks have an orchestra tuning up for a performance that never gets started, and the strings still diss the woodwinds.
It used to be otherwise. Once, a single almost-divine intent would send a shiver throughout creation. Not could — would. Even the stones were singing hymns as ancient as hydrogen. God was fairly obvious. It was not a problem knowing what to do and to love doing it.
And then, it came to pass that folks weren’t so able in the divine intent department, and they had to do rituals and such to get themselves attuned to the divine enough to inspire an entire lifetime of a streaming of consciousness that produced “righteousness enough” to have a fairly decent culture with most folks gladly walking sacred lines.
Later, as time dimmed the light, it became quite hard to run a nervous system and to protect it from every manner of tilting. Whole hunks of life had to be dedicated to righteous actions to purify a nervous system, but a rigorous discipline could steady a mind’s evolution, and in ashrams and temples and churches these minds could still be found on a regular basis.
And now, in this Age, the light is seen but through a glass darkly. There are no gods afoot. No saints pepper our lives. The appetites, the fervor, the mind so imprintable, we stumble in the jumble of modernity. Nothing succors and all know something is missing.
In the face of this, the truest of religions regularly fail to spiritually inspire their flocks to live a sacred life.
A life of working like an organ grinder’s monkey for a tossed coin pretty much exhausts a nervous system. Add the other life stresses, and what you get is, well, look around, look anywhere, look in a mirror. See?
But God is merciful. The best was saved for last.
When all hope is lost. When faith is mostly fakery. When no one can take a vow and MEAN IT. When one’s next thought is always a crap shoot. When there’s just no time for any kind of spiritual program, and none of them work well unless THOUSANDS OF HOURS are invested. Well, has God got a deal for you.
Look within. That’s the only light left in the cosmic dark. Your truth within is awareness. You are awareness, but you’ve only glanced at your self. But note — look — see? Nothing stops you from knowing you. You’re there.
It’s that easy to turn. With a glance you see your seeingness.
And as your glances turn to gazing, you’ll find that peace the world ran out of about 5,000 years ago. A peace that passeth all understanding……and misunderstanding too, but of course, just sayin’.
By paying attention to attention as one’s spiritual practice, the nervous system gets used to quieting down. This is how easy it is. Close the eyes. Spend time within with what is between thoughts
And transcend when you least expect it.
===========================================================
