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Thread: De-mystifying Enlightenment

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    Default De-mystifying Enlightenment

    "What is enlightenment, no, I mean really, like what is it?"

    by Steven Norquist

    Many friends and family have been after me for some time to write about my experience and understanding of this topic. I have hesitated to write about it not because enlightenment itself is so hard to describe, but because enlightenment tends to make one quite lazy. Before my change I was a busy beaver, reading and writing and playing music and sports and really actively getting out there. But after “the change” as I call it, there was a clear vision of how silly all this activity was and how much incredible effort is required to perform it.

    But before I get ahead of myself let me lay out one basic fact, I am awake. I woke up about a year ago. I know what I am, what I have always been and what it is impossible to stop being. Some call this enlightenment or ultimate truth, unity consciousness, infinite mind and so on. But all those names don’t tell the non-awake what it is. Even I calling it "the change” is not really accurate because nothing really changed, yet paradoxically, huge change took place. In simple terms I was once Steve living his life but now I am the experience of Steve living his life. It is a shift in perspective. Before this perspective shift occurred I had practiced about three years of medium intensity meditation consisting of some breath watching, a little mantra repetition and some light self inquiry Ramana Maharshi style. These techniques were coupled with an intense desire to find and know the truth. I read everything on enlightenment I could get my hands on.

    After about three years of this I had my first experience of “nonduality” as it is called. I had just read a passage in Ken Wilber’s “The Spectrum of Consciousness” where he points out that ordinary awareness is ultimate awareness. This struck a chord in me, I set the book down and stared at a paper that was sitting on the table in front of me, after about a minute or two an exciting and frightening thing happened, I disappeared! By that I mean the middle fell right out of the equation. Normally there would be Steve over here looking at the paper on the desk over there, now there was only the experience, "paper" but no Steve over here seeing it. It was clear that the middle that normally separated the paper from Steve did not really exist, there was only the experience, "paper."

    Now let me try to make this more clear by giving an illustration.

    Imagine as clearly as you can that you enter a large house that you have never been in before. You feel strange and kind of scared, there is furniture and drapes but no people. You wander around feeling the creepiness of being alone in this big house. You go from room to room not knowing what you will find. You start to get nervous and a little fearful being alone in this big house. You wonder how long it has been empty like this. In time the sense of the bigness and emptiness of the house starts to weigh heavily on your nerves. Finally, when you can not stand it any longer a shocking realization occurs to you, your not there either! Only the experience, "house" exists.

    This is how nonduality feels and is the real truth of existence. Remember the question, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Now you know the answer.

    You see, with enlightenment comes the knowledge that even though there is much activity in the world, there are no doers. The universe is in a sense, lifeless. There is no one, only happenings and the experience of happenings. Enlightenment reveals that the universe emerges spontaneously. It’s emergence and pattern are perfect in mathematics and symmetry and involve no chance. Nothing is random, everything emerges exactly as it has to. There is no random chance, or evolution based on chance. The universe is perfect, nothing is wrong or could be. There seems to be chance or unpredictability from a human perspective but that is only because our time frame reference can not see the universe emerge through its whole life span in a matter of minutes. If we could see that, then we would clearly see how every event was not only perfect and necessary but even predictable.

    Now lets summarize so far, the universe is perfect, no one exists, yet the experience "universe" persists. How can this be? Consciousness. Consciousness is aware. If it were not, then there would be no universe. The very nature of existence implies consciousness. One can not exist without the other.

    There can never be a universe that does not involve consciousness. There are no universes or dimensions where there is no consciousness. Matter and form would never arise without consciousness. Universe/Consciousness, Mind/Matter, Wave/Particle, call it what you will, the reality is that the manifestation, the very appearance we call the universe, is consciousness.

    Now don't mistake me here, there is no observer. There are no persons in existence experiencing the universe, but more than that there is no Ultimate Person, God, Mind, or anything else observing the universe. There is only the experience of the universe being there with no experiencer.

    This seems like a paradox but who cares, this is the way it is. Experience "is," that is all, that is the way the universe is, an experience by no one. The universe spontaneously arises out of consciousness yet at the same time is itself consciousness. We must lose the idea of matter being observed by something we call consciousness, that is not true. Some teachers talk of the Witness, the ultimate passive mind that observes all things moment to moment. This implies some level of separation, a witness over here watching the universe over there. It's not like this, there is only the experience, universe. There is no observer. Even if there were no manifestation the feeling would be the same. Once again let me make this clear: consciousness is not aware "of" the universe, consciousness is aware "as" the universe.

    Now don't mistake that last sentence. Don't think, "Oh yeah Steve, I get it now, consciousness is not aware of the universe from a vantage point separate from it, like a disembodied soul, consciousness is instead aware of the universe as one of the billions of beings in it, like man, or dog, or fish." No! Such thoughts are false. When I say consciousness is aware "as" the universe I mean the very act of existence is consciousness. A carrot is itself consciousness, is itself awareness. There is not carrot aware of itself as carrot nor disembodied invisible consciousness aware of carrot as carrot, there is only the experience "carrot" and that is consciousness and that is enlightenment. There is no observer.

    Let's talk now about how this fits in with human life. All people who do not know what's going on believe that they are the people that they are, an individual with thoughts and desires and hopes and dreams, a body and a house, a wife and a child. The list goes on but you get it.

    Now the truth. Even though the above is happening, it is an automatic machine like emergence out of Universe/Consciousness and is following a strict nonchance pattern. More importantly, no one is performing any of the above and Universe/Consciousness is what is going on.

    To make it more clear, stuff is happening but no one is doing it. Emergence proceeds and consciousness is aware. The unawake person, the person that doesn’t know what's going on believes that they are acting, that the human them exists. The reality is, the body exists, the thoughts exist, the memories exist and that is consciousness and that is all.

    Someone might say consciousness has temporarily mistaken it’s experience of the body and the body’s memories as a person. But even though that answer may seem to explain the why, really there is no mistake at all. Universe/Consciousness has never been confused. The person can fall away at any moment restoring the original state of matter and consciousness which has never actually been obscured. This happened to me, but in that happening nothing was lost because there never was a me to lose, only a confusion to correct that never existed.

    Knowing this, I mean really knowing this, not intellectually, but as a direct experience of everyday life is enlightenment. Now once this is known it is impossible to go back. Once you have drawn the curtain and seen who Oz really is you can’t cover him back up and pretend not to know the truth.

    So how do we proceed once we know? We let experience manifest unmolested. As has been said, “The universe is perfect, intervene at your peril.” The enlightened person never acts. This is the riddle of karma solved, there is no karma, never was, never could be. There is no reincarnation, how could there be? Who is there to reincarnate? There are no persons, there is no birth or death, there is ultimately nothing except Manifestation/Awareness.

    99.999% of the spiritual books and teachers out there are completely wrong. They are wrong for one simple reason, they are not enlightened, they don’t know what's going on. So in order to keep the illusion of personality, of the idea that there is something or someone, they invent stories, or theories, or ideas, wear special clothes, perform certain rituals and so on. They teach this stuff. But the truth is so simple, it is laughable.

    Now let me make a clear distinction on one point, mystical experience is not enlightenment. You may have mystical experience, see God, get abducted by aliens, receive messages from an angel, contact your spirit guides, the list could go on. But always and forever, no matter what is going on the truth is, every experience, mystical or ordinary is a happening of Universe/Consciousness.

    If I could teach the world a lesson it would be, no matter what you experience always remind yourself, “There is no experiencer, there is no observer.” If you do this long enough and often enough you will one day know what's going on. When that day comes you will realize nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. It is a feeling and a knowing. An inescapable falling away of untruth. If you think you know it then you don’t. When you know it, you do. And when you do know it, no one can take it away from you.

    Some points to clear up. When I said the enlightened person never acts I did not mean such people sit in a cave and die of starvation and exposure. I mean the body can be quite active and manifest all manner of good and bad behavior, the mind can be racing with thoughts and feelings, but consciousness, now enlightened, knows no one is acting. It is only the universe blossoming forth spontaneously and perfectly.

    As consciousness you are more aware of the feelings of the body, physically and emotionally. You don’t feel these things but you are aware of them because there is no division between them and consciousness. The Universe and Consciousness are equivalent, remember the formula, U=C. Also the thing we call personality or ego does not totally vanish. It can remain intact along with the body. It behaves and interacts and changes over time like any person would but the enlightened one knows they are not that ego.

    Some schools emphasize the destruction of the ego as the only means of liberation. All that is really required is the realization that you are not that ego. That the ego really doesn’t exist, is an illusion of sorts that can be left to it’s own designs. It’s not really there, but it appears to be there and that is just fine, don’t worry. If the ego begins to fade that's ok. Remember, there is no experiencer.

    Let me talk briefly about practice. Meditation and book study are useful and can ripen an individual towards awakening, but the most important thing is to change your perspective. You must learn to see what is really going on. Understand, in reality everyone is enlightened, but not everyone knows how to perceive this. The reason is, enlightenment is so natural, so obvious, that from birth we have become accustomed to ignoring it in preference to anything else that manifests. Meditation can train you to still the mind and gain concentration but it will not give you enlightenment. A radical shift in perspective must occur, the habitual focus of your awareness and your way of perceiving must be changed.

    Study of books will not get you there, you need a shock. The easiest way I know is for an enlightened person to talk you into this perspective shift. The best books I have read were the ones that talked you into enlightenment. Feeling experiments such as the house scenario above are good to help evoke the feeling of enlightenment. Feel what it is like to not be there. The real breakthrough will come when you “feel” the truth.

    It’s creepy, not blissful or ecstatic. It should scare you, the body should react defensively, or there could be uncontrolled laughter at how stupid you have been for so long. It’s like one of those 3D dot pictures, you stare and stare at those dots until bingo the picture emerges! After that, you can always see it, you can’t unlearn it. The same with enlightenment.

    Basically any practice that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable. But understand, you want to know what's really going on, to feel it, to contact reality. It shouldn’t take long, a few years at most, less for some. If a practice or a teacher tells you it will take 10 or 20 years, find a new practice or teacher. Remember you are your own salvation, ultimately it is you who will wake you up. Any method that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable but the perspective shift must occur.

    Let me try to bring some clarity to the subject of enlightenment and morality. It has been said that enlightenment produces compassion and love and that many enlightened ones forgo release into Nirvana and reincarnate again and again until all souls have obtained enlightenment, the Bodhisattva vow and such. None of this is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not about morality or vows, it is simply existence in the truth, that is all.

    Enlightenment carries no requirements and expects nothing, the universe manifests and just that is enlightenment. We don't seek enlightenment to be happy or to give our lives meaning or to feel bliss or ecstasy. Loyalty to a flag is not enlightenment, love is not enlightenment, hate is not enlightenment. If you see these as the fruit of enlightenment then you are wrong. Instead each of these are enlightenment themselves. Each of these are spontaneous emergences out of and as consciousness. Action, feeling, creation, performance, love, hate, murder, salvation, compassion, each is enlightenment itself. There is no doer, no experiencer, only manifestation. This is the truth, this is enlightenment.

    I want you to understand that while nothing ultimately changes, in human terms much change takes place. This happens because once you recognize what's going on the main motivations of life begin to drop away. The level of dropping away is no doubt unique to the individual but is directly proportional to how much you desire to resolve into reality. What I mean is that it is possible to be enlightened and still try to retain a level of unconsciousness in order to interact in human affairs. As time passes this state will be harder to maintain.

    It is similar to suspending your belief when watching a movie. You pretend to believe the reality of what is going on. You cry with the characters, you laugh with them, you hope with them etc. You do this for the entertainment, to get your moneys worth. This is the way real life is with enlightenment. You know there really is no one. You know that it is just a display, a machine like emergence out of and as consciousness. Yet you must believe it at some level or you will simply lose the ability to interact in the world.

    I can see why some enlightened ones have isolated themselves or become hermits. For the last year this has been an issue I personally have struggled with. How to know the truth and continue to interact with the world as if you believe it? You basically have to employ a little Orwellian 1984 doublethink. You have to pretend to believe while always knowing the truth. Some things are unavoidable of course, I was an avid reader but now can barely open up a book. I loved and played the guitar for years but now have zero interest in picking one up. Even writing these few words is a colossal effort. The reason is that deliberate effort is an affront to reality where nothing is deliberate, everything is spontaneous, and nothing at all is going on.

    Don't mistake me here, I have not invented a rule of behavior where I have decided I must act less because to do otherwise would be an affront to reality, rather the natural outcome of enlightenment is less and less action, less and less thought. This is a natural development within the enlightened person. Eventually all action will be spontaneous and the person will not be acting.

    Of course to say this is not ultimately true, because in reality no one ever acts. But from the human vantage point this is how it plays out. Memory is also a tricky thing, the memories of your life are still there and can be jogged into awareness but as time progresses and enlightenment begins to dissolve you, your access to them becomes more difficult. Your awareness becomes centered in the events of the present as they manifest, this is natural since these are the only events that actually exist. The person and the ego are simply dissolving. They don't really exist but the illusion that they do becomes less a part of awareness. You don't remember and you don't care.

    Let me make a point about Zen breath watching. Most people just don't get it and most Zen schools don't make it any easier for students to get it. There are all kinds of books on Zen meditation, catalogs where you can buy all the cool silk clothes, cushions, gongs, incense and a host of other aids to Zen breath watching. But once you have all that stuff and finally sit your butt down, close your eyes and start watching your breath what exactly are you doing? Why are you doing that? I ask people this all the time and really piss them off, "Why do you meditate? What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you watch your breath?" I have never met anyone that has given me the correct answer.

    The reason they don't know is because they are not enlightened. If they were, then they might not even meditate anymore, or they might, it would make no difference. You see, the simple truth that is missed by almost every meditator is this, the act of sitting there watching your breath is enlightenment. That is all. You are not doing something to gain something, just sitting there is enlightenment. That still state with calmed mind, just that is enlightenment, yet that annoying gossip over there interrupting your meditation, just that is enlightenment and that guy flipping you off in commuter traffic, just that is enlightenment. There is no doer, no experiencer, no one who acts. Manifestation emerges, actless, mindless and just that is enlightenment.

    People meditate today because it is popular or because they want to have a mystical experience or just relax. The latter reason may actually be the most legitimate for the average person. But no one I know says they meditate because they are deliberately engaging in an actless act, or attempting to resolve a false sense of being into a beingless existence. And of the many meditators out there, I suspect that the majority would be shocked if I told them the guy flipping them off in traffic is more enlightened than they.

    The point I'm trying to make and have been trying to make is that enlightenment is so natural and so easy that any attempt at deliberate practice towards it will get you farther from it, yet paradoxically, you have never once not been enlightened and no matter how strained and deliberate your efforts towards it, you never once acted!

    So in closing, Enlightenment can be talked about, it can be understood, it is not mysterious nor does it need to be cloaked in a secret "Boy's Only" club language. Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that no one exists including you and that everything that happens does so spontaneously and perfectly. Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that what exists is Universe/Consciousness, they are the same, U=C. Existence is itself consciousness and that is why there is something rather than nothing. This is the real state of things and because it is so natural, so simple and so obvious, we miss it daily.



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    Scotland Avalon Member greybeard's Avatar
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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    I have saved your post, another bob, in my documents.
    I know compliments mean nothing ad such---- things just happen without a personal doer.
    Best I can say is I am pleased to read it and I hope many will see the truth of it.
    There are so many theories, thoughts and ideas on Avalon that cant be validated (thats ok too) and here we have personal account of non-duality.
    I hope many on the forum will read it.
    Its one of the most valuable posts (for me) that I have read here.

    Chris
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Wonderful, Bob! I know it must have been an effort to put this in words but you did a great job and thanks for sharing! I appreciate how well you explained the state of not caring. Mostly people don't understand when I say "I don't care". My best friend and I often laugh about how seriously we can take things if we're thinking and feeling in a microcosmic perspective instead of from an enlightened perspective. It's perfectly okay that we slip into taking this play seriously upon occasion, but ultimately I remember that all of it is perfect...including forgetting that it's all perfect.

    I made the decision to come back into living this life because it was getting to the point where I couldn't relate easily to normal life and normal people. I was leaving my body every night and traveling in other dimensions. Coming back into this world and relating to people got progressively more difficult. I definitely understand why many who experience enlightenment/oneness end up retreating into caves and ignoring almost all things that others think are important. I could have done that easily and it seemed desirable, but I had a baby and decided that I would not give him such a weird life. (It was still pretty weird!) LOL

    That was 32 years ago and I have had hundreds of mystical/other dimensional and oneness experiences since then, but by choice I have lived life as a human and not as one who is constantly aware of their enlightenment/oneness. I guess we enjoy this separation game otherwise we wouldn't be here doing it...or thinking we are doing it. There must be great value in perceiving separation. Perhaps the joy and amusement of remembering perfection and oneness is sufficient in itself. I call it the Cosmic Joke.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Hi Bob

    Very profound, very grateful for the disclosure, to me very important work, I in reality have undergone all the concept of understanding for many years, as I was a collector of golden nuggets of years of reading and trying to feel and experience what I was reading, and spend week compiling in my head, and putting the pieces together to make sense of reality, which I came to conclusion that it did not exist as you can read in my part 1 and part 2, I then decides to challenge everybody's work on this matter, for it had changed me, and all one does is wait for death, the conclusion that I came to after more than 35 years is that its completely useless to me, and apart from creating material abundance which is nothing to me, it has shown its self to have no value, because there is no value, because it does not exist.

    At the end the secret and the mystery is nothing, yes I know what can be done with the knowledge, from the dark to the light, but that still a nothing and a nonsense, and it still does not stop me from sharing and challenging even a enlightened person as yourself.

    I have for the past 14 years not kept any book that I have owned, I am a collector of nuggets, I have not one piece of paper to refer to, everything that I had written is from me,and I have never in all my writing quoted or referred to anybody, because all is my conclusion, and it has to always come from within, most of the work here is from other sources, and not from the conclusion of the person who started the thread, which is a very sad continuation here in Avalon. But to get back to the point I had started to make that all to no avail, after all these years I am just an Alien with my own species.

    I have always told you that I really appreciate your work and respect your view, as I do a few other people in this forum, and thank you for a wonderful contribution.

    and my regards as ever
    roman

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Greetings and Thanks, Chris, Nancy, Roman, and All!

    I've jotted a few biographical notes to share with you, in response to your offerings above. Sorry about the length, but I've tried to compress over 62 years into a summary narrative and touch on the themes arising from this post and your own replies:


    He is about 2 years old. Until this particular day, he frolics in blissful ignorance, without any sense of separation or differentiation -- the natural state -- although to even describe it as a state is adding something extra. Timeless, prior to concepts, bright and shining happy being -- all just words that of course cannot really convey the mystery rapture of the innocent heart of all of us. There is nothing but this persistent joy, regardless of any physical sensations, which are only experienced as echoes of the mystery rapture itself.

    On this particular morning his mother extracts a little cardboard man from a cereal box, with a balloon that blows up into a head and attaches to the frame of the cardboard body. What delight! The big smiling face of the balloon man beams happily at the mother and child, and all is laughter, until suddenly, inexplicably, the balloon head pops with a loud bang, and the boy is faced for the first time with the raw truth of impermanence. Staggering implications flood his mind, but there is an even harsher truth in store for him.

    Moments later he is sitting in a hallway, about 20 feet from his mother, and gradually a stark and undeniable observation dawns: he is distinct from his mother -- separated! She stands over a stove in the kitchen and he sits here, on the floor, in the hallway, at a distance! In an eye blink, what has happened? Heaven and earth have been split apart! A monumental fear grasps him! He is suddenly . . . a something, a someone, a person. He opens his mouth to scream, but he is paralyzed. Dazed and mute, for the first time he perceives himself as an embodied self, and this limitation of apparent individuation seizes him in an enormous vice of panic, shock, and terror – the end of Eden. When the sense of self arises, that is the beginning of knowledge (aka ‘ignorance’), and when the sense of an ‘other’ arises, that is the birth of fear.

    Thus begins my dream journey. Now I see that moment as a kiss of merciful blessing. What a miracle! I am here, I am born! Now I see that I am the cardboard balloon man, my mother, the hallway, the sitting, the fear, and yet, now I also see that none of it is truly who or what I am. This is skipping way ahead, no doubt, but the seed was planted at that moment, the seed of freedom in limitation.

    Simultaneous with this event is a huge jump – I realize now that I have the faculties and mental capacity of an adult – I can read, for example -- and immediately begin studying all I can about this knowledge. My parents have a set of books – the ‘World Books’, a sort of encyclopedia collection – and over the next few months I devour all of them. Then I move on to a collection called ‘My Book House’, a wonderful set elaborating the various myths and legends of different human cultures and so forth. Memories swim back into view, everything is familiar to me.

    The interesting thing about all this studying is that, after reading the first few sentences of any article or story, I intuitively grasped the salient points, as if it were just a refresher or cue to what I somehow already knew. Later in school, for example, I rarely even opened the text books, but always got straight A’s on every test.

    I soon began asking questions my parents could not answer, and in fact it’s clear that they are a bit freaked out by the changes they witness in me, but they have their hands full with work and such, and so I am pretty much left to my own path of discovery. My dreams are filled with images of other times, other places, and other incarnations. In a sense, I came to realize that my parents themselves were like children, despite their size, and so I gave up relying on their naďve views about reality. Out of love, I indulged their fantasies about me being a child, ‘their child’, although I realized instinctively that was not the whole story by any means (which also made it easier to leave home as soon as I could, at 13).

    Meanwhile, at extended family gatherings, I would be asked the silly questions relatives tend to ask small children, but I could tell from their responses to my discourses that they were rather taken back by what they heard from this little fellow! They would ask how I knew such stuff, and I pointed out how I could read, which they simply could not believe until I picked up a book and related the entire contents therein.

    A number of unusual experiences followed, until I was almost 6, and my father took me on a vacation trip from San Francisco to visit his family in Bellingham, Washington in 1954. From there, my father, his father, and three of his brothers and myself all set out on pack horses for a long hunting/fishing expedition into the northern wilds, traveling for almost a month through primal mountain country, far from even the smallest rural towns in that part of the state.

    One night, well into the trip, we were camping out under the stars on the shore of a small and isolated mountain lake. I was awakened sometime in the middle of the night by a dazzling sight which struck me with intense awe and wonder -- out on the lake a brilliant fire had bubbled up from the very center and was fiercely blazing, though there was nobody near us for miles and miles – the blaze had just appeared full-blown, with no apparent source to feed it. I remember standing there, watching it, fascinated, until finally a thought appeared, and I was able to find voice enough to call my father and his gang out of their sleep to witness. They saw it too, and were equally shocked by the vision, and none of them believed their own explanations.

    Somehow – suddenly – it was the next morning, and there was no sight of anything, just the lake as it was the day before. Nor was anybody saying anything. It was as if the apparition had never happened, though it had been intensely real to me. My relatives were all acting rather mechanical, and it seemed we passed the next few days in a collective mental haze.

    After that, my dreams took on a new quality, and I began to experience numerous ‘voyages’, deep space travels interspersed with info ‘downloads’. One particular scene I was shown really got to me – a huge “Star Wars” type battle taking place in the night skies over a planet that seemed very familiar, yet was not Earth. At night, asleep, I was often in a kind of school, studying many fascinating subjects, and I especially remember learning how to navigate while flying, using the mind in the gut, also known as the 'hara'.

    In August of 1957, at the age of 8, I was returning home from a Catholic Youth Organization summer camp. When I stepped off the bus back in San Francisco again, after 2 great weeks on my own in the forest, I was so ecstatic seeing my family again that my system could not handle the extremity of joy, and I fell into a kind of swoon. Words just don’t apply to what I experienced during the swoon, but when I next opened my eyes, I was lying on a couch in my parent's house. A number of hours had apparently passed. Strangely, I realized that these people were not ‘real’, but more like three-dimensional projections of mind. The whole world had taken on something of a dreamy kaleidoscopic nature, and seemed to phase in and out in harmonic synchronicity, with everything appearing dependent on everything else, but with no center or circumference, beginning or end.

    Meanwhile, the family doctor appeared and could find nothing wrong, but for the rest of the summer, I just lay in the backyard, watching the clouds trailing through sky. Time was irrelevant. The smell of the earth, the feeling of absolute presence, the subtle shifts of light and shadow, the indivisibility of all phenomena reflected in the synchronous sounds of birds, bells, and deep planet humming – all arising simultaneously, all dissolving in my own being – how could I explain this to my parents when they asked me about my experience?

    At school in the fall, I lost all interest in the lessons, falling into the swoon more often than not, just looking out the window at the sky. I would suddenly find myself in a room with other children, then I was somehow lying down in my backyard, it was night, it was day, none of it had any substantiality, everything was one piece, just like a piece of smoke. I was in love with this, absorbed, but I didn't know what any of it was -- it didn't even occur to me -- it was already gone before I could solidify or objectify it enough to try and grasp it, more like river water flowing through my fingers. It was all breathing, vanishing, appearing, changing, it was all transparent, it was me, all of it, but I was not it -- none of it. How could I say anything?

    Sometimes I would find that I had wandered 8 blocks or so down to the Pacific Ocean, through Golden Gate Park, and I was standing at the edge of the surf, but didn't remember how I got there, so what -- just the feel of the water lapping at my toes thrilled me with an indescribable ecstasy. Other times I would climb to the top of the tall firs and just sway in the wind and play with hummingbirds. They would pause right in front of my face and share their happiness! There was no other day than this one, but later I was told about the God, and how I was born a sinner, separated from home, and had to get back to that God. This never made sense to me – back to where?

    Still, everyone seemed to agree with this particular consensus view, since I was raised in an Irish Catholic environment, and so I decided to test their hypothesis. Moreover, I was greatly inspired by my invalid Grandmother who lived with us, and who was something of a mystic. She taught me how to merge with the Sacred Heart of Christ and pray for all the beings alive that are wounded and suffering. This seemed like a wonderful practice! I became the first altar boy in my class, so I could be closer to this God they all assured me was watching over me. At the age of 13, I entered a Catholic Seminary to study for the priesthood, since priests were reputedly on speaking terms with this God, and more importantly, they selflessly served all the people who were suffering from various confusions regarding their relationship to God. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the lives of the saints, and felt that they were all my own true family.

    Over the course of the next 7 years in the Seminary, I spent a great deal of time studying the various texts, performing the many prescribed rituals, and was always at the top of my class academically, though I found that the more I examined this religion, the less I was convinced that it had any actual merit, beyond serving as a social control mechanism operated by questionable people with even more questionable motives. Finally, I asked for a personal interview with the Archbishop of San Francisco. This went rather poorly, and I left with the clear sense that this person had never actually experienced anything that he preached about. He was sound asleep inside – a dead man walking.

    One interesting event occurred on my last day at the seminary. I had hiked to the top of a hill that night at about 10 pm with several of my fellow seminarians. We were sitting in a circle at the top of the hill chatting about school times when a bright light appeared over our heads in the sky above us. At first we thought it was a helicopter, but there was no sound. We were intrigued as it remained hovering motionless, but there was a clear sense of something ‘intelligent’ about it. As we continued to stare and speculate, about half an hour seemed to pass, and consequently we were all quite confused when we realized that we could not account for the past three or four hours there, and it was nearly morning.

    Well, I had had enough of the religion experiment in any case, so I packed up and moved to the Sierras, where I spent the next 6 months living as a hermit in a small tent by a river, and eating a lot of trout. This new adventure was quite refreshing, and filled with revelations, including my second brush with death by drowning (the first being the day when I was swept out to sea in an undertow while surfing at the age of 12).

    In a previous life I was a reclusive botanist in Germany’s Black Forest, and so felt quite happy alone in the woods this time around. Then one day an old friend came to visit me in my mountain hermitage, and left me with a copy of a book on Zen. I devoured this book, since it was like a reminder of my time prior to getting involved with the God-business. When I came upon one particular passage – a little poem about how trees are just treeing – everything suddenly fell away – how obvious it all was! My life was to take its next big turn when I returned to the City and found a draft notice waiting for me. The Viet Nam War was heating up, and my so-called country wanted me to get some killing done.

    Stepping back from where I left off chronologically for a moment, I’ll mention that, at the Catholic school where I was enrolled in the 1950's, the curriculum routine was occasionally set aside for "Audio-Visual" presentations. Students were gathered into the auditorium, lights were dimmed, and the whir of a film projector usually signaled the beginning of yet another movie about various precautions to be observed in the midst of the nuclear attack we were expecting any day now, such as how to hide under the desk and away from windows, and don’t look up when the lightbang explodes, or you’ll be blinded in a flash. In any case, this particular film was different, but just as scary.

    I was 9 years old, and as I watched the flickering images of miserable babies and small children, all in tatters and covered with swarming flies, dying cruelly of starvation in some country “over there”, my own young heart was burned. At the end of the film, the guest missionary responsible for the gruesome footage stood up in the front of us children and promised that, if any student was able to fork over a mere $5.00, they would be able to adopt one of these "pagan babies". Not only would the child be "saved" but, as a side benefit, each child would get to share the Christian name of the contributor who had donated the ransom.

    Given my status as a wage earner at the time, five dollars felt like a lot of money to collect, but it just seemed like the right thing to do, so I immediately threw myself into a fervor of coin collecting. I started with my allowance and milk money, but found that wasn't nearly enough. Every minute another child was dying! I began scrounging for coins in my father's pockets at night, after my parents went to sleep. Each time I would take just a few dimes or nickels to contribute, reasoning that they didn't need the money as much as the pagan babies. I approached all of my visiting relatives, as well as my parents' friends, soliciting spare change for the mission. I would search the street on my way to and from school, looking for any fallen coins that might go to the cause. The nuns were amazed at my fund raising. Somewhere in the Third World there were eventually at least half a dozen people sharing my name ‘Bob’ and feeling better about life as a result, or so I was led to believe.

    In any case, what that little childhood tale is leading up to is this:

    Years later, when I returned to San Francisco after my hermitage in the Sierras, and having forsaken my theological deferment upon leaving the seminary, I became the recipient of the dreaded draft notice, requiring me to report for a physical in preparation for induction into the army. I did not want to shoot people, I only wanted to feed them. Consequently, I applied for Conscientious Objector status, necessitating an appearance before the Draft Board to argue my case.

    When I stood before the esteemed assembly of citizens who would have me become a weapon for democracy, I explained as logically as possible how a number of people "over there" probably had the same name as mine by now, and so why would I choose to go shooting at them after spending so much time and effort trying to feed them? After all, they’re my family too!

    Apparently, my rationale was convincing enough to Board (along with several letters from my former professors, indicating how poor a choice I would make as a soldier, given my general disposition and lack of any nationalistic affiliation), and so instead I began 2 years of Alternate Service as a Child Care Counselor at a residential treatment center in rural Northern California for troubled inner-city pre-adolescents dumped there by the system as the last stop before a life of lock-up that loomed in the probable future for most of them.

    At the facility, I was assigned to a group of 10 very unhappy and bewildered boys that I grew to love, and also made sure that they ate properly. I had the kitchen substitute fresh fruits and vegetables for the standard white sugar and flour products, and rather than letting them sit around eating candy and watching violent cartoons on the weekends, I would load them into the van and take them to the parks and beaches of Northern California, and let these inner-city kids get a taste for the freedom and beauty of nature. After a few months there, I was out strolling with my boys' group one afternoon when I noticed a girls' group heading my way. The facility was co-ed, but the genders were usually kept separated. Leading the girls was a darkly beautiful woman new to the facility who immediately walked up to me, put both hands on my shoulders and, staring right into my eyes, remarked:

    "I've been watching the way you are with your kids, and I recognize something about you. I think you’ll be interested in what I have to show you. I’ve been brought here for you!"

    For the next year, this woman became my teacher. She was a wild lesbian yogini gifted with certain extraordinary powers and veil-piercing capacity, and did indeed show me enough about the magical nature of existence first hand to fill a book. I was shown stuff that was utterly mind-blowing by any standard. In fact, sometime later I came across Castaneda’s work, and it felt just like déjŕ vu. She was also responsible for introducing me to natural foods and remedies, as well as to a number of Eastern Sages such as Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi and their testimonies -- great and inspiring beings who have since proved to be reliable guides over the years.

    Meanwhile, some notable and encouraging changes began to appear within the boy’s unit I was responsible for. Within several months, my group began to stand out from the others, since there were hardly any episodes of violence or acting out that characterized the other units' daily behavior. In fact, we all had a lot of fun, and were eventually touted by the administration as an example of successful rehab work to visiting authorities. After about a year, the staff psychologists decided to study my group to find out why it seemed so more healthy and adjusted than the others, and of course that's when they found out I had weaned the boys off their meds (heavy thorazine, stelazine, ritalin, etc. -- the preferred kiddie chemical straight jackets). I had replaced drugs with hugs, back rubs, happiness, listening, and even meditation for 15 minutes each night before bed.

    Naturally, the bureaucratic shrinks were flabbergasted, and promptly fired me. The dear children all gathered a petition on their own to keep me there, but I had violated a prime directive -- do not mess with the pharmaceutical protocols, regardless if they're poisoning the children!

    Although I still had a number of months left to serve as a C.O., I shortly thereafter received a letter from the Draft Board absolving me of the requirement for further service, and so I immediately went through my routine of selling everything off that I owned and thumbed a ride down to Southern California, where I entered a Zen monastery at Mt. Baldy under the guidance of Joshu Sasaki, considered the top master of his lineage in the West. In fact, the old fellow’s still teaching and kicking ass today, at 104, from what I’ve heard!

    The mountain monastery maintained a strict and rigorous regime, extreme to the max by any western standard, designed over the centuries to shatter all comfort zones and illusions – a boot camp for the soul, so to speak -- and amazing changes transpired over the course of the next several years there, powerful inner openings as well as a big amplification of trends set in motion earlier with my yogini mate back at the child care facility.

    After about a year there, the Master (called Roshi) shared a pertinent observation with me. He told me that I clearly wanted to give myself to everyone and everything, but that I still did not know “What I Was”. He said I had a good sense for the Absolute, but that was only half the picture, and really of no use to anyone, even myself. As long as this was so, I was in no position to give anything at all. It was all just dream giving, and of no real value in the scheme of things. Moreover, I had never fully learned to receive. My false garment of humility cloaked an armor of impervious resistance to simple acceptance – acceptance of life, of love, acceptance of all that is. After a few years, he told me there was nothing left for me to do but to get back out into the world and manifest what I had learned in my training by putting it into practice in everyday life.

    I returned to San Francisco for a while, and went to work for a relief agency, but my continuing interest in feeding people eventually led me across the country to Boston, Ma. When I journeyed east in 1975, ostensibly for a few months to study more about Natural Foods, I met a man who had just purchased a small health food store. Since I needed some work to cover my expenses, I took him up on his offer of a job. Together, and with the help of many others, we went on to create a Natural Foods retail company over the next decade that eventually became the largest natural and organic products supermarket chain in the country, called Whole Foods. Millions of people have been introduced to a healthier style of life through this company, and I later moved on to establish hundreds of Natural Food outlets across the continent when I got involved with the Distribution and Supply end of the industry. A lot of money came my way, and I was able to travel widely throughout the world, to Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and so forth, and in this way came to see just how provincial the usual western view of life and history was, besides having some wild adventures along the way.

    Somewhere in the midst of all this a simple recognition dawned. There were no fireworks, no lightning bolts or anything dramatic -- just an obvious realization that my whole life-long quest was based on a false premise. From that primal experience in the hallway at 2, I had assumed myself to be a separate individual, trying to bridge an assumed chasm in my own being. I had superimposed on this simple being all sorts of beliefs and solipsistic judgments about myself as the one who is "doing" all of this, and then projected that dreamy stuff out into "the world" -- as if "the world" was somehow separate from myself. All along I had been repeatedly graced with clues, but I have always been a stubborn sort. In my earnest fixation on a fantasy of what I needed to become, I overlooked a plain and simple truth:

    There is no need to find a way to become what one already is. I only had to stop assuming myself to be what I am not and never have been.

    As layers of self-inflicted dilemma melted away, I finally realized how arrogant my stubborn presumption had been -- the presumption that I could ever be in a position of "saving" anybody. With that, even the sense of the "other" – separate from myself – began to evaporate. As that house of cards came crumbling down, the whole fictional fist of contraction loosened its grip -- how could I have ever imagined myself to be in any kind of position to impose my will on life! I was being lived by something much bigger than I had imagined, and it was only my lingering resistance that created the sense of struggle.

    When I realized that I was the ‘Pagan Baby’, I finally began to enjoy my meals without feeling guilty. Everything returned to the ordinary happiness, fatefully interrupted by that schoolhouse movie so many years ago. I was somehow gracefully relieved of the concern that anything be other than what it is. That I be anything other than what I am. Overall, things seemed to have smoothed out nicely, and of course there’s a line from an old Grateful Dead tune that would apply at just about this time:

    “When life looks like easy street, there’s danger at your door.”

    It was about 10 PM, and I was commuting from Boston to New York in late September of 1984. It had been a bumpy year, so to speak, and I was on the brink of a rather complex career turning point.

    Earlier that afternoon, I had just retrieved my car from a Boston body shop after an unenviable encounter with a runaway bus in Cuban Harlem. This had been my second visit to that particular sheet metal doctor, who was kind enough to remind me, as I drove away, that "the third time is the charm". In retrospect, I must admit that these little clichés, floating around in the vast collective consciousness, sometimes have an odd way of validating themselves.

    I was overly familiar with the stretch of highway that I was currently navigating, and mind had slipped into semi-automatic, entertaining the random road musings about life and work and love and mortgage payments, pasts and futures vying for attention, even as the present was rushing to itself with arms wildly waving.

    Glancing up, I noticed that I was approaching my designated exit along the Saw Mill Parkway. It had come up sooner than expected, punctuating my reveries. Funny how the mind can go on and on.

    I checked the rear view mirror to see if I could move into the right lane to exit, and saw a pair of headlights in what seemed a good bit of distance behind me in the right lane. I felt comfortable about the lane switch, but as I began to cross over, I was rear-ended by the on-coming car, which had been moving at much faster speed than I had calculated. I was pushed into the guard rail to the right, then lost control and swerved through the rail on the left, plunging over the side of the mountain.

    As I plummeted down the hillside, my visibility was thwarted by the darkness and the strobe-like streaks from my headlight beams as they bounced wildly off the onrushing landscape. I knew with complete certainty that "this was it."

    Not only was I about to die, but it was actually going to be quite gruesome, with mangled body parts and all the attendant undesirable horrors now swarming back from the 60's cautionary "Drivers Education" films. An enormous fear raced through me on the wings of adrenaline – the primal survival response crushing up against sure knowledge of sheer ruin.

    Suddenly I hit the bottom of the hill, but unlike the movie finale, I did not explode in a blazing fireball. Rather, my car catapulted up through the air, flipping over and over as it crossed the oncoming 2-lane highway. It continued air-borne across the service road, finally slamming into the side of the hill on the other side, where it proceeded to roll down a bit until it hung, teetering, on the edge of an embankment.

    It must have been while I was in mid-air (although my recollected sense was that time itself had literally stopped) that the fear was swallowed up by a great silence. This silence was deeper than I had ever known and certainly beyond my feeble adjectives, and yet curiously "familiar", as if it had always been here, just behind the chitchat of everyday mind and imagined identity.

    Spontaneously, there was a "knowing" that I could never be implicated by death, but more to the point – it was obvious that there had never been, nor could there ever be, such a thing as "I" – that smoky bundle of thoughts and memories that had just dissolved in mid-air like a magician’s trick.

    There was no car, no accident, no trace of ‘the world’. There was no narrative or story line of "my life", any life, any personal or collective history, any past or future. Alone, yet with no sense of lack or incompleteness. Awareness, boundless and inexpressible, vastness with no center, brilliant and motionless . . . I’d like to say more, but words don’t apply here. The closest I could approximate the experience was the time back when I had stepped off the bus after summer camp at the age of 8, but even that paled in comparison to this. It would take many years and a bucket full of tears for the full impact of this moment to sink in.

    Suddenly “I” was back in the crushed driver's seat, my left foot had pierced through the floor board of the car, and was dangling shoeless in the air over the embankment, shattered. People were milling about, sharing their disbelief that someone could have survived such a disaster!

    I was engulfed in tears, but these tears had nothing to do with the accident, or survival, or relief to be essentially in one piece. These tears were tears of gratitude for such Grace, that I had been given a gift beyond measure.

    When the paramedics placed me in the ambulance and closed the doors, they immediately fell silent and stopped their busy work – overcome themselves by a palpable current of Bliss filling up the space with a radiant Presence. They stared at me, and then at each other, and one said: "What is happening here?"

    An interesting postscript to that event was brought to my attention later. Several of my friends reported intense experiences of Presence timed to that very night. Another, who was sitting hospital vigil with her husband in the final stages of his terminal illness, reported that -- at around 10 PM that night -- she was overwhelmed by a brilliant streak of light which shone through her heart and into and around her husband for several minutes. By the next day he had recovered completely from his illness, much to the bewilderment of the medical staff.

    After that, my appreciation of things was to change dramatically in ways that I could not have foreseen. Everything I had once believed to be true about myself and the world was just wiped off the map, and it literally felt like starting over, a true stranger in paradise. All the puzzle pieces, painstakingly assembled over the years, had been tossed sky-high, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would never seem quite like they did before then.

    In 1999, I was working in New Jersey, directing the natural and organic products division of a prominent nationwide wholesale distributor. After several decades in this business, I had achieved a level of success within my field that had yielded more material and social blessings than I could have imagined, bundled with all the complications of the corporate life. Still, for the most part, it was just doing what had to be done in the midst of arising dream scenes and conditions, and this included projecting a functional self to navigate the flowing waters, while in the meantime not getting trapped in any of it to the point of taking it all that seriously, so to speak. After the “Void” experience during an auto accident 15 years earlier, the empty nature of all arising phenomena sooner or later bled through and informed my default view, but I was still fairly imbalanced and detached from the Heart. This was a huge area that I had attempted to bypass, but nothing slips by – everything needs to be illumined.

    That year, our office had just been wired for the internet, and I was naturally curious about this new medium and its capacity. One late morning, between spreadsheets and store designs, I happened upon a site that featured a picture of Mother Meera, a reputed emanation of the ‘Divine Mother’ currently appearing here in this global part of dream.

    "The whole purpose of my work is in the calling down of the Paramatman Light [a level of spiritual light not previously found on earth] and in helping people. For this I came - to open your hearts to the Light. The Light was always there; I prayed to Paramatman, the Supreme Being, to be able to use it. The Light has never been USED before. Like electricity, it is everywhere, but one must know how to activate it. I have come for that.”


    I had recently read an intriguing article in a magazine about her, but I was unprepared for what followed. As her photo slowly downloaded on my screen, I fell into a stunned silence, and over an hour passed by before it seemed I was even able to inhale. I then rose, wobbly, from my desk, informed my secretary that I was going out for lunch, and drove to a near-by pond to walk along the banks and let what had just "happened" sort itself out.

    Within moments, I found my gaze lifted towards the sky, and as I glimpsed the brilliant sun above my head, “I” projected Meera reaching in and touching an unfathomable place within my being. A water-falling cascade of deep sobbing tears erupted, and I literally fell down on my knees, utterly overwhelmed and engulfed in . . . Mercy. The Heart is Gracious, Brothers and Sisters, I’ll testify to that!

    This was like nothing I could have ever imagined! I was broken open, and I could not cease from weeping over and over in the following months. There was a totally vulnerable receptivity to the slightest appearance of anything, coupled with a tender rawness that found me ruined and drowned in a love I had no name for. My life was once again changing dramatically, and what a ride lay in store! The fact that I could carry on in a fairly complex professional environment at work during this time was a testament to some much-appreciated training back at the Zen monastery. There’s a lot to be said for disciplining the mind, if done for the sake of clear awareness.

    After several months of this "communion", I received an interior guidance from Meera, directing me to an odd character I had never heard of -- Nisargadatta Maharaj. A woman friend who was undergoing cancer surgery told me during a hospital visit with her that she had no idea why, but she felt compelled to offer me a book that had come into her possession. It was a book of dialogues with “Sri Niz”, as I’ve come to affectionately call him. Every day at lunch hour I read several paragraphs, and then spent the rest of the time allowing the implications to penetrate. I found that by doing so, I was returned again and again to awareness itself, and in fact his words had the effect of training wheels, until I could take up the practice of awareness without reliance on words, to the point of true spontaneity.

    In the dreamtime, the ride was morphing rapidly. Out of the blue, I was offered a dream job in the San Francisco Bay Area (after 25 years living on the East Coast). It was at twice my current salary, with all sorts of attractive perks for props. I geared up to start the next century in timelessness back in the San Francisco Bay Area, and thus arrived just in time to be with my parents as each died within months of my homecoming.

    Conditions set in motion in a time prior to reckoning had ripened now, enabling reunion with my immortal Beloved once more in the synchronicity of this form world. Indivisible since pre-existence, there’d been a number of intervening lifetimes since our last adventure in 3-D together, and this time we were both equally submitted to making the best use of the rare and miraculous opportunity afforded us in the play of consciousness and not waste it indulging in anything that’s not true. This was the work we were brought here to do as two-not-two.

    Everything in our lives leading up to this glad re-union had, in retrospect, been preparation. We took form here this time in the midst of no-time to see something through together -- something amazing -- for the sake of the Heart’s deepest longing. We recognized each other again upon first contact, and immediately dived in – ecstatic -- to the mutual immolation of all that would resist that deepest truth. Her own story is far more remarkable than my own, and it was she who led me to understand the inner meaning of surrender. I humbly offer everything at her feet, for she is the manifestation of Love, and the one who revealed to me that Love is all that matters.



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    Australia Avalon Member Anchor's Avatar
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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by another bob (here)
    it is not mysterious nor does it need to be cloaked in a secret "Boy's Only" club language.
    Wow - that was some read.

    From a fellow simplicity junkie, I am in complete agreement.

    There is a lot of money to be had, or a lot of ego puffing to be had in the world of complexity.

    Do you think that enlightenment and perspective shift are actually the same thing - or is one simply a precursor to the other ?

    An often read notion of enlightenment is that the truth of all things is known, and all things are known - so it is a common assumption that an enlightened person knows all things.

    My perspective shifts from being me to experiencing me - back and forth. Even in the former state, I still dont have access to my innate (allegedly) wisdom accumulated over millennia. This may be a purposeful part of my incarnation and I'm not that bothered about it - I seem to get what I need when I need it anyway and I just enjoy the ride and the opportunities I get to do stuff.

    If your concept of enlightenment is simply understanding and perceiving the perpective of "experiencing Steve living his life" instead of being "Steve living his life", then would you agree that there are more steps on the path?

    John..
    -- Let the truth be known by all, let the truth be known by all, let the truth be known by all --

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by Anchor (here)
    If your concept of enlightenment is simply understanding and perceiving the perpective of "experiencing Steve living his life" instead of being "Steve living his life", then would you agree that there are more steps on the path?
    Greetings, John!

    Thank you for your comments!

    To your inquiry, I would offer that there is no "path" per se, and that true enlightenment is our actual, or native, condition, which we temporarily set aside in order to experience the physical dimension here. While appearing in this 3-D psycho-physical realm, we are sometimes granted visions of our true nature, which are called "kensho" in Zen. These experiences offer us an awakening glimpse, which is what Steve is talking about when he speaks of a "shift". It is an actual revolution in perspective, but by no means can it be considered anything near the caliber of our recognition when we fully resume our higher identity as Light Beings.

    No human has ever achieved enlightenment, that's not why we are here -- it's just that some have come in with less amnesia than others, and so we consider them "great beings", when in reality what is true of them is exactly true of us too, once we snap out of the daze. Moreover, the deeper we delve into the matter, that which we consider to be our individual self -- me -- is eventually realized to be nothing more than a fabricated figure, an imaginary phantom, with no inherent reality itself. A dream character cannot be enlightened, anymore than a character in a movie can be brought down off the silver screen and taken out for fish & chips.

    It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but this enlightenment has no beginning and no end. It unfolds far beyond our kiddie notions of time and space, but in the meantime, we are left to work at our original purpose in being here now, which is to discover something essential about ourselves. Each will come to know what that is -- if not during this life, then certainly at its end, when the virtual reality game is over, and every eye is opened, and what awaits to be seen shall be revealed.


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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Wow, what an amazing story. Thanks for sharing... The twin flame reunion, that's awesome.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Hello Bob - is this essay by Stephen Norquist from his book, or was it written as a one-off?

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Thank you for this enlightening read

    Quote Posted by another bob (here)
    After about three years of this I had my first experience of “nonduality” as it is called. I had just read a passage in Ken Wilber’s “The Spectrum of Consciousness” where he points out that ordinary awareness is ultimate awareness. This struck a chord in me, I set the book down and stared at a paper that was sitting on the table in front of me, after about a minute or two an exciting and frightening thing happened, I disappeared! By that I mean the middle fell right out of the equation. Normally there would be Steve over here looking at the paper on the desk over there, now there was only the experience, "paper" but no Steve over here seeing it. It was clear that the middle that normally separated the paper from Steve did not really exist, there was only the experience, "paper." [...]
    Especially this part draws my attention.
    I also had my first (and only) experience of oneness while reading a book. It was like I suddenly felt, that there was more to the things I just read. I put the book aside, sat on my meditation-cushion and after just a few seconds, I stopped being me and started being.
    I really had problems putting it into words. Your post definitely helps.

    I also enjoyed David Hawkins description of it; so I'm just gonna add two small quotes:

    Quote One does not even have to destroy the ego or even work on it. The only simple task to be accomplished is to let go of the identification with the ego as one's real self.
    Quote By internal observation, one can differentiate that the personality is a system of learned responses, and the persona is not the real 'I'. The real 'I' lies behind and beyond it. One is the witness of that personality, and there is no reason one has to identify with it at all.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Thanks for the post, I usually have difficulty reading long posts, but that was well worth the the effort, Fascinating, Thought provoking and enlightening. I recently posted in response to a request, a very simple method of meditation, which I was lambasted for by one of the members, even though it contained lots of elements to lead to a state of pure being. Too simple! Well to my mind you have achieved the same, it is all rather simple and obvious and complex at the same time. It is rather frustrating to know the truth that all people have to do is open there eyes and see, rather than just looking.

    I like something that Don Juan said to Castaneda, that his choice to act is his folly. Great word. I hope this makes some sense as I do not have your eloquence with words.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    I had to yell FINALLY!!!! After I read this... because someone understands the EXACT things that I've been running through my head for the past 2 years... Bob, you put into words what I could not. Thank you for your post.
    I also totally agree with you that when you "find enlightenment" suddenly (at least for me), you draw away from the crowds, the "partying", or any activity- and become a "hermit"... I really can't stand to even go out to get groceries because I feel "contaminated" when I get back home... it's hard for me to watch people go about their lives like everything is so "real" when it is not. I struggle with this daily, so the best place for me is home...
    I have not posted on the forum in quite some time... but I was compelled to leave a comment after reading this... because it made me smile, which doesn't happen as often as it used to.
    Thank you once again, Bob...
    Much love.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by geoff (here)
    I recently posted in response to a request, a very simple method of meditation, which I was lambasted for by one of the members
    You were not lambasted.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by Tarka the Duck (here)
    Hello Bob - is this essay by Stephen Norquist from his book, or was it written as a one-off?
    Hiya Kathy!

    From Steve's site:

    Six years after writing this essay, Steven Norquist published, The Haunted Universe, "a book that has the potential to guide 'he' or 'she'; to the place where they will have the chance to contact reality, to experience it." A revised edition was published in 2010 and is a marked improvement over the original. Though 200 pages long, it is a short book designed with few sentences per page. Written in a strong voice; it's just possible that some of its hammer-like phrasings might punch through your defenses....
    The Haunted Universe is now available as an audiobook. Steven's measured reading gives space for the feeling behind his words to tug at your reality. The professionally produced CD is available from Haunted Press.
    Steven Norquist spoke in Raleigh, NC in October 2010 at the SIG retreat. To listen to his first public talk, visit this page: http://selfinquiry.org/retreat2010recordings.htm.


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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by Butterfli13 (here)
    I also totally agree with you that when you "find enlightenment" suddenly (at least for me), you draw away from the crowds, the "partying", or any activity- and become a "hermit"... I really can't stand to even go out to get groceries because I feel "contaminated" when I get back home... it's hard for me to watch people go about their lives like everything is so "real" when it is not. I struggle with this daily, so the best place for me is home...
    Greetings, Friend!

    HAving spent time as a hermit, I totally empathize with your sentiments, which is why I had to really "dig deep" to be able to throw myself back into the marketplace, so to speak. I came to realize that there was still something that I was trying to protect, some subtle image of myself that I was still holding onto. If everything is truly all one, then there can be no separating myself out from perceived others. There can be no contamination, except in my imagination of duality, and so, when this became clear, the boundaries dropped away. The only contaminant was my own limited appreciation of the Divine, which in reality is all there is. It's only our tendency to make judgments based on insufficient appreciation that bind us in thoughts of self vs others. There is only God. This understanding is not of mind, but of direct experience. Just go further, and you will see. Blessings to you!


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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote You were not lambasted.
    Sorry Casper, a definitely case of me exaggerating. Sincerly

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Hi Bob,

    It’s really great to read about your “own” experiences. I’ve been a member of the Forum, in its current incarnation and also the old PA/PC form, for more than three and a half years. Over all that time there’s been a continual increase in the length and frequency and quality of posts that describe members’ experiences/awarenesses. “Personal” yet not personal! I believe it’s done much to enhance the overall quality. Not that your hard work in producing other lengthy posts and quotes such as of Steven Norquist hasn’t helped
    Above all, always refuse to cut your life in two: nonduality/duality, matter/Spirit, etc
    A mind which is not crippled by memory has real freedom. ~ J. Krishnamurti
    (True, deep) stillness is the way.

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    Quote Posted by TraineeHuman (here)
    I've been a member of the Forum, in its current incarnation and also the old PA/PC form, for more than three and a half years. Over all that time there’s been a continual increase in the length and frequency and quality of posts that describe members’ experiences/awarenesses.
    Greetings, TH!

    Thank you for your comments, and also for the wonderful posts you yourself have been sharing here regarding your own adventures in consciousness!

    Like you, I have been impressed with the overall level of discourse and civil, intelligent inquiry I've found here -- this forum is a rare oasis, and I am grateful to be able to participate with such a fine group of sincere and thoughtful folks.

    I began my internet explorations back in the late 90's, though I've always been a bit of an odd one in the various online forums I've participated in over the years. Among the Buddhists, I was considered a maverick, and even made a few uncomfortable when I persisted in questioning the various myths and contradictions behind their traditions. Among the Advaitins, I was also a black sheep, particularly when I challenged the focus on conceptuality and lack of soulfulness common in such gatherings. And so the story went, until I happened upon this site last Fall, and recognized some outstanding contributions from a variety of like-minded members. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised to find so many clear and original thinkers exploring such a fascinating variety of interesting subjects, and the level of overall maturity and balance here does continue to impress me. I'm grateful indeed for the opportunity to participate in the ongoing group investigation, and hope that my humble contribution will serve in some small way to advance the expansion of awareness and recognition of our true nature and destiny. Blessings to you and all!


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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    I have found others sharing of immense value--- kept me sane or what passes for that these days.

    Dr David Hawkins book " Discovery of the presence of God" a great help too.
    The account of his journey and enlightenment very clear.
    He states emphatically that all concepts, belief systems etc must be released.
    He speaks of non-location in the state we call enlightenment and that free of ego, perception is completely different, yet its normal.
    Says jokingly "People speak to the body because thats the way it is here"
    There is a maturing of the state, he spent seven years as a virtual hermit as the state progressed.
    He also said from a higher perspective enlightenment is likened to kindergarten, because of the heavy density of the world enlightenment is the ultimate here.
    One of the barriers is seeing oneself as a member of any path, religion or philosophy.
    All personal identification goes.
    Ramesh said "God gave you an ego let Him remove it."
    God is you very own SELF.
    There is no ego, no self, no karma the moment realization of that truth happens.
    It simply the greatest mystery.

    Chris
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: De-mystifying Enlightenment

    This is an amazing thread, wow. Thank you all. I wanted to share this audio clip with all you enlightened ones. enjoy.

    http://www.robert-adams.info/one-day...ing-to-die.mp3
    "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." --Rumi

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