Enlightenment

The word “awakening” is closer to me rather than “enlightenment” or “self-realization”. “Awakening” reminds, at least, of the need to awaken from something.

From what should those who seek awakening or enlightenment need to awaken? Starting from about the age of three, a child begins to form his personality. Until this age, he has no ideas, concepts, and even the idea of ”I”, he resides in a natural state of inseparability from his parents and the world around him, we can say that he is in a state of natural unclouded consciousness, naturally being in the present moment, without any filters. Therefore, young children have such a sincere interest in everything around them; every moment is enchanting and bright for them. After a while, it’s being developed a difference between himself and the world around him, from that moment a division into “I” and everything else appears, and an individual personality and what is generally called the Ego begins to form itself. Duality appears and the world is filled with rending contradictions.

Together with upbringing, training and getting the influence of society, a person acquires an incredible number of ideas, rules, concepts, ideas. The person is drawn into a game called “Life”, where he actually, did not choose anything consciously. At large, all the contents of a person’s mind and his mental structure were formed in the course of random circumstances, starting with the fact that a person does not choose his parents and the primary social environment, and even more so with heredity and innate abilities. Most of his mental and emotional reactions are unconscious. All this endless buzzing of the mind, with its endless streams of thoughts, a constant heap of emotions with a predominant number of negative emotions, in fact, is a “dream” from which you want to wake up so much. This “dream” does not give you an opportunity to be in the present moment, to correspond to this moment, to enjoy life, to feel yourself as you are, to be present towards your own life, it creates a constant identification with things, people, circumstances, complete self-obsession and absence of freedom. Believe me, people really look like “asleep”, their attention is mostly tied down either to internal thought flows and emotional experiences, or completely identified with an external object.

For centuries or even millennia, awakened people, spiritual teachers, have been trying to explain what enlightenment is. This defies any concrete and objective description, since words and linguistic possibilities are instruments of the dualistic mind, while enlightenment itself is just outside the scope of this very mind. In this regard, it is customary to say that everything that even an enlightened one would say is nothing more than a pointer to what is, and not an objectively true definition. Of course, such definitions do not bring clarity, because every seeker of enlightenment is forced to look at it from his personal point, while enlightenment itself is impersonal. Perhaps it is easier to describe enlightenment by indirect signs, which are also subjective, since it is always an event that happened to a specific person.

What happens at the moment of final awakening, enlightenment? This can be described as a kind of complete stop of the mind, and this is not just a stop of thoughts, as it happens to people who practice meditation for a long time, when they even for a long time remain without thoughts, this stop is total, as if time had stopped, the instant disappearance of everything personal is experienced as inseparability with the surrounding space. This can also be called complete clarity. It is as if you were all the time trying to study the space and decoration of a large room through the keyhole, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, you find yourself inside this large room, where now you can look at everything completely calmly. Things become self-evident. It seems that you have never really looked around, never really seen your house, or street, or trees, or objects. Impressions come in a huge stream, you have returned to the direct perception of a child. It is truly characterized by a sense of bliss and incredible pleasure of that everything just exists. It also looks as you were like Sisyphus having been rolling a stone uphill during the whole life and suddenly the stone and the mountain disappeared, you become freed from the burden of life. Of course, you do not need to think that you will forever remain in some kind of narcotic nirvanic state or fall into childhood, after a while this changes, but you will not return to the previous past, the perspective of your perception has shifted from identification with yourself as a body, mind and your personality to what is the observation itself is, not even the observer. Enlightenment is not a state, states are characterized by the fact that they change, in enlightenment immutability arises. It is also characterized by effortlessness, you no longer make an effort, in the sense that it is always felt to be, the necessary work and actions are done without the inherent personal tension. You no longer live having endless “what if”, fears, doubts, worries; such a peace has appeared inside you that surpasses all understanding. You are at peace with yourself and, to a greater extent, with the surrounding reality as natural acceptance appeared, this does not mean that the surrounding reality cannot at some point cause a reaction of irritation or a stronger reaction, but in any case, this happens extremely rarely, momentarily, without affecting you, as a rule, the initial absence of negative emotions on your part does not allow others to maintain negativity for a long time, their negative reactions quickly fade away.

What happens to awareness? Awareness no longer requires any effort, awareness happens naturally by itself. You are constantly aware of something, whether these are thoughts, emotions, sensations, or things happening around, you are no longer these things, you are now the one that is aware of all this.

What happens to Emotional Life? It can often seem that an enlightened person is emotionless. This is not so, emotions do not go anywhere. You just stopped swinging on the pendulum of opposites. The extreme position of the pendulum represents extremes – on one side, extreme disappointment, grief, misfortune, on the other side, delight, happiness, joy, euphoria. If the swinging of the pendulum stops, emotions cease to be so exaggerated and noticeable, they give way to happiness originating from a sense of inner peace.

What’s going on with practicality? Will you lose the practicality you need to live? You will not lose practicality, your skills, experience and knowledge will not go anywhere. Rather, you will become even more practical, since you will not waste time on things that you are not interested in or do not need, you will not waste money on unnecessary things, and even more so on things that are purchased by tons of most people due to the dictates of the consumer society. And for sure, the chances of being persuaded to buy something unnecessary are close to zero. On doing the necessary work, you will spend as much time as is necessary for this particular work. You will become more efficient, as nothing interferes with your concentration, and energy will increase, since energy no longer flows out like through a colander due to uncontrolled streams of thoughts, excessive emotional reactions and constant bustle.

Does the enlightened person receive mystical powers? Mystical powers are not applied to enlightenment. Perhaps those who have the ability to work with energies will be able to feel energies more subtly and be of greater benefit to themselves and others. But the desire to master certain superpowers and mystical powers comes from the desire to gain some advantage, after enlightenment there is no one left who is interested in the advantage. Believe me, the feeling of peace, freedom, constant fresh perception, vitality; being present towards “now” and one’s own being is quite enough. Enlightenment is like escaping from a madhouse, because this is what the whole previous life looks like, even taking into account all the great and happy moments.

Don’t delay Enlightenment!