I attained
enlightenment on a Tuesday in April, 1985. It was while sitting at
the wheel of my car, at a stoplight, about three miles from my home
near Fort Lauderdale, FL. And, if you'd like, you can attain enlightenment,
too ... by the end of these, few paragraphs.
No kidding.
And this is the same "enlightenment" for which saints and sages have
devotedly sought, undergoing all sorts of tapas (sacrifices), sadhana
(selfless service), austerities, study and other aspects of a "spiritual"
life, in the process.
Prepare
yourself, though: Because not only is enlightenment not what you probably
think it to be; attaining it will markedly change your life in ways
you cannot yet imagine. That is, if you accept as truth what I'm about
to share with you.
What
is "enlightenment"? There is probably no word in the language of the
ancient, spiritual science of yoga -- or its underlying philosophy
of Vedanta -- which causes more confusion (except maybe "liberation").
So we first need to agree upon a definition of the term.
In yoga-Vedanta,
"enlightenment" and "Self-realization" are often used interchangeably.
"Self" -- with a capital "S" -- is frequently used to define the eternal,
universal unchangingness described by Krishna in The Bhagavad-Gita
as " ... never born and never dying" (BG 2:11-13).
So the
Self is less a "thing" and more a "condition" ... an eternal state
of being. If you will accept this, then you're well on your way to
reaching that exalted state of Ultimate Illumination. All that is
then needed is to grasp the nature of the Self -- to know if and when
you've experienced It, as it were. Then by definition, you, too, will
be "Self-realized."
In Neti
Yoga (a "westernized" version of jnana yoga -- "The Way of Ultimate
Wisdom") we teach that there are only two requirements needed to become
enlightened or Self-realized. The first is experience; the second
is knowledge. The experience of being the Self. And the knowledge
that we have been so.
Unfortunately,
we can never actually understand what the Self is ... but that's not
important. What is both important and fortunate is that you have already
experienced the Self -- we each have -- and that's what makes "instant
enlightenment" possible.
All that
remains is to identify that crucial experience.
There
is another useful term found in yoga-Vedanta to describe the Self
-- one that more clearly defines its "statehood" and not "thingness."
It is Pure Consciousness. This is a state beyond the senses and beyond
the intellect. If life were thought of as a movie, Pure Consciousness
would be the "blank screen" upon which the flashing lights of "reality"
are projected by the mind.
It is
the state that would "remain" if, like the late Dr. Helen Keller,
you had been born without your ability to see or hear ... and then,
to make matters worse, you immediately lost all sense of smell, touch
and taste, as well. You'd still be "alive," in the medical sense,
but with no thought-pictures and no thought-words to entertain (or
delude) yourself -- in short, you'd have no mind, to speak of.
But you'd
still be alive. And it is the essence of this aliveness which is Pure
Consciousness, we learn in yoga-Vedanta. It is this that we are seeking
in our quest for enlightenment.
In yoga,
Pure Consciousness is often compared to "the clear, blue sky." And
thoughts are like clouds. For most of us, the mind is usually "on"
-- the "sky" is almost always "overcast," you could say.
Still,
there are regularly moments (usually very brief) when we are between
thoughts. Then, we are in a state of "No-Mind" (Pure Consciousness,
Self). Mostly, though, these No-Mind experiences come and go within
fractions of a second. But at least twice each day we are normally
in the No-Mind state for a bit longer. It is that grey area between
waking and sleeping -- you could call it the "bridge state."
There
is one, vital characteristic of Pure Consciousness or the state-beyond-mind:
We can never actually observe ourselves being in It. In Vedanta, as
originally taught by the famed Shankaracharya, Pure Consciousness
or the Self is said to be "non-dualistic." This is known as advaita.
That is, there can never be an observer "watching" what occurs in
this untarnished state of Consciousness; otherwise, it would be "dualistic"
(an observer and the observed), and no longer qualify as "Pure."
It is
for that reason we can never know what the Self actually is ... but
we can surely know -- by deduction or inference -- when we have "been"
It. And once knowing that, we have attained enlightenment. For accepting
that the Self and Pure Consciousness are identical guarantees Self-realization.
To explain
this further, let me now return to my own "stoplight experience" which
produced enlightenment. I had just pulled up to the traffic light,
which I had watched turn to red only a moment before. But almost immediately,
it seemed, the driver behind me was angrily honking his horn -- I
now saw that the light was green!
How strange,
I thought, as I drove away. I knew that this stoplight was a particularly
long one; yet the driver behind me was obviously annoyed at my delay
in moving, so I had to figure that something peculiar had happened.
I had somehow ... lost more than a minute of time.
Perhaps
this curious incident would have simply been excused away as a "day-dream"
or otherwise gone unnoticed; or it might have been placed on the backburner
of my mind, for future consideration. But I had been a long-time student
of yoga-Vedanta, by then, and something was niggling at me.
Of COURSE!,
I practically shouted to myself. I now intuitively grasped exactly
what the great Swamis and masters of yoga had meant when they spoke
of Pure Consciousness! I realized I had just "seen" the Self ... but
all "It" seemed to have been was a block of "lost time"!
Stunned
by this baffling realization, I began to reassess all that I knew
-- or thought I knew -- about "spirituality." I had read many metaphysical
and religious books, as well as most of yoga's important scriptures.
And I had often contemplated Vedanta's various mahavakyas, its Great
Aphorisms -- "I am That"; "All is One, all is God";
"I am the Light"; "The Self of one is the Self of all",
and a variety of others.
Among
them, the one that touched me most deeply was God and I are One.
Actually,
in the original Sanskrit, it is Brahmanasmi -- "Brahman and I are
One"; and another word for "Brahman" is "the Self." But like most
Westerners I knew, I typically translated the word "Brahman" as meaning
"God." In fact, only five years earlier, the great Indian sage, Sathya
Sai Baba, had told me in a personal interview, that I -- and everyone
else -- was, indeed, God. So with my Westerner's mind, I had every
reason to expect that if, or when, my "Divinity" finally revealed
Itself, it would be nothing short of a religious vision ... an epiphany.
But this new "revelation" left me completely perplexed. It was so
simple and unexpected.
And at
the same time, it seemed so ... well, unspiritual.
If that
experience was "being God," then where did all my years of devotion
and practices as a bhakta fit in? Was I supposed to worship "lost
time" as being the Creator? And was this the "liberation" for which
I was supposed to be striving? These, and many other questions, came
bubbling forth.
Yet I
was completely clear that this phenomenon -- which I had begun calling
the "No-Mind experience" -- had been the Gift of Enlightenment for
which I had diligently searched for more than a decade. Now, I realized,
I needed to sort the whole situation out ... I needed to change my
mind to fit this new awareness. I needed a new paradigm.
I soon
came to understand that my No-Mind experience was far from unique.
In the first place, there are many instances when the mind is somehow
lost, and "the clear, blue sky" of Pure Consciousness reigns.
Often,
however, these occasions have medical or other more-or-less plausible
explanations. For example, during deep hypnosis, the mind has "gone"
and the entranced one has no recall of events happening during that
time, if so instructed by the hypnotist. I had hypnotized many people
over the years, so I knew that phenomenon well.
And in
the comatose state, as well as during a grand mal epileptic seizure,
the victim's mind is also somehow gone. Sleepwalkers, too, are someplace
beyond the mind, since they normally have no recall of the event.
And people who believe themselves to be UFO abductees often report
similar experiences of lost time. So "The Event" of "losing" (transcending)
one's mind was far from unknown.
But to
most people, those events would hardly qualify as "enlightening" or
"spiritual" experiences, since they each had their own rationale,
however traumatic or bizarre it might be. And because of this, none
of those incidents would normally cause the vital self-searching or
-analysis which is so crucial for attaining Self-realization.
Following
my "stoplight incident," however, I now realized that, although their
causes and explanations might be different, the result -- "No-Mind"
or "lost time" -- was ultimately the same.
And from
my readings and studies, I was also aware of the phenomenon called
samadhi or nirvana which experienced meditators sometimes achieve.
This, too, now seemed to have a place in my new understanding.
Then,
in yoga-Vedanta, there is the state known as turiya, or "the fourth,"
which is said to underlie the three normal modes of consciousness
-- waking, dreaming and deep sleep. It now seemed clear that samadhi,
nirvana, Pure Consciousness and turiya were also one and the same.
But until
my No-Mind experience, their significance had been unknown to me.
Up to that point, in fact, they had just been theoretical concepts,
since I had never knowingly experienced any of those conditions ...
at least not the ones described in yoga's various scriptures.
I was
also discovering something else which I found very curious. I was
not alone in experiencing such memorable and totally irrational periods
of lost time as had led to my "enlightenment." Far from it!
Soon
after my No-Mind experience, I had begun sharing my admittedly unusual
observations and conclusions within small groups of local spiritual
seekers. And first one, then another, and finally all the people with
whom I shared my Experience admitted that they, too, had undergone
similar No-Mind episodes -- periods of lost time which had absolutely
no medical or other explanation.
But until
that time, some of those people had felt reluctant to talk about these
incidents, for fear they'd be thought strange, crazy or something
equally unappealing. And others had simply "forgotten" them, until
our discussion reminded them of one, and usually several, times when
such incidents had occurred.
Also
curiously, the majority of these experiences had occurred, as did
mine, while driving! In some cases, these were not just moments of
mindlessness -- they lasted for a few minutes ... or even longer.
For example, my wife, Barbara Gail, had one such experience in her
college years when she drove from western Pennsylvania to Washington,
DC -- several hundred miles -- with virtually no recall, at all, of
the trip.
A number
of people also reported "blanking out" during alcohol- or drug-induced
intoxication. But they had felt no, particular concern, since that
condition, too, had its own well-known rationale. In fact, that had
even once happened to me, following a party at the end of my sophomore
year in college.
But perhaps
the most humorous (though not for the experiencer) of these incidents
was related during our first Neti Yoga group. One fellow had taken
a "bathroom break" at his office. Sometime later, he found himself
back at his desk, with no memory of what had occurred midway between
urination and the time when his mind "returned."
He became
so distressed he visited his company's doctor, fearing he had a brain
tumor. Though he was relieved to find that nothing was organically
wrong, he was still worried. And it was only after he discovered he'd
had a perfectly natural -- though disturbing -- experience, that he
felt a deep sense of relief and intuitive rightness about "seeing
the Self."
Indeed,
with few exceptions, once the No-Mind experience was explained, our
students quickly agreed that the Neti Yoga interpretation of this
peculiar phenomenon somehow "felt right." It touched a place of Truth
within them.
And almost
to a person, they were both excited and yet perplexed by their discovery,
just as I had been. It was like they had reached an important (if
confusing) crossroad in their lives. Perhaps this, more than anything
else, is the best validation for my unusual conclusions.
There
you have It. Enlightenment ... at least, from the Neti Yoga perspective.
This is not the end of life's journey -- far from it! But it is an
important mile-marker on the march toward "liberation." What remains
now is to understand what's really going on in life, using this new-found
Knowledge as the basis for that investigation. Good luck!
A
Yogi Explains The Bhagavad-Gita: Enlightenment for the New Millennium,
is now available from The G-Jo Institute at www.g-jo.com.
