Enlightenment.
It is the goal for most Buddhists, this attainment of deep spiritual
understanding. And that same, worthy pursuit is urged in one form,
or another, in every other major religion or spiritual philosophy,
as well.
But what
does "enlightenment" truly mean? What exactly is this illumination
that we are seeking? And how will we know when, or even if, we have
attained that lofty status of sagehood?
To most
Westerners, it seems safe to say that enlightenment would be considered
akin to a religious epiphany. However, a little-discussed, though
universally-experienced mental phenomenon may actually hold the key
to this cherished state ... and it is a completely natural (if somewhat
unusual and, for the unprepared, potentially disturbing) event. No
long years of study, meditation or other aspects of "spirituality"
need be involved.
For if
I am correct, the only difference between the illumined sage, the
sincere aspirant on a quest for that sacred Grail, and the drunkard
sitting bleary-eyed at a bar, is one of knowledge -- the knowledge
of what actually constitutes "enlightenment" ... or, in the tradition
of yoga (and its underlying philosophy of Vedanta), that same state
which is often called "Self-realization."
Yoga-Vedanta
is the pathway I have followed and taught for many years (though I
have mostly conducted my life according to the Buddha's Eight-Fold
Noble Path for even longer). As in Buddhism, there are a number of
"schools" or lineages in the heritage of yoga-Vedanta. My specific
pathway is called "Neti Yoga."
In Neti
Yoga -- a "westernized" adaptation of jnana yoga ("The Way of Ultimate
Wisdom") -- it is taught that there are but two vital elements required
to attain enlightenment or Self-realization: Knowledge and experience.
Of the two, experience is by far the more crucial.
What
makes "instant enlightenment" possible is the fact that each of us
has had the special experience required to qualify for Self-realization.
And the "knowledge" portion of the equation is easy enough to share.
But
be warned: This knowledge comes with a price. If you accept what I
am about to reveal to you as truth, it sets into motion a profound
and far-reaching "paradigm shift" (thank you, Marilyn Ferguson). An
altered way of looking at familiar concepts and beliefs.
This
is because enlightenment probably "ain't what you think it is." At
least, enlightenment or Self-realization wasn't what I envisioned
it to be, the day that I finally "got it" after many long years of
searching and study!
I became
Self-realized in a strange, almost ridiculous way. It was a Tuesday
in April, 1985. I had driven up to a traffic light which had just
turned red. Then, almost instantly it seemed, the driver behind me
was angrily honking his horn to alert me that the light was now green.
Confused,
I drove away, trying to figure it out.
I knew
the light was a particularly long one, since it was only several miles
from my home and I passed it almost every day. The conclusion was
unmistakable: Nearly two minutes of my life had disappeared without
my noticing it -- I had somehow just "lost" a block of time!
The "stoplight
incident" had not been my only experience of "losing time." The first
occurrence -- also while driving -- had happened nearly 30 years earlier
when, to celebrate the end of my sophomore year in college, my room-mates
and I each hastily downed half-pints of whiskey. Then I said goodbye
to my friends and, with youthful confidence, set out to drunkenly
drive some 40 miles to see my girlfriend, at her home.
I "awoke"
nearly an hour later, lying flat on my back in my girlfriend's front
yard, I had arrived safely, but with no recall of the drive. However,
that loss of time was only briefly perplexing; alcohol's ability to
cause mental black-outs is well-known.
But this
stoplight episode had no such easy answer. Yet several blocks away,
it suddenly struck me ... and the humorous simplicity of it set me
laughing uproariously. I had just seen the Self ... and its "form"
was a period of missing time!
Perhaps
you've seen the wonderful Gahan Wilson cartoon depicting two obviously-Buddhist
monks, one very old, one young, sitting zazen-style. The caption quotes
the younger monk asking the older: "You mean that's it -- that's all
there is?"
Yep,
that's it.
In yoga-Vedanta,
there are various names for the Self, depending upon the circumstances
when one experiences or speaks of It. Some of these include Chit,
super-consciousness, Pure Consciousness, Brahman, Atman, Purusha,
and a variety of others. My favorite (at least for describing the
lost-time phenomenon) is "the No-Mind experience."
Or you
could call that state of Pure Consciousness nirvana, samadhi or turiya
("the fourth," meaning that state which underlies the three "normal"
modes of consciousness -- waking, dreaming and deep sleep). But according
to the teachings of Neti Yoga, they are all one and the same condition.
And,
yes, the term "God" is often used, too. But we, Westerners, who teach
yoga-Vedanta often shy away from that word since it has so many religious
-- and potentially controversial -- connotations.
In Buddhist
literature, I have heard this same state called "the pale, ivory Void."
However, the term "void" may also be misleading: It implies nothingness,
emptiness and gives one such as I -- a person not well-established
in Buddhism -- a very bleak, downbeat feeling. Instead, I prefer the
yoga-Vedanta description of this "no-thing-ness": Advaita or
"non-dualism."
In the
yoga tradition, this No-Mind state of Unity presupposes a Supreme,
if invisible Intelligence -- an omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience,
if you will. Of course, It actually may be the "nothing" of comic-book
Buddhism. But yogis and yoginis take the approach that, while in this
state, the experiencer is One without a second or other such mahavakyas
(Great Aphorisms) which refer to Its impossibility of being observed,
inspected or diagnosed.
If we
were actually able to "watch" ourselves during the No-Mind experience,
there would be an "observer" and an "observed." Dualism. And that,
by definition, would invalidate it. So the only way we can truly know
we have experienced "It" is by intellectually deducing we have lost
time, such as I did at the stoplight. Knowledge plus experience.
There
are many ways to lose time. One obvious way is during meditation.
Seasoned meditators can sometimes reach this mind-free state of time
erasure, albeit briefly, and then it is called the aforementioned
"samadhi" or "nirvana." This state is familiar to most meditators
... and is, in fact, the goal of meditation.
In deep
sleep, of course, we are also mostly free from the mind, except for
the occasional dream. And we lose time, as well. But, then, it is
expected and we generally know we have been asleep. In any event,
Pure Consciousness or turiya is that which underlies sleep, though
they may seem similar. (I have come to think of sleep as being like
"training wheels" for the No-Mind experience.)
But that
same, lost-time phenomenon can arise within people who haven't the
slightest intention of meditating or sleeping. And this normally occurs
quite unexpectedly -- sometimes dramatically so -- on a possibly-regular
basis throughout their lives. In non-meditators, that No-Mind experience
not associated with sleep might then be called "involuntary samadhi"
or "accidental nirvana."
As well
as during alcohol- or drug-induced intoxication, we might slip into
unintentional samadhi under the conditions of, say, profound relaxation,
intense concentration or simply while "day-dreaming." Even infants,
it would seem, experience this state ... and for long periods at a
time, until dirty diapers or hungry bellies bring them back to "reality."
Then,
we each experience this involuntary nirvana regularly during the day,
although usually only for moments at a time. At least twice each day
-- between wakefulness and sleeping -- we are briefly in the No-Mind
state.
And this
mind-free state of Pure Consciousness arises not only in people, but
in every living being. In that light, a broody hen, sitting upon her
clutch of eggs for weeks on end, virtually without moving or even
blinking, is an unintentional meditator of the highest order!
Some
No-Mind experiences occur under more peculiar or unusual circumstances.
For example, most people who believe they are UFO abductees report
periods of lost time during their ordeals. Comatose patients and sleepwalkers,
too, are having the No-Mind experience, as are people suffering the
grand mal seizure of epilepsy or who are entranced in deep hypnosis.
But each
of these mind-free states has its own rationale, sometimes medical,
other times bizarre or metaphysical, and seldom causes us introspection
about their significance. And without that crucial self-analysis,
there can be no Self-realization.
However,
there is the absolutely unexplainable type of No-Mind experience --
one which typically occurs during wakefulness and can actually happen
anytime, for no reason, at all ... often under bizarre conditions.
And this is the type of occurrence which can lead one to profound
distress -- or, with knowledge, to enlightenment.
My stoplight
incident was one such event. But consider the plight of one Neti yogi
who had this No-Mind experience during a "bathroom break" at his office.
One moment he was urinating; the next, he discovered himself back
at his desk, with no recall as to how long he had been there, nor
how he had returned from the lavatory.
The poor
chap was so distressed he immediately went to the company doctor,
fearing he had a mental condition or perhaps even a brain tumor. Though
nothing organically wrong could be discovered, the experience had
bothered him for years. And it was only after he learned what had
actually happened, during one of our Neti Yoga classes, that he felt
truly relieved by his new-found knowledge.
For him,
this knowledge was more than enlightening; it was therapeutic.
Curiously,
however, in the majority of our students, this involuntary samadhi
arose while driving -- generally, while driving long distances. In
fact, this is such a common condition, it even has an official name:
"White line fever." A kind of hypnosis which occurs from staring too
long at boring, incessant movement. (Not surprisingly, this is one
of the favored methods for inducing clinical hypnosis, too: Staring
at repetitive motion, such as a swinging pendulum or the tip of a
metronome.)
At some
point, the mesmerized driver is snapped back to alertness and may
scold him- or herself for lapsing into that state (if s/he even realized
that it occurred), but seldom thinks more about it. It, too, seems
to have its own reason and rationale.
This
State-beyond-mind is sometimes compared to the blank screen upon which
the flickering lights of "the movie of life" dance and play. While
most of us are enthralled by the story or scenery of "the movie,"
or maybe by its stars, the Enlightened One has no such illusions.
To him or her, it has all just become flashing lights on the Screen
of Pure Consciousness.
For years,
I had struggled with what these various terms and analogies for Pure
Consciousness actually meant. In retrospect, it is easy to now see
that my efforts and studies had prepared me to intuitively grasp the
significance of what, for most people, might pass either unnoticed
or be completely misunderstood.
But it
required my actually experiencing the No-Mind state to "wake up!,"
in the immortal words of Jack Kerouac. Before that point, its true
significance had been lost upon me ... or at least seemed to be just
a part of The Puzzle of life.
After
my No-Mind experience, however, I came to realize this eternal state
would be akin to that which would "remain" if, like the late, great
Dr. Helen Keller, I had been born without my sense of sight or hearing
... then to make matters even worse, I'd immediately lost all sense
of smell, touch and taste, as well.
I'd still
be "alive," at least in the medical sense, but with no thought-pictures
and no thought-words to entertain (or delude) me. In short, I'd have
no mind, to speak of.
And it
is this remaining essence of aliveness which is Pure Consciousness
(or close to It), we learn in yoga-Vedanta.
So is
this experience-plus-knowledge the enlightenment, or Self-realization,
of which the great masters of yoga-Vedanta (and presumably of Buddhism)
speak? I believe it is. It meets the criteria and satisfies the conditions
set forth in yoga's great scriptures and aphorisms. It gives the newly-enlightened
one an immediate insight into the deepest meanings of the various
scriptures of one's own, as well as all other traditions and religions.
And it intuitively feels "right on."
The
scriptures of yoga and Vedanta make it very clear that physical death,
alone, offers no easy escape from the turbulence of an untrained mind
and the senses. Rather, the senses follow the rampant mind "as its
scent follows a flower" from body to body, confirming that which is
also taught in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The true escape from
the "karmic suck" of the mind and its senses is found only in the
mental attitude of profound dispassion and detachment.
Enlightenment
-- that is, peeking at the clear sky of Pure Consciousness between
the cumulus of thoughts -- is a vital training tool in developing
that detachment. But it is not the end of turbulence, in itself, according
to Neti Yoga; only a mile-marker along the pathway to Supreme Dispassion.
And it is for that reason that the Buddha's Eight-Fold Noble Pathway,
as well as yoga-Vedanta's various practices, exist.
