What I’m wondering is in the phrase, “…after enlightment, chop wood, carry water”. The thing is, I’ve lost my zest for my career which I must recapture in order to find work (was laid-off) and to pay my mortgage. In the absolute, I understand there’s no one here. In the relative, I need to find the energy, but I’m no longer interested in the Game–the whole illusion thing. What to do?
I love this question and the entire subject it represents. It gets right to the heart of the seeming paradox between awakening/enlightenment and the world we find ourselves in. What to do about this paradox?
Awakening to the truth of what we are, that there is no separate self, no “me,” is to barely scratch the surface of what enlightenment truly is. Enlightenment includes in it a process that is often termed “embodiment” because it is a process of the awakened realization penetrating all of the body-mind and undoing all remaining traces of identity. This embodiment results in what I often call a “house cleaning” of the body-mind. All beliefs are undone, thoughts and feelings become transformed, and the mind drifts into the background of experience.
Sometimes an awakening is full and complete, and then with it goes all sense of identity as a self. But these full and complete, total awakenings are rare. Typically, most of us experience an initial awakening to the truth, but then discover that we still feel like a “me” even though we’ve seen, truly seen, that we are not. And so, now we get to deal with all kinds of mental-emotional “stuff” that will be (often) slowly be seen through piece by piece. It can be a difficult time, but also immensely enjoyable.
Embodiment is a major part of the state I have been referring to as half-awake. It is the post initial awakening, pre full “enlightenment” state. These are somewhat arbitrary distinctions I’m making, and there really aren’t such things as these states. But, well, there sort of are. I’ll use these terms as if they mean something simply because it helps to make some distinctions that will be helpful to most people.
So, with that overview, let me look at my reader’s question more clearly. Let me start with “after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Quite simply, this old Zen saying is clear: after enlightenment. Until embodiment has occurred, after enlightenment is not the state “you” are in. If my reader has had a true, real awakening to the truth of his being (”there’s no one here”), then the thing to do at this point is to work through the embodiment process.
I would contend that the very situation he finds himself in, laid off with a need for a job and very real financial obligations, is exactly what embodiment is all about. You see, what we are, as Nisargadatta called it “The Supreme Reality,” is not content to simply wake-up and sit in a cave staring at “its” navel. It is All of Life, everything in existence, including jobs, bodies, careers, mortgages, houses, dollar bills, etc. It is everything. It has manifested itself as all of form. Including, as my reader puts it, “the Game-the whole illusion thing.” The Supreme Reality has manifested itself as the Game of Human Life, and it is going to play it to the fullest!
Therefore, what I would suggest to my reader, and to everyone, is play the Game of Human Life as best you can. Not the way you did ten years ago, not the way you did before you realized a bit of the truth of your being, but instead from that realization. Instead of having as your motivation for playing the Game the usual motivations such as money, sex, fame, all those things, you now have a much more interesting motivation for playing the Game of Human Life. And the new motivation is freedom. Freedom from all that seemed to keep you stuck in the belief in limitation. You now seek nothing less that the limitlessness that you are.
Everything in your world becomes about freedom, about being free of all the beliefs, fears, etc, that drive the body-mind. You use things like finding a job, paying a mortgage, having a relationship, etc, as a way to discover freedom. You spend some time taking a good hard look at the contents of your consciousness. You see through illusion after illusion after illusion. You develop a relentless drive to be free, to see everything for what it truly is: the divine, the Supreme Reality manifest. You know everything as you. Not think it, not believe it, but know it, truly, wonderfully know it. That’s enlightenment.
And in the process of doing all the above, you gain a love for the Game of Human Life. It may be, in one sense, illusory, but it is the only game in town! It is Your Game, too. What you are is the creator of this odd game, and why on earth wouldn’t you want to play it? It’s your game!
I’ll write some more at a later date about embodiment and “how to do it,” as if there really is such a thing as a prescription for embodiment. There isn’t, but there are some things worth doing. In the meantime, get a book by Byron Katie and do some digging into your beliefs. It will help. Namaste.
I have a good friend who often debates with me the seemingly separate experiences of “emptiness” and “everything” that arise as a part of awakening. I often take the emptiness side of the debate, as the awakening I experienced was very much one of emptiness as all sense of what I am, a “me,” a self, an “I” as an individual completely vanished. I spent a delightful 24 hours with not one shred of identity. “I” was as empty as can be.
My friend, on the other hand, got the “everything” part first. You see, awakening seems to have two aspects to it, if we can call them that, an emptiness aspect and an everything aspect. Someone who has fully realized the truth of their being knows themselves to be absolutely empty, nothing, no self, no “I” anywhere and, at the same time, everything in existence. That’s the full realization.
Recently, my friend sent me an email in which he said:
“I had my first direct experience of emptiness yesterday during an hour long
meditation. It was a shock. Still processing it.”
The discussion that follows is based on my reply to him with some additional thoughts:
Be careful with emptiness! I say that half-jokingly, but the old Zen guys used to warn about “getting drunk on emptiness.” I know exactly what they mean. I can “dive” into the emptiness at times and appear to be completely free of everything. It can be a bit intoxicating and also quite liberating. And when I come out of the emptiness? Ah, now that’s what’s curious! I’m not quite as free somehow and often seem to get a touch lost back in the mind. However, every time I spend a little bit of time in emptiness, the “problems” I have get lighter and lighter and the freedom deeper and deeper. Someday all that is going to cease.
One of the first real tastes I had of everything occurred when I was sitting one day and really looked at some things around me and recognized that the emptiness was in everything I was looking at. Then it hit me: everything I see IS emptiness. And then I got a taste of everything. A week later, I did a little more of that, and then I knew that I was the tree I was looking at, and I could literally feel the tree. “We” were nothing and everything at the same time.
That said, something I heard Adyashanti say once, and Nisargadatta used to talk about often, may be the resolution to our debate about emptiness and everything. Nisargadatta would talk about being “beyond” both emptiness and everything. Beyond all hint of manifestation. Beyond all opposites. While he would EXPERIENCE everything and nothing, he knew that what he was, in fact, was beyond even that. He would say that what he was contained everything and nothing.
Adyashanti calls this The Void. He says there’s absolutely nothing he can really say about it except maybe to say that everything, including emptiness, arises out of the Void. If you can say anything about it, it would be that The Void is pure potential. And even that isn’t it. It isn’t a state, it isn’t anything. Yet, it is what we all are and everything is.
I’ve been intrigued lately by a retired physicist, Amit Goswami, who wrote one of the most popular textbooks on quantum mechanics (for physicists, that is, so he is the real deal when it comes to science). He was in “What the Bleep.” I’ve tried reading one of his books, but he isn’t the best writer. He’s too scattered, and he really doesn’t get the extent to which the idea of “consciousness” goes. But, that said, he’s still worth reading, and he helped me construct a model of how the manifest arises. It goes something like this:
Before I go further, please note: the above diagram is a MODEL of how the apparent world might work, not Reality. It is something to play with, something for the mind to have fun with as it tries to make sense of what it will never make sense of. If it helps, great. But never, ever take things like the above as the Truth. They aren’t. That said….
The cool thing Goswami did for me was help me see where consciousness fit into the picture of how the physical world works. The key is that awareness or consciousness doesn’t arise out of the physical world, but is the generator of the physical world. I knew that from my spiritual experiences, but I was having some cognitive dissonance from all the science and psychology I had learned in the past. Now I get it. One small belief change and it all seems to work.
What’s really amazing is how the manifest world, beginning with the notion of Everything and through quantum particles, atoms and the visible world arises and subsides quite spontaneously and frequently in and out of consciousness and the Zero Point Field. Real, observable quantum particles arise and collapse back into this ground state. All of our seeming physical universe is a continuous play in and out of consciousness. Needless to say, I will have a lot more to say about these ideas in the future.
The Zero Point Field is a very interesting concept. I had heard of it, but I thought that some New Agey people had taken an idea in physics and distorted it and came up with a goofy explanation of all the woo-woo stuff out there. However, if you read the actual physics, the Zero Point Field is a very solid concept in the world of quantum physics. It is a massive, infinite background “field” of “energy” (neither term really means anything, but that’s a different story) out of which literally every aspect of physics arises. It is so fundamental that every physics equation written ignores it because they can’t do anything with it. From what I can tell from the physics, and interfacing it with the spiritual, the Zero Point Field is the first manifestation of Consciousness. Or, who knows, maybe they are co-equal. Hard to say. But fun to play with. Nonetheless, there really is an interface between the spiritual and the manifest world, and it is right there at the boundary of consciousness and this field of energy. How cool is that?
There is a wonderful video about the life and teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj entitled “Awaken to the Eternal.” You can buy it on DVD, but it is a bit pricey. However, someone has posted it on YouTube. The video is very watchable and quite amazing. Watch it. Enjoy it. Learn from one of the greatest teachers ever.
The first of six parts is below. You can head over to YouTube for the remaining 5 videos. Enjoy!
Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?
A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.
The other day I wrote a little article commenting on Eckhart Tolle and Oprah. A reader left some comments concerning Eckhart and the general issue of enlightenment, and rather than reply in the comments, I thought I would do a short article in response.
I think it is safe to say that my reader and I may not see eye to eye on the subject of enlightenment. I won’t try to summarize his point of view, but I encourage you to read the comments on that post.
Let me being by saying that I’m not really into the term enlightenment, so I will use the word awake or awakening. Just a matter of preference. Less baggage for me associated with the term awakening.
The only “criteria” I have for awakening is seeing, truly seeing, beyond the self, the “I”, the “me” that everyone thinks they are. When that is seen through, completely through, it is as if one has awakened from a dream, a dream of self. One then knows oneself as the Unborn as the Buddha would have said. Or we can say Emptiness, Spirit, the Formless.
However, as one great Zen master pointed out, “to encounter the Absolute is not yet enlightenment.” This awakening has to penetrate the entire being. When it does, the person knows through and through the truth: there is only One. Wherever they look, they see One. And this One has the appearance of form but is in fact Formless, Empty. When they look inside themselves, they see Nothing, Emptiness, the Absolute. All is Emptiness, all is One.
This whole awakening, then, is about identity. In my experience, it has nothing to do with experiences. One can have profound experiences of bliss, and even experiences of awakening, but that in and of itself is not it. When the sense of self has gone, that is it. No Self. Over and over, that message comes at us in spiritual literature (well, at least in “the good stuff”).
As for those who have awakened, in my experience, there are plenty. Eckhart for certain. They come in all shapes and sizes. I personally know a few that don’t look anything like the popular image of “an enlightened one.” The outer form means nothing. Absolutely nothing. Life expresses itself in all manner of forms. And in awakening, too. Here are a few examples of some well known and not so well known folks:
Ramana Maharshi (pictured left), who by anyone’s definition would meet the tests of “enlightened” sat around in a loincloth and asked for nothing (except a newspaper and food). And yet he had a strange obsession with a mountain. Go figure. He “looked the part” of the great enlightened one, partly because of his particular experiences and partly because he was living in India.
Nisargadatta Maharaj (pictured right), again someone who passes almost anyone’s “tests”, smoked cigarettes like a chimney and owned a little store (where he sold cigarettes amongst other things). He was a common man, uneducated, but as awake as could be. He certainly didn’t look enlightened. He even would shout at his visitors in his passion to bring the truth to them.
Okay, one more: my favorite is a man who currently plays banjo at the Grand Ole Opry and tells silly hillbilly jokes on stage. He is billed as a “banjer funnyman” yet when he has done satsang, the beauty of the truth in him echos from his voice. He is vibrant, alive, amazing. And yes, he was on Hee Haw 20 years ago (I’m not making this up, I promise!). His name is Mike Snider, and you can find out more about him here.
All awake. All aware of the Truth.
These are some examples. I know of others. As a matter of fact, I’m going to be posting an interview I did recently with someone who has realized the truth of who he is. He is a delight to speak with, but again, he won’t look like the common conceptions of “enlightened guy.” Which to me means those conceptions are probably quite mistaken.
To be honest, it is probably best to throw away these beliefs about enlightenment, and we should probably begin with the term enlightenment. Too much baggage as I said before. In point of fact, probably the best way to express it all is to simply say, “one who has realized the truth of who she is.” Much better. Because it isn’t any more complicated or exciting than that.
Again, as I mentioned above, that realization can’t simply be “oh, yeah, I get it.” It must penetrate deep, it must be thorough, it must be through the entire being. But don’t worry. You’ll know. Believe me, when the truth dawns, you won’t have any doubts. You probably won’t be able to stop laughing for a while.
As an addendum, I would like to thank Vern over at aimforawesome.com for getting this discussion rolling. He has a terrific blog with great articles and killer images. He writes from his experience, which is rare in the world of spirituality. Again, thanks Vern.
Living as Consciousness Newsletter and Tips for Spiritual Seekers
Subscribe and receive a special bonus as a thank you for joining. If you find yourself on the spiritual path, then you know from experience you need all the help and support you can get. The newsletter and tips are intended for someone like you.
But beauty, real beauty, ends where intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of a face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.
Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.
Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?
A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.
So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary…. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence.
Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, Self or Atman. According to the teachings of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.
The disappearance of this fundamental question [How do I know the state of an enlightened one?], on discovering that it had no answer, was a physiological phenomenon, a sudden ‘explosion’ inside, blasting, as it were, every cell, every nerve and every gland in my body. And with that ‘explosion’, the illusion that there is continuity of thought, that there is a center, an ‘I’ linking up the thoughts, was not there anymore.
