The question "What is Enlightenment"? is one that remains a complex and difficult concept with various answers. At the recent Science and NonDuality Conference in Doorn, The Netherlands, (see "Are 10,000 hrs needed for awakening? NO. How to practice "better") i was interviewed along with Paul Smit and Tim Freke by Iain McNay and his wife, Renate, of Conscious TV to discuss that question. The entire interview (54:08) is now available on Conscious TV, under the Non-Duality/Awakenings tab as "What is Enlightenment?".
Ian and Renate have interviewed over 100 folk on the subject of non-duality and awakening, and have found many different views. As you will see as you watch this video, there are three different views represented. Here is much of that discussion from the first 20 minutes (redacted), so that you can see how much these views vary:
Paul: There is constantly this realization that this is
Oneness happening, and at the same time, there is the awareness that this
body-mind system, Paul, is just playing its game. That’s fascinating. But there’s no more the idea that Paul is in
control of anything…because he’s just happening.
Tim: It’s the
same boat. I remember burning my last
book which was a book by Alan Watts. I
had gone on this retreat and I was in “just to be”. He was saying that you can’t find it in a
book. So what the hell am I doing? And threw it on the fire and didn’t look at
it again for ages. For me, it’s always
just both, and they’re both true. Yes,
there’s the moment when you realize it’s not in a book, it’s in you.
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| Ian McNay Conscious TV |
Ian and Renate have interviewed over 100 folk on the subject of non-duality and awakening, and have found many different views. As you will see as you watch this video, there are three different views represented. Here is much of that discussion from the first 20 minutes (redacted), so that you can see how much these views vary:
Iain: What is
enlightenment for you?
Gary: Enlightenment
for me is what Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Patanjali’s yoga sutras, the BhagavadGita, and the Tao Te Ching defined, which is to have no thoughts.
I started out trying to get rid of my suffering. My observation was that my suffering was caused not by my body, which was healthy; it was all mentally driven. Suffering appeared to come from never-ending thoughts that filled my consciousness. So I set about trying to empirically find some way to ameliorate the suffering coming from these thoughts. I came across Ramana’s teachings and those of Bassui, a 14th century Japanese Zen monk; both gave the same practice…Where am I? Who am i? What is this? And eventually it worked…thoughts stopped. (See blogpost "What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?".)
I started out trying to get rid of my suffering. My observation was that my suffering was caused not by my body, which was healthy; it was all mentally driven. Suffering appeared to come from never-ending thoughts that filled my consciousness. So I set about trying to empirically find some way to ameliorate the suffering coming from these thoughts. I came across Ramana’s teachings and those of Bassui, a 14th century Japanese Zen monk; both gave the same practice…Where am I? Who am i? What is this? And eventually it worked…thoughts stopped. (See blogpost "What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?".)
Iain: Does that mean you’re enlightened?
Gary: I think pedagogically that is not a useful term. If I say “you’re enlightened”, it freezes you
in place; then you become something. You become something w/an egoic structure
around “I am enlightened”. It’s not an Olympic Gold medal that you get
once; “enlightenment” is a never ending
process. Harada Roshi, one of the great Zen
teachers of the 19th and 20th century said that
“enlightenment is capable of endless enlargement”. That’s been my experience - it just keeps
opening, deepening and getting stiller and stiller.
Renate: But what’s your feeling?…a feeling of freedom, delight,
or softness, or…?
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| Renate McNay |
Gary: It’s very still, but there’s a sweetness to it. It’s my state for 90+ % of the day...it’s
just very still. But I can still pass
for being functional. The brain “loves”
this state, and as it gets more and more still, as perturbations occur, the
brain does not go there. There is no
effort. It is a natural state…sahaj nirvikalpa
samadhi. Naturally, you’re in this
great stillness and life comes and goes.
You dance through it, there’s no free will, nobody in control. It’s the best game in town.
Renate: When you say it’s a never ending process, in which
direction is it going?
Gary: i don’t sense a direction. In
folk i work with, there is some point at which they feel “Hold it, I’m not in
control any longer.” It’s obvious that
there is something happening that has
taken charge of the process. It looks like
as the “I” gets smaller and smaller, and less coherent, the brain takes over
the process as it likes this state. you
give it enough data points, enough snapshots of this stillness and it will
change its functional pattern to support that.
Iain: Paul, you’re nodding.
What’s your reaction as you are listening to Gary?
Paul: I fully
agree. We’re often so conditioned to
being a separate individual with this free will that needs to work on its self image,
that needs to be good enough, to control everything, that from all of these
concepts, there are a lot of thoughts that arise, like Gary calls it the “blah,
blah” thoughts. I call it Statler and Waldorf inside your head constantly talking, judging, you should do this or that, or
things should be different. All these
thoughts about what could have happened in the past, or what should happen in
the future, create a lot of frustration, stress and fear.
There is this realization of “Who am I?”, like Ramana
Maharshi always asked people. You figure
out who you really are. Then all of this
“blah, blah” is at ease. It doesn’t just happen in one day, it’s a process.
For the body-mind system it’s a more relaxed state.
Iain: Tim, where
are you in all this?
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| Tim Freke |
Tim: Well I completely agree with both of the other
panelists, but I could also completely disagree. I know exactly what they’re saying and I do
feel that, but what’s happened in my own exploration of this strange mystery
that we’re all in, is slightly different.
Well, significantly different perhaps.
For me, enlightenment is a concept that I picked up from
India in my development and really liked, and imagined that I knew what it
meant. It came partly from the rejection of our own culture and spirituality
and I imported all of this Eastern stuff w/o any criticism. In this last period, I have been applying the
same level of criticism and honest interrogation of these ideas that we had to Christian
ideas. And what’s happened now is “Is that a relevant
concept to me?”
I was delighted with the idea that Gary said that “it is
unfolding”. The idea that there is an
absolute arriving w/o travelling is troublesome. What’s
happened to me is that I’ve gone from a journey of studying all of these
different traditions and writing all of these books to just wanting to explore
the experience that I’m having of “awakening” and describing it.
What I end up describing isn’t the same, it’s much more
paradoxical. The image and metaphor is
it’s like when you’re dreaming, which is a paradoxical situation, because you
appear to be a separate individual w/in the dream through which you’re
experiencing the dream and at the same time you can see that you’re not in the
dream at all. You’re the dreamer of the
dream and you’re one with the whole thing, it’s all you.
What I see is more like that now. I’m this
separate "Tim" thing - this vulnerable human being on this strange journey, who has
all of the human attributes of attachment, desire, confusion, delight, love, success
and tenderness, that my heart will break, be exalted, and at the same time,
there’s One of us, expressing Itself as all of us. And I’m That.
What I can’t do is prejudice one of those over the
other. They both seem really, really
important. I don’t want to give up tender humanity for This. It feels that what
has really imposed itself on me is the importance of love that arises where
those two meet. When I’m separate and
not separate from you, there’s this delightful connection. The One appears as two, and then meets itself
and then there’s love.
And that only comes when I’m really, actually,
authentically, human as well as conscious of this deep awake space. So I’ll offer that out as an
alternative. It’s like an “enlivenment”
- I want the peace which Gary’s talking about, that is completely still, but I
also want the passion. I want both.
Iain: You’re nodding Paul, what’s your feeling?
 |
| Paul Smit |
Paul: I agree w/Tim. For
me, it’s actually also both. You realize
there’s the reality like in the Matrix, and at the same time you just enjoy
playing the game inside this reality. So
we don’t have to deny this. Like
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said “Brahman is Real, Maya is Real” so we don’t have to
deny this reality.
Because right now the experience which arises is that we’re
having an interview and that’s a great story.
To me, that is the cosmic miracle.
Renate: But the question I have is “How much in your daily
life is there realization of who you are, there?”
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| Maharishi Mahesh Yogi |
Renate: What happens when emotions are coming up? 13:30
What happens if you have pain in your body?
Paul: When there is
“pain” there is the experience of pain.
When I used to believe that I was in control of everything, there was
“blah, blah” mind telling a lot of stories about the experience of pain. Now there is simply “pain”. Then you are also aware that you might visit
the doctor. That’s a miracle that is
also that just happening.
Iain: Is that something that just happened for you or is it
something you had to work on integrating?
Paul: For a long time, there was this ego thought, that “I am
Paul”, and a struggle and need to get enlightenment. So I was reading books, visiting satsangs,
watching videos and for 1 ½ years I tried everything; nothing happened. The
thoughts were “It’s not going to work.
I’m not going to get it.”
I threw away all my books; at that point there was surrender. Suddenly there was this ego system realizing that it had no control. Just giving up this control, it happened. Suddenly there was the “Wow”. Everyone says you don’t have to do anything, but before we realize that, there is a long path of seeking.
I threw away all my books; at that point there was surrender. Suddenly there was this ego system realizing that it had no control. Just giving up this control, it happened. Suddenly there was the “Wow”. Everyone says you don’t have to do anything, but before we realize that, there is a long path of seeking.
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| Alan Watts |
Renate: Gary.
How was your process? How did you reach
this point?
Gary: i realized that everyplace i had
an attachment, there was an “I” there coded to that particular attachment. i went around systematically, w/a lot of
different processes, and looked at anyplace i was attached and then did a
surrender process. Eventually, as i kept
feeling around and as nearly as I could ascertain, i didn’t have any. Every time i had a self-referential thought,
obviously i had an “I” there, so i asked “To whom did this come?”, and “What
is the attachment underneath this thought?”
We have many, many “I”s.
If you watch yourself in the course of the day, you will see “yourself” change
as you go from person to person. You
keep getting rid of all your attachments.
It came down to a final big surrender, of “I will put everything on the
table” and surrendered to whatever, the Universe, Ramana Maharshi. This included that if I had to die,
literally, to understand the Truth, then I would accept that. Soon thereafter, it turned. (See "Surrendering the 'I', letting go of suffering".)
Renate: How can you describe the turn? Was it an experience? What did you perceive after that turn?
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| Ramana Maharshi |
Gary: I was doing a vinyasa, a series of yoga postures, and in
an asana that I had done literally thousands of times before over the 20,000
hrs of yoga and meditation. I went up
into it one way and when I came down, thoughts had stopped. This was a concern as I had 1000 people
working for me, a quarter billion dollar budget and five research labs - and
I had no thoughts.
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