is detachment really the purpose of awakening?
Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering
Enlightenment is a new fad. Someone like Eckhart Tolle writes a book and tells a story and then everyone believes his is enlightened. Why? It’s because people are grasping for something better and beyond themselves. They sense their own imperfections and problems and need to hitch their wagon to a star. Along with this comes a new wave of ideas and hopes that there’s something called enlightenment or awakening that makes all our problems disappear. Hanging on every word of Tolle and others of his ilk, people hear of wondrous accounts of being lost in eternal bliss and having not a care in the world about what happens next.
saved forever and ever
The promise of eternal salvation is nothing new, of course. It’s the story of Christianity and Hinduism both. And plenty of New Age teachers show us how to “return to the source,” without ever realizing that this source is ALREADY what we are. We don’t suffer from a lack of promises, we suffer from ignorance about who we are.
Ignorance, at least in large part, stems from being unable or unwilling to listen. People dressed in white gauze shirts and gowns sit spellbound at the feet of their guru Mooji and listen with wide, teary eyes at every drop of wisdom that falls from his lips. He tells his audience, “Step into the fire of self-discovery. This fire will not burn you, it will only burn what you are not.” People shake their heads in agreement and place their hands over their hearts in earnestness. But they haven’t a clue what he means. Not really. This is because the word is not the thing. Words may guide you but they will never give you wisdom unless you follow them into your own sense of self and beyond. Kissing Mooji’s feet and listening intently with your eyes closed won’t give you an insight into the reality of who you are.
start with yourself; know thyself
What does it mean to be awake in the spiritual sense? There are so many ideas about this that it’s confusing to someone searching for an honest answer. So what do you do? You begin only with yourself, with your own observation of what you are and how your mind has been conditioned to form a sense of self that is the psychological center from which you judge, criticize, accept, reject, and belief. If you do not enquire into your own sense of self you are only absorbing more information from other people and never really getting to know yourself. No one can tell you about you except for you.
bliss is yet another silly idea
One of the ideas about being awake is that you somehow are immersed in bliss and no longer care about suffering, pain, or the troubles of the world. But is this really living a life, or is it checking out? It seems as though it’s the latter. In this case, why have a life at all just to be zoned out with a stupid smile on your face and no investment in the things that happen? Also, if you are so zoned out that you are indifferent to others, where does the idea of compassion enter the picture? See the problem?
It’s very difficult for people to get past what is commonly said about awakening, enlightenment, bliss, happiness, and spirituality for one main reason: We listen to what others say and take their words as if they were true, which is really unfortunate. It’s unfortunate that we do this and it’s unfortunate that we have been conditioned to think this way.
Life presents all sorts of difficulties and obstacles to happiness. It is full of the bad and the good, suffering and pleasure, struggles and breezy situations.Today you’re on top of the word and tomorrow you’re down in the dumps. You hear bad news and suddenly you’re sick to your stomach. Someone says something encouraging and you’re thrilled to be alive once again.
People are always looking to change, improve, be more peaceful, be calmer, make the mind be still, become the next enlightened master, and so on. These are ideas; just ideas that further condition the self.
kick them off your imaginary pedestal
Is it possible to see what the psychologically conditioned mind actually is as the sense of self, or the center, so you can make sense of your life and your feelings and relationships? Just see it in its totality — all on your own without Tolle, Chopra, Spira, Mooji, or any of the others, despite whether they are phonies or well-intentioned. Look into your own self.
just be quiet
HW Poonja, an enlightened guru who went by the name Papaji used to tell his audience to “be quiet.” He wasn’t being rude or exerting his authority, he was just saying that if you’re quiet enough then you can see what’s been here all along, which is something beneath or behind the sense of self.
You don’t have to change or eradicate the conditioned mind, because the effort to do so is performed by the same mind that is trying to be changed. We face an endless cycle of the mind when it tries to act upon itself, which it can never do. When you know that there is no actual “me,” no self, no center, then you see that there is only the totality. It’s quite simple, yet the “me” really does not want to let go because it is full of fear — fear of annihilation, of pain, of suffering, of loss, and so on. The self’s biggest fear is to lapse into nonexistence.
If you’ve ever fallen into complete silence then you can grasp the existence of an eternal silent stillness that is present with or without the me, the center. The sense of self has nothing to do with it at all. But can you dwell in this silence, indifferent from the world? Sure you can, but why do it?
Have you ever seen Anandamayi Ma, the revered Indian guru who was said to attain enlightenment from the earliest age? She was completely out of touch with life — zoned out, to use modern parlance. Her husband and aides took her from place to place as she sat silently with a blissed-out expression on her face. She was a human curiosity who was said to be in a state of Samadhi half the time. How is this living a life?
On one occasion Anandamayi-Ma met the venerated Jiddu Krishnamurti and asked him why he speaks out against following a guru. She asked, “When you say one does not need any guru, …you automatically become the guru of those who accept your view, particularly as large numbers of people come to hear you speak and are influenced by you.” Krishnamurti answered, “No, if you discuss your problems with a friend he does not thereby become your guru. If a dog barks in the dark and alerts you to a snake, the dog does not thereby become your guru!”
enlightenment is the new god, the new escape
Our lives are personally and universally filled with suffering, good and bad, celebrating, mourning, living, and dying. So many people ask for a purpose, and even more ask for an escape. They don’t really want to know how to fix the situation or see the truth in any of it. Embarking on an enquiry into the self that yields insight holds no appeal. There is more of an interest to fall in love with a guru, a teacher, a speaker, a lifestyle, a pair of yoga pants, or a set of Eastern religious beliefs. Enlightenment is like a new god, promising an escape from an untenable, confusing, cruel world. But is enlightenment realistic when it means complete detachment from this life and all that is in it Is this what wisdom is all about? It does not seem to be this at all.
life is for living, is it not?
Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the few “real” teachers, used his wisdom to help in the best way he knew how. But he was not a blissed out, spaced-out drop-out. He had a life, preferences, likes and dislikes, peculiarities, a personality, a penchant for nice clothes, a need to carry on marathon discussions about the nature of humankind, and so on. Life is for living, but to live with wisdom and depth — enlightenment, if you will —adds enrichment and does not imply escapism. The self and its contents can never be changed or eradicated, but they can be appreciated, known, and even embraced so that you go through life with your eyes open, awake, to cry and laugh and live.
