The mystery of enlightenment and what you are seeking
by Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering
Enlightenment is an age-old idea that evokes all sorts of images and interpretations based on what we hear from others. This secondhand information has very little value in your own realization. This is because the essence of who you are cannot be known by studying, reading, listening to gurus, jumping into self-help teachings, praying, rubbing elbows with a sage, or positive thinking. The way to your own essence is observation of what you already are.
Understanding the egoic self
At this point, it may help to define the self — also called the egoic self, the egoic mind, the ego, the “I,” “me,” or the center. What you take yourself to be is not what you are.
The egoic self is a construct fashioned out of thought that conditions our brains and minds by way of things we learn from teachers, parents, relatives, authority figures, religion, culture, and so on. All of these influences tell us who we are and we accept the information by default, without thinking about it or weighing the gravity of it all. We are told we are Americans from the earliest age and we just accept this as true, even though nationality is no more than a thought and is not a tangible thing. Descartes was right when he said, “I think therefore I am,” because it is only thought that dictates what we believe we are. If we remove all thought then what are we? Have you ever tried this? If there is no thought there is no sense of an “I,” there is only awareness.
Seeking enlightenment
How does enlightenment figure into this scenario, and why are so many people interested in it? The answer isn’t clear and simple. Some people want spiritual adventures, others want to be a better version of themselves, some want to be gurus, some want to have power over others, and a very, very few actually have a driving and clear desire to know what they are at the most fundamental level. It is this last group of people, in the smallest of minorities, that finds out what enlightenment truly is.
I should add a little caveat here about enlightenment, because it is a misleading word. In reality, there is no one who becomes enlightened. The egoic self cannot become enlightened because it is built out of thought and therefore a mirage, an illusion. And consciousness cannot become enlightened, because it is already the totality of all that is.How can we become something, attain something, that we already are?
Someone who claims that he/she is enlightened is not. However, we are stuck with the word “enlightenment,” and it does seem to convey a certain concept, which is a sense of awareness that is not tied to the egoic self.
Experience is not enlightenment
Enlightenment happens. It is the natural outcome of fully observing what we are beyond the egoic self by just observing. This observation is called self-enquiry — enquiring into the nature of the self and what exists prior to, or beneath, it. Unusual things may happen, such as an experience of utter oneness, or perhaps complete disappearance of the self and all else — finding yourself in nothingness and as nothingness. And this nothingness is pregnant with everything-ness. However, we need to understand that experience is not enlightenment. Experience comes and goes, and if there is an experience there is an experiencer; and the experiencer is the self. Once the so-called experience has come to an end, the experiencer appears and then judges and reflects upon the experience.
This brings us to the next point: Once the subject and the object relationship disappears, the totality of “all that is” will be beheld by the mind.
The subject and the object
Living a life means living in duality (you can find my articles on duality on my medium.com pages). In duality there are pairs of opposites, or complements, that we experience with our senses and our minds. The senses are designed to work this way, because we could not navigate the world unless we perceived differences. You couldn’t take a warm bath unless it was juxtaposed against a cold bath, and you couldn’t find your keys if they blended in with the environment. Duality and the subject-object relationship is vital to the worlds of consciousness, whether dreams, waking life, out of body experiences, other dimensions, imaginings, and so on.
The subject-object construct is understood in this basic sentence: “I am spiritual.” The subject is “I am,” and the object is tacked onto the end of this statement — “spiritual.” So what’s the problem? There is no problem at all, but if we want to know what we are at the core, we have to realize that there is only the “I am,” which is the subject, and all else that is added to this idea (the object) separates us from the totality of consciousness. In other words, if we were to realize that we are consciousness itself then we would have no need to go around making proclamations about who we are. Even the statement “I am consciousness” suggests a separation and lack of understanding. But, alas, we are psychologically conditioned — trained — to feel and believe we are separated from the totality of consciousness. And, as noted, we must in the least act as if we are separate in order to navigate the world of objects, phenomena, nature, and people.
Enlightenment in a nutshell
Without making this article any longer than it already is, it is suffice to say that to realize what you are at the core means you must stop seeking. This seems like a paradox, but the seeker separates him/herself from that which is sought. If, on the other hand, we you just to observe what already exists then there is no reason to seek. “I am a seeker” suggests the subject-object duality.
Enlightenment, if there is such a thing, is the absence of the subject-object relationship, the realization that all is one singular movement of reality, and that even behind this movement of consciousness there is something much, much deeper that we may come to realize.
