waking up is hard to do until it’s not

Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering

People trying to become enlightened are often frustrated, confused, and stupefied, especially when they hang on every word of a so-called spiritually awakened teacher. They are trying to emulate an idea that has been created by other people about enlightened masters. It’s an impossible bar to hurdle. Instead of listening to what the Buddha taught, they believe they have to be like the Buddha. They want so badly to experience what the teacher has experienced. And here’s where everything goes wrong.

If you want to be a happier, more adjusted, calmer, and less angry person, meditation can help. It’s been proven in university studies and in the personal spaces of meditators for thousands of years. But if you want to be enlightened, we’re talking about a whole different idea.

There are a lot of people these days who like to talk about how they are awake, or have awakened, or have had an awakening. Why? What is this obsession about? It’s just another thing for the sense of self to hang its hat on, another accomplishment that makes one feel better — like getting a certificate for self-massage. But the self is only fooling itself and bolstering its own egoic tendencies and requirements. I had a teacher who said that 99 percent of those who say they want to be awakened, or enlightened, really do not and will never awaken to the reality that can be known beyond the self. The obstacle is the ego that refuses to let go.

Trying to become enlightened is very tricky business, because the sense of self, center, ego, or whatever you want to call it, is so etched in the mind that it holds on tightly against change and release. A true spiritual teacher, which is very, very, very rare to find, guides you to finding things out for yourself. Because the self is so ignorant (not in a derisive way), people hear a lot of nonsense and believe it without question. They cannot recognize a true teacher standing right in front of them.

The self desperately wants a hero, some being greater than itself to sate its need for security in what is perceived as a cold, cruel world. Or, such security may be found in a group with a charismatic leader or with a tradition of holy men in special clothing speaking a private language, such as Buddhism or the yoga movement. While such groups are not necessarily bad, when the attention is on security, no spiritual growth is allowed to happen. For someone looking for spiritual freedom, which may be called enlightenment, this is not freedom, it’s bondage in the form of attachment and image-making. It’s delusional thinking to think that freedom or awakening is aided or caused by a force outside oneself.

read, watch, and listen. then be quiet and still
Over the course of many years I listened to Krishnamurti. For hours and hours, and I have read his books. I have also listened to Nisargadatta and Ramana and read their books. I watched Richard Lang and Douglas Harding and practiced their experiments. But mostly I observed my own sense of self to find out what it is. And my reality changed so that I could see who I am without the overlay of the ego mind and all the attachments that keep it in play. And I can see that everyone, and everything, is of the same essence.

I wish I had solid information or a “how” for people who want to be awake, but it does not seem to work this way. When the time is right, something in the mind clicks, like turning one of those old radio dials click by click until a clear signal comes in. It is immediate and undeniable. And the entire world is suddenly different and all makes sense. People are looking for this, but it is not a matter of practice or movement, which the mind is accustomed to. Rather, it is a matter of complete stillness.

just look, there is no path
The mind is trained with methods and exercises, which is quite practical for learning how to do something or taking care of your business. Yet to find this great spiritual mystery that is right in front of us all along, no method works. Truth is a pathless land, for certain, as Krishnamurti repeated over and over for many decades. If, by analogy, you wanted to see the sky, you just look. It does not take any practice; you just look up and there it is. No amount of information, practice, ritual, intelligence, intellect, study, devotion, following the leader, etc., enables you to just look up and see the sky. You don’t have to learn anything about the sky to look at it. You just do it, end of story. But don’t look for something IN the sky and don’t analyze the sky, just look.

Stop trying and just be quiet. Let the mind fully rest. People try, try, try, which is the effort of the very mind that they want to be free of. They desperately want an experience, but waking up is not an experience at all, it is a shift of perspective. Experiences come and go and they require an experiencer, but waking up is just a shift of the mind or brain so that there is intense and irreversible clarity.

there is no good advice
Don’t take advice from anyone, including anyone who says they are awake. Explore the works of different, credible people, because everyone has to hear things in a different way. But avoid people who really do not know, because they will just derail you with veiled talk about the objective world. Today’s teachers humbly addressing the multitudes tend to be modern versions of New age gurus, but with all the fancy talk about nonduality, enlightenment, the power of now, all is one, and other concepts. But if you really, really know the truth, you can also hear that these teachers do not have anything beyond an intellectual understanding. It’s not very hard to listen to enlightened gurus and then regurgitate what they say; most people cannot discern the difference between an enlightened teacher and a person who repeats things he’s read and heard. You need to make this your own journey into the self.

turn the attention around
Turn the attention away from the objective world to the subjective, which is the source of all that appears (seems) to exist, including your own body. Remember that you are searching for your self, which seems like a koan, but when you finally see that the self is like a seed, you will begin to understand that all that exists does so within this seed that can also be called a microcosm or fractal. Until then, avoid repeating things you do not know to be true, like we are all connected, enlightenment is bliss, and so on.

Be honest about your own ignorance.

It is only when the shift occurs do the words of enlightened teachers really make sense; and when the words of unenlightened teachers become obviously uninformed. Until then, you think you understand, but you do not until you do.

I have only known two people personally who understand what I am saying about all of this; all others meet me with all sorts of information they are just repeating as if they know it to be true. They want a discussion and to offer their knowledge, but this does not help them in the least to find out what they are as their true nature. I can see right through this image-making, as their conditioned minds struggle desperately to get or attain, something that it already has. They make an image out of themselves and out of me or whoever else they talk to, because they cannot escape from their own sense of self. Being clever or brilliant is no shield.

In the end, it’s a matter of what you want: To wake up to reality or just to be happy, secure, fulfilled, and peaceful. Neither is better or worse, but for those in the first category, there is no stopping until the truth has been found and the egoic self is finally at rest.