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The Truth About Spiritual Enlightenment

by peace2all

A quick word of caution before we begin. This article is for
serious students of spiritual truth only. The traditional
orthodox Christian reading this, or the atheists out there, or
those with strong unrelenting opinions and perceptions, or those
with strong likes and dislikes, or those who automatically think
society is based on truth, or those who think their current
thought processes are already the highest level of truth, may not
be ready for this article.

If you're not ready, or not interested, that's solely your
choice, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just a friendly
warning.

Nobody can be faulted if their level of consciousness hasn't yet
evolved to the point where they see Enlightenment as being
important, attractive, and meaningful. But eventually,
Enlightenment is the goal that replaces all other goals.

As you read this article you'll notice that certain words are
capitalized when "normally" they wouldn't be. The reason they are
capitalized is because of the context in which those words are
used. We capitalize the words "God", "Divinity", "Buddha",
"Silence", "Awareness", "Reality", "Truth", "Love", and so on,
because of what they represent. If however, your mind has a
hangup about which word is used in describing that which is
unseen, formless, and beyond words, this article is perhaps not
for you at this time.

Ignorance is everywhere, and it's nothing new. The average
person doesn't have a clue as to what Enlightenment is, many
spiritual seekers have misguided ideas about what it is, and many
spiritual teachers also don't have the correct understanding of
what it is.

But because "I" personally have stood on the brink of
Enlightenment (but feared to follow through) "I" have a much
greater understanding of what it is, and how to get there, than
most others. So no, I'm not Enlightened, and even if I was, I
couldn't say that I was because there would no longer be an
individual ego/mind, and if there is no ego/mind, there is no
individual "I" to claim anything.

If this is completely beyond your current level of
understanding, keep reading and it should become clear what is
meant.

First, we need to understand exactly what Enlightenment is. So
to clear matters up, we're just going to spell it out in a very
simple, clear, and lucid manner.

Enlightenment is.. the permanent dissolvement/cessation of all
thoughts, thinking, concepts, and emotions of the ego/mind. The
key words there are "permanent" and "all". Enlightenment is the
ceasing of all concepts, all notions, all ideas, all symbols, all
words, all intellectualizing, all emotions, all thoughts, and all
thinking.

In order to let all of them go, one must be fully aware of them,
and one must be watching them silently rather than being
identified with them. When you watch them non-judgmentally and
without words or emotions, they dissipate into nothingness. When
you watch them, you are Awareness, not the mind, and when you are
wholly and completely Awareness, the very energy behind thinking
is let go of.

Second, we need to understand exactly what Enlightenment is not.
Enlightenment is not the development of psychic abilities, is not
astral travelling, is not channeling entities, is not a temporary
trance state, is not an artificially induced altered state of
consciousness, it has nothing to do with "new age" anything, it
doesn't involve the past or the future, it doesn't belong to any
one specific religion, it doesn't involve conspiracy theories, it
has nothing to do with UFO's or aliens, it doesn't involve
so-called "ascended masters", it doesn't involve playing with the
law of attraction (karma), it doesn't involve visualization, it
has nothing to do with vibrations or energy, it has nothing to do
with science, it doesn't involve sex (tantra), it has nothing to
do with crystals, colors, or vortexes, and it certainly doesn't
involve codes, mysteries, or "secrets" of any kind.

The surreal is not real. There's a reason that Jesus, Buddha,
Krishna, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Plotinus, Lao Tzu, Muhammad,
Ramana Maharshi, Nisargardatta Maharaj, Meister Eckhart, and many
Zen Masters never taught any of these things. Some of these
things are outright false and harmful, others are just simply
irrelevant to personal growth, and some of these are quite
beneficial to the average person, but when it comes down to
Enlightenment, every last bit of everything needs to be unlearned
and let go of.

Reality (Awareness) with a capital "R" has no shape or form
whatsoever, and is beyond all intellectual concepts. The real
Truth is eternal and changeless. It has always been relevant, and
it always will be.

Real spirituality involves bettering oneself by ways of
selflessness/love and higher levels of awareness/truth that help
us let go of concepts and thoughts because it's concepts and
thoughts that obstruct peace (of mind). Spirituality is not the
introduction of even more concepts, unless those concepts help us
let go of concepts. Peace of mind is silence of mind. Which means
that thoughts, thinking, perceptions, views, attitudes, emotions,
concepts, opinions, beliefs, and attachments are the true
underlying source of all suffering in our lives.

Many people say "I wouldn't want to live life without my
emotions or thinking" (and that's okay if it's okay with them),
but they don't realize that's the ego/mind talking, and if one
were even for a brief moment to personally experience exquisite,
ineffable, and profound Peace/Silence, one would certainly no
longer hold that point of view.

Awareness is the only Reality. Essentially, you are not the mind
and body of change (relative truth). You are the still, silent,
unchanging Absolute; the Awareness that is aware of the mind and
its comings and goings, when a deliberate point of being aware of
it is made.

Watch the mind. That Awareness is changeless, timeless,
shapeless, formless, and infinitely eternal. It has no beginning
or end. It always has been, and it always will be.

If you're able to watch the mind, then you are not the mind. How
many minds do you have? Are you the mind, or are you the observer
watching the mind? Only one of them is real.

Just like the heart or lungs, the thinkingness of the
ego/mind/brain is going and going all by itself. It has nothing
to do with a "you" doing it. In other words, you are not the
thinker of thoughts. Take 5 minutes to watch the mind and see for
yourself. You can't control it because it's on complete
autopilot. You can't stop it by controlling it, but you can stop
it by watching it and losing interest in it.

So, you are not the body and its senses, and you are not the
mind and its thoughts. You are the infinitely silent Awareness
that is aware of them.

One is not subject to the countless faulty workings of the
ego/mind when one stops identifying the automatic random
repetitive thoughts of the mind as being "me". The very nature of
the ego/mind can be summed up in one word... drama. And what is
drama? It's the absence of peace (of mind).

"Every phenomena that exists is a creation of thought; therefore
I need but empty my mind to discover that all of them are void."
- Huang Po, Zen Master

Just how does Enlightenment happen? To begin with, you (the
mind) doesn't ever make it happen. It happens by ITSELF when all
concepts of the mind are let go of, when the very energy behind
thinking is let go of, when the physical chemical reaction of all
emotionalism is let go of, when all wantingness and neediness is
let go of, and when not even Enlightenment is sought after.

1. This can be done by the completely unconditional and radical
forgiveness and acceptance of absolutely everything, as it is
right now in this very moment, always. This is the path of
non-judgmentalism acceptance, forgiveness, love, compassion, and
selflessness.

If there's full blown acceptance of absolutely everything as it
is, then there's nothing to judge, nothing to describe, nothing
to define, nothing to talk about, nothing to express an opinion
about, no thing to make into something, nothing to express a
belief about, nothing to search for, nothing to manipulate,
nothing to change, nothing to force, and there's nothing to think
about at all.

Everything just is, nothing more, and one sees the absolute
perfection and beauty in everything because everything and
everyone is currently operating at its own level of awareness
and/or evolution. Everyone and everything is what it is right now
because that's exactly what it needs to learn, or unlearn. People
really don't know otherwise, or they don't want to know
otherwise. If they really knew otherwise, they would already be
otherwise.

2. Enlightenment can also happen by way of
wisdom/truth/mindfulness/awareness, which involves non-effort,
loss of interest in all thinking and thoughts, and letting go
constantly and continuously. Watching the mind does not mean
forceful concentration because concentrating is something that
the ego/mind does. Nothing can be forced to happen, as force is
the nature of the ego/mind. As soon as you watch thoughts, they
disappear. If you try to fight thoughts, you give them more
strength because focus and energy is being put into fighting and
conflict, which is again, a thing of the mind.

You must be fully aware that nobody becomes Enlightened, and
that there is no conflict. You are already that Awareness, you
always have been, and you always will be, even when you're
falsely identified with thoughts and thinking. Just like the sun
is always there even when clouds are covering it.

If you are already formless unmanifested all-encompassing
all-knowing Awareness beyond words and concepts, then there is
absolutely nothing to get, grasp, gain, or obtain. You are
already utterly whole, complete, and perfect, and there is
nothing to search for, not even Enlightenment. You are already
That. There is only Self-Awareness, the awareness of oneself as
Infinitely Everything beyond physicality.

But don't try to imagine this with the mind because it can't be
done. Just get out of the way and lose "yourself". Get out of the
way. Let go. Give up. Surrender.

In fact, this whole writing process is the consequence of
selflessness, silence, surrendering, allowing, waiting,
listening, "receiving", intuition, epiphanies, being, and
knowing. It has nothing to do with the intellect/ego/mind, and if
on occasion it does, then something has gone wrong.

When the moment arrives, the end is not an end. At the moment of
Enlightenment the individual "you" (ego/mind) disappears
completely and literally dies. The me, myself, and I ceases to
be. At that final moment there is a feeling of "I'm going to
die", and this doesn't mean bodily death. It means the very
essence of what you individually think you are (thoughts and
thinking).

The ego/mind fears it's own death, but all fear is an illusion
because fear is an emotion, and all emotions (physical chemical
reactions) are the result of being identified with the ego/mind
and brain/body (physicality).

When the mind goes silent it's replaced by void, by nothingness,
but that "nothingness" is only "nothing" because it's formless,
non-physical, and unmanifested. In actuality, that "nothingness"
is an all-encompassing Infinitely Everything, which is a profound
ineffable Peace/Love/Wholeness/Completion way beyond description,
which just simply Is. It's No-Thing, yet Infinitely Everything,
yet beyond both because both are mere concepts (thought forms).
All words and concepts are meaningless because they are born from
the ego/mind.

"The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words.
They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are Illusions." -
Bodhidharma, founder of Zen

So you see, it's all really quite simple once it's spelled out.
But if you still don't get it (and you want to), "my" website is
dedicated solely to the topic of Enlightenment, and it goes into
far greater detail. This was just a brief summarization. The
Truths of Life website, as a whole, is much more complete.

Jarett Sabirsh is a very serious student of truth in all of its
relative forms. While being dedicated to helping others, he uses
his gift of being able to simplify complicated subject matter to
get right to the root of problems. He is the author of <a
href="http://www.thetruthsoflife.com">The Truths of Life</a>.

Syndicated by Top Gazebos - www.topgazebos.net

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