Overcoming Illusion

Gaining Enlightenment

Overcoming Illusion

Temporary note: This essay was written a bit at a time over several years. Still working on cohesiveness. This note will go poof! when I am satisfied.

“The greatest gift, truly the only offering, we can make to this world, is to realize Being (The Self)” - Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta, Buddha, Adi Shankara and countless ‘others.’


Overcoming illusion is as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Stop seeking.

Expecting any literature, including this essay, to reveal new truths of a spiritual nature is seeking. Expecting or desiring enlightenment is seeking, as is meditating for a spiritual reason. Likewise, believing any sort of religious concepts is holding on to that which would otherwise fall away. Seeking/desire also happens in other areas of life. Seeking is destructive to all methods presented here because it assumes an individual that must find something. As long as you are looking outside of yourself for anything - direction, inspiration, guidance, reference - anything at all, you are moving away from enlightenment. Spiritual practice is like hiring a thief to catch himself. A possible effect of spiritual practices may be to exhaust the ego which leads to surrender and recognition of the “HERE and NOW”.

Seeking enlightenment is like climbing a sacred mountain. We think we have to get to the top, but the entire mountain is sacred. Every step is the sacred center.

Enlightenment is what you had before you decided to seek it. You just didn’t recognize it, that's all. When what is here and now is second to none, you don’t need to search for anything else. Click your heels together three times; can it be that simple? It can, if you realize your only problem is that you have problematized.

You won’t become firmly established in ‘remembering’ you are ‘enlightened’ overnight. I will take continued witnessing. But eventually you will come to see, to realize, to apperceive, that simply Being with nothing added is your already-enlightened natural ‘state,’ and you will love just being so much that, although the mental add-ons and psychological assessments may continue to pop up, you just won’t be interested anymore, just won’t believe any thoughts anymore. And rest in Being.

“The Self is always the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it, ‘attaining it.’ Who is to realize what, and how, when all that exists is the Self?” - Ramana Maharshi

The ego´s desire of becoming, to have some meaning, to be liberated, to be enlightened is the obstacle to realize yourself. Enlightenment is a present fact, not a distant goal.

You don’t have to quit your religion - just put it aside (thoroughly!) for the purpose of this exercise - and be patient! Or, at least, consider this:

I Am that which I Am. God is only (or exclusively) that which God is. God has no attributes and answers to no designations.

I Am that very I Am. God is nothing other than self-conscious existence. God is therefore the “I Am” of all. (See also Luke 17:21; the kingdom of heaven is within, and Matthew 13:33; the kingdom of heaven is the yeast in the dough.)

The eternal Lord is none other than Being and Awareness. Awakening from the ‘sleep’ of duality, or enlightenment, means directly realizing that all that exists is the One Primordial Self.

This is why some get lost in spiritual or religious realms.

Belief is ... useless in enlightenment. You can ‘believe’ you are free & enlightened all you want - sort of that ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude - or believe that believing it will somehow ‘make it so,’ or at least, accelerate the process. But true enlightenment is not ‘cause-&-effect’ and nothing the ego can do - thinking, studying, practicing, mimicking, acting on it, believing, disbelieving - will ever ‘cause’ enlightenment. Believing something is that poor perennial substitute for actual Reality.

You are already perfect. The illusion is the idea that something you do will “make you” something other than what you are. You think you’re setting out at dawn to find your quarry, but the “hound of heaven” has pursued you this whole time. The idea that we’ll be enlightened one day causes us to plant enlightenment in a future moment and pretend we’re preparing ourselves for it. There is only Now. Enlightenment is not an event that takes place in ‘time’ to an ‘individual.’.

You are already a sage. You are already infinitely wise. How? Because there is no actual self-enclosed “you.” Only Awareness. 

The most important thing is to realize that what you’re looking for precedes your search for it.

Ramana Maharshi was fond of saying: "Those who wait for a lime to ripen will be disappointed." Meaning, there is no future event greater that now.

“The Self is always the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it, ‘attaining it.’ Who is to realize what, and how, when all that exists is the Self?”

You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being, then weep that you are but finite creatures. You take up this or that spiritual practice to transcend these non-existent limits. But if your spiritual practice assumes their existence, how can it help you transcend them?

Insist you are in bondage, and you are in bondage. Insist you are awake, and you are awake.

- Ramana Maharshi

Always remain you. It’s simple. Any child knows. This awareness doesn’t age, doesn’t become a product of the world. The person you are for others is a conditioned product of the world, a social identity — but not that which you are for yourself, that which is your center.

And that’s all “enlightenment” is — this centering. Return to center. See from where you are seeing, rather than imagining yourself from without. The term "elightenment" is best retired. Awakening/enlightenment are a vague concepts, interpreted by each teacher in their own way based on who knows what experiences they may have had.

Give up believing you are ‘separate’ from Reality
Give up believing in higher and lower selves
Give up believing you are ever not in your natural state
Give up believing your mind’s thoughts. All of them.
Give up believing in enlightenment…

…Then, you are ‘enlightened.’

Steps to enlightenment:

Step 1: don’t worry

Step 2: be happy

Like space, happiness is there already. We just need to get rid of the junk that’s obscuring it. This is the only remedy. If you do step 1, step 2 is automatic

It may happen that anatta (see below) may precede freedom from seeking/desire.

Said by Pausha Foley:

Enlightenment is not a human state. It is not something a human achieves. It is not a mastery of the human mind, it is not a human insight, human thought, human emotion amplified and increased to some super-human levels.

Enlightenment is what you are. Enlightenment is what you are not in a sense that “we are all already enlightened, only we don’t know it yet”. Enlightenment is literally what you are if you are enlightened, the same way that human is what you are if you are a human.

To ask “how can I find a teacher that will direct me to the path of humanity” would be absurd, wouldn’t it? You don’t need a path of humanity - you are human. Your life, your human life, your human existence, is a path of humanity.

Enlightenment works the same way: those who are enlightened are enlightened the same way you are human. Their lives, their existence, is a path of enlightenment.

Your life is your path of being you. Being you is the only path available to you. You can’t walk a path towards becoming a cat, a fish, or a rabbit. You can’t become something other than what you are. If you are a human, your life is a path of humanity. If you are enlightened, your life is a path of enlightenment.

Whatever it is that you are, your life is it, your path is it, and you are walking it already. There is nothing else you can do, and there is no other path you can walk.

2. Just be (Hindu). The experience you are having, which you call ordinary, everyday consciousness, pretending you're not it: that experience is exactly the same thing as it. Enjoy the aliveness. Aliveness does not need one who is alive.

3. Understand that this is it!

No angelic choirs will sing, and you will not see the face of God. Human egos don’t go away or get destroyed. They simply recede way into the background.

In the case of a direct experience of awareness, intellectual understanding is an obstacle. you don’t move from it - you overcome it. The direct experience of oneness is a direct experience of what is right now, right in this moment, an experience so deep, so complete, that you re aware of this present moment as oneness, as awareness. When you have an intellectual understanding of what it is you are trying to experience, right now in this moment you are trying to experience what you think oneness is. You are trying to experience your concept. You are not being present with what is. In order to be present with what is, you need to stop trying to think about what it is you should be experiencing, what it is you should not be experiencing, what is the right way to experience, what is the wrong way, what is unity, what is not unity, what is oneness, what isn’t. All those ideas, all this knowledge, all this understanding, you need to let go of all of it.

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Another method based on FUN!

Have fun. Best is mindless fun where you lose yourself. When you lose yourself you gain the universe: as close as the next big smile or bout of laughter. Awe and wonder can affect one similarly. This method may not seem to have "lasting effect" - after all, fun starts and ends. Those who wish to experience bliss in the absence of overt fun may try the following nothingness method. There are, however, no unenlightened individuals, so equally valid is: don't worry about it!

Are you expecting more? Just what are you expecting? Maybe you think it should be harder. If so, see below, though it's not much harder! And, of course, any difficulty is also illusory!

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Another method based on not worrying about anything at all (also fun!):

Understand that you don't need to worry about anything because you will always know what to do, because you always do.

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Here is another method based on being nothing at all: to come to the knowledge of that which we are when we have understood that, as phenomena, we are not.

Just quit give up the idea of being! (esoteric Buddhist) Understand self as nothing, not even a concept. This is called anatta. You don't have a life: life happens, aliveness happens, as if in free fall, without need of any sort of "one who lives". We are the illusion we’re trying to see through.

Without a personal self to identify with, Consciousness rediscovers its infinity. Until the personal self is seen through, we’ll always think there’s a person who has to meditate (or something) to attain enlightenment.

Watch life (watch your `interest in this essay) and your body being animated without your participation. Doing tasks while cognizing anatta allows a glimpse of Reality that complements insight from meditation. Relax: this is it! Abide in recognition of the illusory nature of self. (This gives the mind something to do - which it craves.) Then come to understand that non-beingness is the ultimate wideness. There is nothing beyond non-beingness. That is as "deep" (or high) as one can possibly go (there is no one to resist such going): the Ultimate Depth. Everything else is phenomena occurring on the screen of non-beingness.

There are no ‘enlightened people.‘ There are no ‘liberated people'. There are no ‘fully-awakened people.’ There is only enlightenment, Being, Life, This Everything. There are no “selves” trying to reach enlightenment or God-Consciousness - there is only God playing the eternal game of hide-and-seek.

One's whole perspective is (pretty much) instantly shifted by simply ceasing to assume one's existence. This is what I term the Great Change of Perspective that is the end of seeking (yes, it's that easy!). The Change can be noticed upon experiencing closed eyes. No longer is one simply staring at the back of eyelids. The ephemeral (nature of) constructed self is most easily sensed in the midst of silence."There is Consciousness along with quietness in the mind; this is exactly the state to be aimed at." Further support of anatta as the end of seeking is the powerful experience of bliss, which happens to me instantly upon cognizing anatta, in meditation or not. Bliss-blocking may be do to the energetic constriction of "I do this" or "I suffer that".

The greatest single impediment to enlightenment is thinking we already know what enlightenment is and how it “happens” to a “person.” The minute you stop believing your mind knows anything about enlightenment, you are 99% closer to enlightenment than you ever were before. Permanent Peace & Happiness can only exist when the false identity of a ‘separate person or entity’ is totally annihilated. 100%. Not intellectually. Not 99.9%. Directly, 100% ‘apperceived’ and embodied.

Wholeness can only be perceived when there is no one looking for it. This (being not) is the mirror image of being all there is or "just be", above, so it is the same. Self can only exist in the context of duality.

A friend of mine had trouble understanding non-beingness. A gentler introduction is in this instruction on Vipassana meditation, recommended by Sam Harris in his book Waking Up, and by this fellow. Sam suggests meditating with eyes open. Understand, after some experience, that observing rising and falling, or more accurately, knowing rising and falling, does not require one who knows.

Another angle (of being nothing) is to do nothing at all: sometimes called silence. This is, perhaps, best begun by laying down, then, before sleepiness sets in, be aware of doing nothing at all. Do not breathe: breath happens. After some time, a thought might happen: continue doing nothing while thoughts rise and fall. An itch might be scratched, again, while doing nothing. Finally, life goes on, while doing nothing. This event may be repeated until a cognitive structure is built that mirrors the non-activity/silence quality of self. Paradoxically, perhaps, this is the ultimate aliveness. The division between what we do and what happens to use is arbitrary.

Give up.

Quit.

Surrender.

Give up trying to let go.

Let go of trying to surrender.

Surrender the idea of quitting.

It is good to have a bit of a ritual (hey, I'm autistic - I'm expert on rituals!) where one, at the same time and place most days, can enjoy non-beingness. Part of non-beingness is not experiencing desires, so a ritual obviates the need for even the desire of non-beingness. This ritual doesn't have to be long, in fact, it is best kept short. And rest assured, what is happening is the Real thing due to the Ultimate Depth quality previously described. Note also that this is not meditation because meditation requires being (one who meditates).

What happens by all methods here is that a neural structure is built by which one can recall the knowing of that which is Real.

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Another method based on Mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness works best when there is no doer involved. For this to happen - give up doership! Understand that a mindful outlook happens, then (especially when life get's hectic) does not happen. This impermanent quality is what is: understand that ego-self has nothing to do with it. Abandon, for the moment, at least, any notion of free will: mindfulness is now happening or not happening, with no one making it happen or not happen. It is best to not worry about mindfulness. That way, when mindfulness happens, the spontaneous (without cause) nature of this event is obvious.

Mindfulness practice is being fully present in all that happens. Actions are not just noted, but are noted automatically, by nobody.

Mindfulness meditation is watching one’s thoughts and sensations in a dispassionate way. Who is watching thoughts? After some experience with mindfulness, one may realize that the basic thought, which spawns others, is I am. So mindfulness can lead to observing the I am on the screen of I am not. This blissful void, from where the “I am” thought is known, is home - abide there.

A mindful outlook can also be brought to bear on Ramana Maharshi's suggestion to dive into self. Not being the doer of this can, I have noticed, cause the breath to momentarily cease. The memory formed of this can then be recalled as a reference point of illusion-free attention. This is were the Ego and the Infinite meet. In fact, I feel that this sort of directed attention may decrease the psychic distance from mind to void: from individual identity to universal identity. Life appears as a magical sort of sparkle.

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Whatever your practice is, it’s good enough.

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Self-enquiry, suggested by Ramana Maharshi, may not be useful for overcoming illusion. Rather, find out who it is who meditates. Better yet, give up "doing" anything, especially the sort of meditation intended to overcome illusion. Trying to control thoughts or feelings is equally ineffective because there isn't anyone to control them. Awakened people seem to come in two varieties:

Those who never meditated prior to awakening.
Those who did, but later insisted meditation had nothing to do with it.

What is postulated, then obviated, here, may be called the Great Change of Perspective (the G-C-of-P), or, equivalently, one's apparent awakening. Even a soft spot for any sort of religion or doctrine can hinder the G-C-of-P. Awakening experiences are rarely about religion. The great majority of the experiences occurred unexpectedly in a wide variety of everyday settings, to people who knew nothing of spirituality or religion.

An awakening event can be disorienting due to having to “find your footing,” (or more accurately, loose your footing in this illusory world and re-establish it in Reality.)

Horizontal transcendence can be part of the G-C-of-P

Guru caution.

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Some may question why I, a nobody, should have the audacity to hold forth on spiritual enlightenment. I am a shy electrical engineer, too shy and autistic to be a teacher or desire fame of any sort. In my defense, I state here that what is suggested above is a natural, common experience.