What is Spiritual Enlightenment? - A Detailed Description

[Shanmugam]

I am sharing an answer that I wrote in Quora. Hope people find this useful, especially the newbies in this forum:

The word ‘Enlightenment’ can be defined in many different ways. We have so many words in different traditions which are synonymous with the word ‘enlightenment’.

The list of words are endless and the definitions are endless too. Some people exaggerate it, some people understate it, some people say that there is no such thing called enlightenment while the majority of the world’s population haven’t even heard of it.

First, let me describe enlightenment in terms of what disappears. Deep down in people’s minds, there is an underlying dissatisfaction with the way things are. People want many things to be different from the way they actually are. There is a craving for becoming something that one is not and there is a resistance to the way things are. Everyone is moving towards a goal, a destination that is in the future. The hopes of arriving at that destination seem to give some solace and if those hopes and dreams are threatened, we tend to suffer. This burning uneasiness and dissatisfaction can be likened to a fire that is burning. The extinction of this fire is enlightenment. The word ‘Nirvana’ means extinction.

 

There are also two other words ‘moksha’ and ‘mukthi’, which literally mean ‘liberation’. These words refer to how enlightenment feels like.

A typical human being is bound by various things. He is bound by his own past intentions. He is bound by his beliefs. He is bound by the opinions of other people.

But deep inside the heart of every human being, there is a longing to become boundless and expansive. We try to accomplish this by accumulation; we accumulate knowledge, possession and experiences hoping that these accumulations will make us boundless.

But these very accumulations cause further bondage. Now you have to protect them because losing them will essentially mean losing yourself; because you derive a sense of identity from these accumulations. A typical human being is actually in a self-made prison. But the saddest part is that the majority of the population don’t realize that they are in such a prison.

I have heard a quote by some anonymous person which goes like this:

“One of the greatest mental freedoms is truly not caring what anyone else thinks of you”..

Imagine the kind of freedom you will get when you no longer worry about what other people think about you. And, also imagine the kind of freedom you will get when you are no longer afraid of losing anything. Imagine the kind of freedom you will get when you no longer worry about future and past! What is usually called as enlightenment is the greatest freedom ever. It is not only a combination of all kinds of freedoms that I just talked about but it is also a freedom from the sense of a separate self. It is a permanent freedom from the story you have about you. Once a person is enlightened, he feels like a huge load has been taken off of his shoulders. There is a sense of an immense freedom which is priceless. It literally feels like escaping from a prison.

Once J. Krishnamurti asked his audience if they wanted to know what his secret was. Then he revealed his secret in just one sentence. He said, “I don't care what happens”…

Simply put, this is enlightenment. Nothing ultimately matters and the whole life becomes a play or a game.

When we play a game with our friends, we play it without any seriousness. Even though we make sure that the rules of the games are followed and that we do what we are supposed to do in the game, we don’t lose our sleep over it (unless we are playing in a tournament). Playing your role in life as if you are just playing a game is the greatest sense of freedom. Enlightenment naturally makes you to not to care about the end result of whatever you are doing. At the end of the day, nothing ever matters. That doesn’t mean you will be irresponsible. You will just enjoy what you are doing rather than being focused on results. Your actions will be driven by intrinsic motivation.

Whatever I have said so far, sounds quite logical. But I haven’t touched the core yet. The core and the essence of enlightenment is realizing that you as a separate person or entity is an illusion. You create a solid sense of self inside your mind and you define the boundaries of that self physically by your body and mentally by your story.

But science and spirituality tell us that there is no such solid, consistent self. This doesn’t mean that your body and your mind doesn’t exist. But a sense of self that you derive from your body and mind is just a deep-rooted belief. Since you have this belief for such a long time, you don’t even recognize that it is a belief. This may even sound absurd or unacceptable to you simply because you have lived with this belief so long. We have built layer upon layer on this belief which makes us very difficult to see through this belief.

Someone asked a question in Quora before. The question was “Can an atheist believe in spiritual enlightenment? “. The word ‘believe’ here is a bit odd.But this question comes from an assumption that spiritual enlightenment is somehow related or tied to religious beliefs. But in reality, an enlightened person is an upgraded atheist.

Let me elaborate. The only thing that an atheist doesn’t believe in is the existence of a personal deity, a creator God who answers your prayers. But an atheist may still believe that his next door neighbour is a jerk and his boss is an a**h**e.

An enlightened person, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in anything. He doesn’t even believe that he is separate from the existence. Once the sense of a separate self dissolves, you realize that you are existence itself. All the boundaries between you and the world simply disappear. You cease to exist as a person but you continue to exist as the existence.Realizing that you are not an entity separate from existence is enlightenment. It is not just realizing this as a fact but realizing it in your actual moment to moment experience.

This is not to say that enlightenment is a special experience or an altered state of consciousness. When you are living a life as a liberated person, you simply experience the reality without any duality. The reality is felt in its purity without any distortions. Your life then becomes free-flowing, conflict-less, guilt-free, fearless, peaceful and fulfilled. Nothing is lacking anymore at the absolute level. There is a sense of innocence and genuineness in your moment to moment experience. It is quite ordinary then how enlightenment is described or thought of.

So, what causes this illusion of separate self or duality? Left-brain interpreter is the culprit.

The left brain interpreter refers to the construction of explanations by the left brain in order to make sense of the world by reconciling new information with what was known before. The left brain interpreter attempts to rationalize, reason and generalize new information it receives in order to relate the past to the present. The concept was first introduced by Michael Gazzaniga while he performed research on split-brain patients during the early 1970s with Roger Sperry at the California Institute of Technology.] Sperry eventually received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contributions to split-brain research.

 

 

If you just look at the above picture, one thing is clear. You left brain engages in things which require categorization. Your right brain specializes in helping you to see everything as a whole.

Dr. Chris Niebauer, a neuroscientist writes in his book ‘The Neurotic’s Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left-brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement’ about the left brain interpreter.

Let me quote a few lines from his book:

Quote

 

“The left-brain interpreter is categorical, it creates division outwardly and inwardly, so let it do its job, let it do its thing. “

“Again, there is the interpreter created category of “me as I am” vs. “me as I want to be” which are both just thoughts bouncing around in the skull. So, ironically, if you are trying to improve yourself, you can’t. The notion that your self needs improving is an interpretation and we are going around interpretations. There is an irony in most bookstores called the “self help” section. I might suggest renaming this as “Books that reinforce the illusion that the left-brain interpreter can be what it isn’t free of itself.”

“The interpreter also creates and sustains our collection of categorical thoughts called our beliefs.”

 

It is this left brain interpreter which also creates the duality. It categories your body and your story as a ‘me’ that is separate from the existence.

Spiritual enlightenment is going beyond all the dualities. It leads one to resolve all the internal conflicts and to feel one with everything. It removes the idea that there is a separate entity inside which has to enhance itself for fulfilment. The left brain may still continue to categorize things, but they are not solidified in our consciousness and we are not urged to protect those solidified entities.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Shanmugam

[Ether]

I love it!

[SOUL]

I prefer the short explanation:

Infinitely aware of being present now.

[Shin]

8 minutes ago, SOUL said:

I prefer the short explanation:

Infinitely aware of being present now.

Except 99% of people think they are aware of being present now, yet they aren't.

[Highest]

I am what I am. When we say existence or the universe we are creating new concepts, knowing what you are can only happen in silence and is beyond the mind. No one can be separate from existence? What is existence? A better word is awareness. Everyone is awareness, no one is separated from that, no matter how much they are unaware of being it.

[Shanmugam]

@Highest It can be actually said in three different ways, because there are three different dimensions to it..

There is a word called satchitananda in India, which can be broken up into 'sat-chit-ananda'. They are three different words..

1) Sat - this word means 'truth'. It can also be said as 'existence'. Because in reality, that is all which exists.. Nothing but truth exists and there is no duality.

2) Chit - this word means 'conciousness', can be also said as awareness... This is what gives meaning to existence. If there is no awareness of existence, then there is simply nothing, nobody is there to witness the existence.. 

3) Ananda- it translates into bliss. But this is not happiness as people understand. This is the experience of pure reality.. Completely indescribable to a person who is living in duality. 

As long as it is understood that words are nothing but pointers, there is no problem..

 

[SOUL]

55 minutes ago, Shin said:

Except 99% of people think they are aware of being present now, yet they aren't.

Actually,  we all are aware of being present now to some degree but the first word in that description is the challenge.

Are we doing it infinitely or mostly or partially or barely? This is how the consciousness work can influence our experience of awareness in being present.

Although, the challenging nature of the work doesn't change the simplistic nature of the task.

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by SOUL

[Highest]

4 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Highest It can be actually said in three different ways, because there are three different dimensions to it..

There is a word called satchitananda in India, which can be broken up into 'sat-chit-ananda'. They are three different words..

1) Sat - this word means 'truth'. It can also be said as 'existence'. Because in reality, that is all which exists.. Nothing but truth exists and there is no duality.

2) Chit - this word means 'conciousness', can be also said as awareness... This is what gives meaning to existence. If there is no awareness of existence, then there is simply nothing, nobody is there to witness the existence.. 

3) Ananda- it translates into bliss. But this is not happiness as people understand. This is the experience of pure reality.. Completely indescribable to a person who is living in duality. 

As long as it is understood that words are nothing but pointers, there is no problem..

 

 ''If there is no awareness of existence, then there is simply nothing, nobody is there to witness the existence''. The problem is that you are implying that existence exist, that it is real, that it came before awareness. But in truth there is only pure awareness/presence being aware. Where is existence, what exactly does it mean? We are aware of ourselves and this outside world, that's it. Then we start calling it names.

[Shanmugam]

11 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Highest It can be actually said in three different ways, because there are three different dimensions to it..

There is a word called satchitananda in India, which can be broken up into 'sat-chit-ananda'. They are three different words..

1) Sat - this word means 'truth'. It can also be said as 'existence'. Because in reality, that is all which exists.. Nothing but truth exists and there is no duality.

2) Chit - this word means 'conciousness', can be also said as awareness... This is what gives meaning to existence. If there is no awareness of existence, then there is simply nothing, nobody is there to witness the existence.. 

3) Ananda- it translates into bliss. But this is not happiness as people understand. This is the experience of pure reality.. Completely indescribable to a person who is living in duality. 

As long as it is understood that words are nothing but pointers, there is no problem..

 

I see a striking similarity between the concept of satchitananda and Christian Trinity...

Sat, the truth is the father.. 

Chit , the consciousness is the Son

Ananda, the bliss is the holy spirit.

Ananda can be also said as the life energy. The experience of reality is not only complete and peaceful but the life energy is without any conflict... So, when they say that a person is filled with holy spirit, it can be understood that the life energy is pure, conflictless and peaceful.

But they are not really three separate things; They are actually one, just like they say that Trinity is actually one... This is my interpretation but I can't be sure if this is exactly what Jesus meant..

[Faceless]

?? To our friend JK 

[Shanmugam]

@Highest When I say 'existence', don't understand it as the world that we see.. I didn't use the word that way  .. I am not talking about the trees, ocean, mountains and people.. You can replace the word with 'truth', if it makes it clear... 

 

[Faceless]

@Shanmugam          

 

Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent.” Jk 

??

Edited December 19, 2017 by Faceless

[Shanmugam]

@Highest the Following description from Wikepedia, is what I meant:

"Existence , in its most generic terms, comprises the state of being real[1] and the ability to physically interact with the universe or multiverse. What existence is exactly is up for interpretation - and is one of the most important and fundamental topics of ontology, the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, (for instance: "Does the stellar structure UDFj-39546284 exist?"), and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences."

In a nutshell, it is the state of being real.

[Highest]

11 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Highest the Following description from Wikepedia, is what I meant:

"Existence , in its most generic terms, comprises the state of being real[1] and the ability to physically interact with the universe or multiverse. What existence is exactly is up for interpretation - and is one of the most important and fundamental topics of ontology, the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, (for instance: "Does the stellar structure UDFj-39546284 exist?"), and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences."

In a nutshell, it is the state of being real.

Yeah that's clear, my point is only that awareness/presence alone is real. The big question is if an independent and objective world exist apart from awareness,  which I'm not sure about yet. 

[snowleopard]

@Shanmugam  That is a fascinating correlation between the Divine triune of Father/Son/Holy Spirit and Sat/Chit/Ananda, which I too have speculated about. There are of course many expressions of the trinity archetype that one comes across in metaphysics, including Buddhism's Trikaya, which although it is referring to the three bodies of the Buddha, also shows some intriguing correlation to a Divine triune:

The Dharmakāya or Truth body which embodies the very principle of enlightenment and knows no limits or boundaries;

The Nirmāṇakāya or created body which manifests in time and space;

The Sambhogakāya or body of enjoyment which is a body of bliss or clear light manifestation

Here is another elaboration on that Trikaya/Trinity theme which I resonate with ...

"In general, the trikaya teaching is a way to explain a Buddha's experience of being. There is the apocryphal story of how the Buddha found his name. Seeing him shining brightly on the road, a man asked him what he was -- a god, a wizard, a man? “No,” said the Buddha, “I am awake." What did the man see? And what was the Buddha feeling?

Being/Sat/God/Dharmakaya can be understood as the formless groundless ground, the "empty witness" without attributes that is behind or primordial to appearances, as the Origin or Source. But that description is not complete because it lacks dynamism, intent, feeling tone, life. If we conceptualize God as solely that then the materialist's argument against Him has traction -- because how could such a complete nothing be effective in any way?  But the Dharmakaya, like the vacuum state, has an energy associated with it, the Sambhogakaya. You can get something from nothing because the actual nothing is more than the concept nothing. If the ground of being is not material, then “nothing” cannot be a mere absence of material. It is something else, with its own being. This energy can be understood as the natural expression of the fundamental emptiness itself, of its being.

The Holy Spirit is associated with this energy as the creative energy that impregnated Mary. This is how Jesus was both the son of man and God. God the Father, Dharmakaya, emanated a Son, Nirmanakaya, through the intermediary of the Holy Spirit, the Sambhogakaya. As an incarnation, a gross form in our dualistic world, Jesus was a Nirmanakaya (tulku/Rinpoche), but his Consciousness/Chit/Sambhogakaya was an energetic expression of the Father, the Dharmakaya.

Buddha was similarly a Nirmanakaya, an incarnation or embodiment of the Dharmakaya. At the level of expression or message or transmission of the Buddha, we speak about bodhicitta (awakening-mind). Bodhicitta is known for its compassionate warmth, but it is rooted in the absolute being-knowledge of the Dharmakaya, which is utter absence of limitation, restriction, or suffering. Bodhicitta is symbolized by a lotus, which begins in the mud and then sends a shoot up through the water, blooming in a pristine, stainless flower.

The Sambhogakaya is especially related to symbol. Normally we think of symbols as pictures that we invent to refer to actual objects. But it would appear that there are natural symbols that are not merely conceptual fabrications that illuminate gross objects, but those which naturally arise directly from the Dharmakaya as expressions of its qualities.

At a deeper (that is, more subtle) level than their Nirmanakaya manifestations, both Buddha and Jesus are symbolic expressions of the Dharmakaya, though in different ways. Where the Sambhogakaya of the Buddha was a presence of profound peace, scintillating intellect, and a glowing, blissful brightness, Jesus was like a bolt of lightning that connected Heaven and earth, a shocking transmission of knowledge. The beginning of Valentinus' Gospel of Truth states it this way:
 

The gospel of truth is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father; he it is who is called "the Savior," since that is the name of the work which he must do for the redemption of those who have not known the Father. For the name of the gospel is the manifestation of hope, since that is the discovery of those who seek him, because the All sought him from whom it had come forth. You see, the All had been inside of him, that illimitable, inconceivable one, who is better than every thought.

Think of how different the conditions were where Jesus taught. The Buddha appeared in a place and time uniquely suited to his transmission, and he found his place immediately as a culmination of existing teachings. On the contrary, Jesus, while a fulfillment of prophecy, was both a great joy but also a terrible affront to those who "did not know the Father." 

So where is bliss in all this? This is the feeling-tone of the energy of this transmission, which is beyond merely feeling good. The fact that we don't associate bliss with crucifixion gives some clue to the special meaning of that word as it applies to the Sambhogakaya. This special meaning becomes most clear when we add the fourth Kaya, the Svabhavikakaya, which is the union or experience of them all together, and also the essence, the single meaning. That meaning is pristine purity: The profoundly simple, ever-fresh, brilliant isness of form, which never impedes the infinite, spacious peace of being. The crucifixion is a testament to the difficulty of living that view and also shows that it is possible." ~ Mark Robert

[aurum]

@Shanmugam

Nothing to add, just wanted to say that was a great explanation. 

[Shanmugam]

@snowleopard Interesting.. Who is Mark Robert? 

[snowleopard]

@Shanmugam  Mark is a someone who I've chatted with in another forum. Other than that, I don't know much about him.

[Shanmugam]

@snowleopard Ha ha.. ok, I actually Googled 'Mark Robert Buddhism' but found 'Mark Epstein'.. 

Looks like he is an interesting guy.. 

Wiki says;

Quote

Mark Epstein (born 1953) is an American author and psychotherapist, integrating both Buddha's and Sigmund Freud's approaches to trauma, who writes about their interplay.[1] In his most recent book, The Trauma of Everyday Life, he interprets the Buddha’s spiritual journey as grounded in Buddha's personal childhood trauma.

He has written three interesting books:

1995 Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, Basic Books, New York, ISBN 0-465-03931-6

2008 Going on Being: Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and Psychotherapy, Wisdom Publications, Somerville, Mass., ISBN 0-86171-569-1

2008 Psychotherapy Without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, ISBN 0-300-14313-3

Anything that bridges science and spirituality in any way interests me...

[Shanmugam]

@snowleopard  I just remembered something I read days before, and it seems to be perfectly in alignment with trinity..

According to what you quoted:

Dhammakaya  is the truth body, which is the Father in trinity;

Nirmanakaya is the body that is manifest; which is the Son in trinity;

Samboghakaya is the body of bliss and pure energy, which is Holy spirit in Trinity..

.......................................................................

Dhammakaya is really not a body in the physical sense, it just figuratively refers to the absolute truth itself;

Dhamma means truth in Pali language.. This is the Father in Trinity... Now read the below Buddhist sutta (It is a conversation between Buddha and another person, in which Buddha speaks the following)..

Quote

“He whose faith in the Tathagata is settled, rooted, established, solid, unshakeable by any ascetic or Brahmin, any deva or mara or Brahma or anyone in the world, can truly say: 'I am a true son of Blessed Lord (Bhagavan), born of his mouth, born of Dhamma, created by Dhamma, an heir of Dhamma.' Why is that? Because, Vasettha, this designates the Tathagata: 'The Body of Dhamma,' that is, 'The Body of Brahma,' or 'Become Dhamma,' that is, 'Become Brahma’ “

- Digha Nikaya III.84, Maurice Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, (Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 1995) 409

 

 

Buddha says that one who is enlightened, can say that I am the true son of Dhamma... i.e. true Son of the Father...

And Jesus also said 'I am the Son of God'...He actually meant he was the son of truth, as per this Buddhist verse..

There are already theories that say that Jesus was in India between age 12-30 and many suspect he was a Buddhist student, some people say he was an Yogi.

All this seem to be very interesting. I will continue to do more research on this..