A practical definition of "enlightenment" (what will be different from before?)

[Maharani]

What is enlightenment "good for"? Why are we seeking it? What will we have after enlightenment that we didn't have before?

Disclaimer 1: I've been studying non-dual teachings for about two years, but I am definitely not "there" yet. This is simply the non-dual teaching that makes the most intuitive sense to me, and feels to me like the most direct non-psychedelic path to "enlightenment".

Disclaimer 2: All of these are just concepts, which can never be "truth". They are just pointers meant to aid reflexion of your own experience. Your experience is the only "truth" there is.

This is my clumsy summary of a conceptual framework laid out by Roger Castillo in satsangs uploaded to his YouTube channel Being Lived. Roger is a student of Ramesh Balsekar, who was himself a student of Nisargadatta.

***

What we are really looking for is happiness in daily living.

The flow of Life will always be a mix of (physical and emotional) pleasure and pain*.

Human unhappiness ("suffering") is our psychological attitude towards the flow of Life.

Happiness is unbroken peace of mind regardless of circumstance.

Peace of mind is simply the absence of suffering.

Suffering manifests as 1. guilt, 2. blame, 3. pride, 4. worries & anxiety, 5. expectations & attachment to outcomes.

The root cause of all suffering is our false belief in personal doership.

When we examine how thoughts & decisions come about, we find that they are always the result of a person's genetic make-up & conditioning through Life.

Our feeling of free will is both an illusion and a gift.

The experience of being alive as a human is meant to feel as if we are free to do whatever we choose in each moment.

Our own free will is never different from the will of Life (or "God's will").

When we deeply feel and understand that Life unfolds according to "destiny" (cause & effect), our attitude of doership & attachment falls away and peace of mind persists on a continuous basis.

***

In Roger's words, non-dual awakenings (such as those brought about by 5-MeO-DMT or DPT) are simply means to an end: to find happiness in this human lifetime. The happiness that's available ("enlightenment" or liberation, which are synonymous in this framework) is simply the absence of our psychological attitude towards pleasure and pain: unbroken peace of mind regardless of circumstance.

* Painful emotions include anger and sadness, which we only tend to know with psychological suffering layered on top: Anger plus blame, sadness plus guilt. Even after "enlightenment", we still experience emotional pain, except without the additional layer of uncomfortableness that is suffering.

[Endangered-EGO]

You can only achieve enlightenment if you want either liberation or the absolute truth. The rest only brings more attachment. Because The path comes with ups and downs. Now try everything that is necessary. Some people say psychedelics are the best way, others say psychedelics only make you remember the truth, and can do more harm than good if not done correctly.

[Preetom]

@Maharani

Sweet summary.

This relative knowledge alone should be enough to blast and evaporate all relative ignorance.

If you're not lucky to have it immediately; then contemplate on this knowledge, assimilate it...until one day you have the revelation that these statements have always been your living reality.

Thank you

 

[Robert Leavitt]

2 hours ago, Maharani said:

Suffering manifests as 1. guilt, 2. blame, 3. pride, 4. worries & anxiety, 5. expectations & attachment to outcomes.

The root cause of all suffering is our false belief in personal doership.

Awesome work,

I would like to add that suffering manifests also as Self-Pity and Resentment,  Which really is #5 if you look at it deeply because the resentments would stem from expectations & attachment. 

I also think that all suffering really stems from selfishness and self-centeredness.

It's all really the same just worded differently.  It does not matter what path you take to get there.

I know for me myself personally I had an experience that caused me to no longer be upset, and I don't know if I am "enlightened" but, I can tell you that when I had this experience the entire world changed.  The colors outside changed, everything got super bright, and all the people became alive and vibrant and vivid.  It has stayed that way for years...without drugs.

I dropped all my prejudice towards people, and forgave the whole world, and forgave myself all at once and that horrible story in mind was gone.

Turns out, it was me...I was the problem...not the world.

I wasn't searching for "enlightenment" when this happened btw.. I was actually focusing on trying to be a better person.

 

Robert

 

 

[Maharani]

2 hours ago, Robert Leavitt said:

I would like to add that suffering manifests also as Self-Pity and Resentment,  Which really is #5 if you look at it deeply because the resentments would stem from expectations & attachment.

Roger groups self-pity under guilt, and resentment under blame (or guilt, if it's directed towards yourself), but I agree with you that it's essentially semantics.

Dropping all prejudice, forgiving yourself and the whole world, the disappearance of the horrible story in your mind - definitely sounds like liberation ("enlightenment") according to Roger's definition to me.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Maharani

[VeganAwake]

Liberation can feel like the combination of a lot of different things, but it's really just freedom from our own minds.

When I had my Awakening the energy of the Me character dissolved, which untangled me from social conditioning, and I snapped out of the Matrix. The egoic self agenda was completely seen through and was no longer able to control me.

We go to Great Lengths to fix up our prisons and make them more comfy.

When our self-image or sense of self-worth is still connected to the outcome of our actions, true freedom has not yet been achieved.(example:  If your self-worth can feel diminished by your actions or lack thereof).

When your self-image and sense of self-worth stays neutral whether you sit on the couch in your underwear eating cookies all day? Or save a family of 6 from a burning down building. You've reached liberation.

 

 

 

[Beginner Mind]

I once followed Roger's teaching very closely.  It brought me some peace to believe that everything is predetermined, and that everything is God's Will.  But I couldn't stick with it because in the end, it was all based on belief.  I don't actually know that everything is predetermined.  It's just a belief.  And beliefs, at least for me, can't bring lasting peace.

But if Ramesh and Roger work for you, then more power to you. I wish you well on your journey.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Beginner Mind

[Maharani]

3 minutes ago, Beginner Mind said:

I once followed Roger's teaching very closely.  It brought me some peace to believe that everything is predetermined, and that everything is God's Will.  But I couldn't stick with it because in the end, it was all based on belief.  I don't actually know that everything is predetermined.  It's just a belief.  And beliefs, at least for me, can't bring lasting peace.

In my opinion, suffering is caused my misperceiving reality.  I'm still working on identifying exactly how I'm misperceiving, but that's my starting point.

Roger would agree with this 100 % - *believing* a concept will not bring about unbroken peace of mind. Another definition of enlightenment is that it is the falling away of *all* beliefs (the belief in personal doership is simply the most deeply ingrained one).

"Pre-determined" simply means unfolding according to cause & effect. Life only ever goes one way, down the one possible path. Even still, it can be seen as a spontaneous happening that occurs all in one moment.

And just to emphasize again that even according to Roger's conceptual framework, even after the belief in personal doership falls away, the *feeling* of free will is a permanent component of the experience in each moment.

[Beginner Mind]

@Maharani That's another thing that I found a little strange: The notion of free will and acting "as if".  In Gautam Sachdeva's book "Pointers from Ramesh Balsekar", he makes it very clear that the sage acts as if he is the doer.  The sage acts as if he has free will.  Which got me thinking, well, what is the point of even going down the non-doership path?  It doesn't make sense to me to simultaneously recognize non-doership and yet pretend to be the doer at the same time.  Just doesn't work for me.

Another criticism one might level against this teaching is that according to Ramesh, the individual self remains after enlightenment.  I e-mailed Roger to inquire about this aspect of the teaching and he confirmed it: according to this teaching, the separate self, the ego, remains fully intact after awakening, albeit with the understanding that no one is the doer. This goes against everything we've been told by the great teachers, including Ramesh's very own teacher, Nisargadatta.

[Maharani]

It's not about pretending, it's about feeling that you have free will (whether you want to or not). The falling away of the belief in "personal doership" simply means to recognize (not intellectually, but again, by way of feeling) that your actions are always determined by your genetic make-up & conditioning through Life. That we have the gift of a feeling of free will at the same time is indeed a paradox that cannot be resolved intellectually.

Yes, Roger does say that the "ego" or person remains after the belief in personal doership has fallen away: We still have to live this Life as a human being. According to the framework, the reason that sages have told us that we are NOT the body is simply because that is the most effective way of showing us the consciousness aspect of ourselves that we have "forgotten". But once it is recognized, it still has to be integrated with the fact that our experience is that of a human being - a person.

[Beginner Mind]

@Maharani Well, like I said, if this teaching works for you, awesome.  I mean that sincerely.  There was a time where it worked for me too.