Do You Know When You Become Enlightened?

[dominic1]

I had a lot of experiences where the mind was still, so no monkey mind during that time.
And sometimes it kind of feels like you are enlightend (you enjoy the present moment fully and dont think about anything else).

But Leo once said that "Nothingness" feels like heaven. And I can´t remember feeling that good.
It always feels nice to be fully present but not THAT good.

My question:
Did I have temporary enlightenment experiences? It is no permanent state for me yet,
but how does one know when or if enlightenment happens?
Is it just the absence of monkey mind and enjoying the moment, or is there more to it?

Because that I had a lot, and even people who know nothing about this topic have it all the time.
For example when they are having fun with their friends, starring in the eyes of you loved one and so on.

I thought this was it, but I am not sure if there is more to discover, or if I just have to extend the time of being in such a state.

Thanks for answering and have a great moment

[jjer94]

Let me clear something up for you. I think you're under the impression that enlightenment is some sort of fleeting experience. Upon realizing Truth ("nothingness"), you may experience bliss, heavenly feelings, kundalini, joy, gratitude, full enjoyment of the present moment, still mind, and a bunch of other side effects. But those experiences are not Truth itself. How could Truth feel like heaven if it's nothing at all? The Truth itself is very very subtle. It's also not an experience, because all experiences are fleeting, and Truth is eternal. You don't have to "extend the time of being in such a state" to abide in Truth if you're fully enlightened. 

I'd rather not go into full detail on the "how-to get enlightened" - you may want to buy Leo's book list or watch his videos to help you with that.

What's so heaven-inducing about Truth is that at that moment, you realize you are not the body, the ego, or any other ephemeral things in your experience. What a friggin' relief!

How do you know when or if enlightenment happens? I can only give you a crappy analogy. How do you know if you've orgasmed during sex?

You just know.

 

[Ayla]

17 minutes ago, jjer94 said:

I can only give you a crappy analogy. How do you know if you've orgasmed during sex?

You just know.

 

Why crappy @jjer94 ? 

It's quite a good one... never thought of it before but I might quote you in the future if I may  

I personally was using - how do you know you're in love... quite girlie lol 

[Rufus]

Within my experience I had a near death experience once due to food and alcohol Poisoning, I was at a sofa gradually losing consciousness, I felt that I was inevitably dying, and then it happened, it's so beautiful and I wanted to stay there and never come back I did not care if I die, not long after my friends came and helped me, my body was so weak, and I found myself in a heavenly state, I became so humble and loving to the people around me, and I totally forget about myself (the Ego) I totally forget who I am. I felt that I am the universe and I love everything because everything is what I am! 
now.. I don't know if my experience was mixed with hallucinations or not, if not all of it, I'm sort of experienced with hallucination, but this one was different. things were much clearer instead of being shady, I spent around 2 weeks in a highly spiritual state, humble and loving to everybody, smiling and laughing at life, people and everything around me. but few days later my body got it's strength and health back, my Ego has been restored.. and I remembered all my problems and social obligations, needed to go back to work, I fell back to this hell and all is gone.

I wanted to get that state back so badly, few years later and after I read about enlightenment, and I tried to research from different resources about how it looks or feels like, I understood that It cannot be described, and yes I was in that state, all descriptions somehow matched my NDE state,
I was able to realize that I was in that state but not permanently. So i Know my target now and based on it I am measuring my enlightenment progress.
I thought If I want to get to that state, I need to set the right conditions and environment withing myself.
so..Ego, Love, no obligations, non-duality, no judgment, being present.. these were exactly how felt when I was in the NDE.. so why I don't set these coniditon up to myself in my practical life?

Echart Tolle, Sadhguru, Mooji and of course Leo, helped my through my journey, within their teaching, I worked on taming my EGO, as I'm taming my ego I'm naturally becoming more loving and humble, I am gradually stopping to identify myself as the Mind or the Body, I'm training myself to be conscious about present, and I'm now working on reducing all the unnecessary obligations I have in my life so my mind becomes more empty.

and.. as I am doing this I am noticing that this blissful state I had in that near death experience is returning by itself gradually, I'm not there yet, I have so much work to do and It will take me quite some time to solve all my obligations, maybe years, but it's so obvious to me that I am climaxing into somewhere.

Try to find that climax, and compare yourself, your happiness and calmness, and your inner state once every while, and stick to that path. Good luck! 

Edited February 11, 2016 by MWS

[Meow]

I sometimes feel like I really 'get it'. The illusions are seen for what they are. I can use that to make myself feel better about things but it takes effort to go from A to B i.e. (thinking) ... this is not reality ... this is a mind-story ... i can let it go. It's certainly nice to feel like I can do that but I don't feel enlightened (presumably because I'm not) and even if I started to consider that I was enlightened or even getting that way how do I know that is not just another mind-story anyway?

[Ayla]

@Meow ,

Who is that I you are talking about?

Inquire that one... not what passes in front or behind or over it.. 

[Meow]

@Ayla Touche ;-) ... but can the question not be rephrased without the 'I' ?

"Is there a danger that conceit and 'false-enlightenment' can preventing the achievement of true enlightenment?"

And how can that be avoided?

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by Meow

[Ayla]

These are just words passing. Something perceives them. They arise from some place. 

What is that one? 

 

[Meow]

@Ayla Thanks, The conciousness is trying to digest your responses.

See, I believe that I understand the concept of no-self. I understand that the goal is to get rid of the 'I'. (It can be assumed that this has not been achieved yet.)

However, there is still a need to communicate with each other (not least on a forum) and it would seem to 'me' to be almost impossible to communicate effectively without resorting to (albeit false, but) convenient concepts such as YOU and ME. Or am I totally getting it wrong?

 

[Ayla]

@Meow ,

Also go to this post: 

 

 

[Spider Jerusalem]

I'd like to add that both non-enlightened minds and enlightened minds are both illusions. Only actual entities/things can be enlightened, and since there no entities/things whatsoever anywhere, no one can become enlightened. Only illusions can disappear, but even the disappearance of the illusion is an illusion. 

Think of those holograms you may have seen in a museum. We would laugh ourselves silly if the hologram said it was an entity subject to enlightenment and non-enlightenment. I'm not saying we're holograms - just using an analogy.

So now what? My suggestion is to neither seek nor withdraw. Seeking will cause suffering and withdrawing will also cause suffering. Everything in the illusion is illusory, including the seemingly blissful ones. Above all, don't go looking for blissful experiences, as they will stop appearing in due course, assuming they even appeared in the first place. Looking forward to a blissful or any other kind enlightenment "experience" is probably the biggest trap in my opinion. Just rid yourself of the ideas of enlightenment and non-enlightened since these ideas also occur in the illusion. They don't call it Maya for nothing!

[Khin]

@dominic1 You definitely know you are enlightened when you are enlightened. Enlightenment is not about feeling pleasure or having a good feeling. It's more than that. You know when you are enlightened because once you are going to become enlightened, you passed through levels of mind. Your mind can be upgraded though. Never knew? So it's like that, your mind will be upgraded level by level. Every time it goes up by one level, you know better than previous level. During you are going up levels, you might experience heavenly peaceful or very peaceful light or really lite weight with all the peace washed over you. That's because when your mind levels goes up, your awareness become sharper and sharper. So it was almost like you KNOW everything. Like EVERYTHING. That awareness make your mind calmer and calmer. Your mind, your thoughts are still there but they don't identify with entity anymore so it's like your are watching a runner running. You know he's moving fast but you don't get tire. Just like that. But.......... WARNING! Don't fall into that peaceful moment. You'll come back with nothing. Keep noticing what you were noticing. The enlighten state occur when you are tired of being identify with your body and mind and want to let them go. At that stage, your mind will prepare itself to LET GO! Then it let go itself. That's when everything disappear. Mind, awareness, everything gone. That's the state of NOTHING. That's the most incredible thing.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Khin
Adding

[Brian Greendahl]

I don't consider myself enlightened. I've had recent experiences with flashes of brilliance. I was able to see the interconnection of all things around me, people, places and things.  It's happened twice and only for about 3 seconds or so. I use the word brilliant to describe it because that's how it felt. I'm not sure what it was or what it means. I do believe it was some kind of momentary higher consciousness.   

[cetus]

@dominic1 This is the kind of question that if you ask 100 ppl, you'll probably get 100 different answers. No two will be exactly alike because it is all illusion of mind and the way mind will interpret that experience will be different for each. That being said, the first time I let go of my ego self and had an awakening "experience" it was quite dramatic. Conscionsceness was no longer localized at my body location. It was filling the room and became externalized. That was VERY different to experience for the first time. There was a distinct and sudden "shift" in consciousness. Just as if you changed the channel on a radio and tuned to another station than the one you normally listen to in daily life. For me it was like discovering there was more than just one station to tune to. It was like tuning to a "universal" frequency of pure consciousness. I became just a very silent observer in the background to what was happening.  I flowed into the consciousness that was outside of my body location and  was suddenly floating in an ocean of pure silent bliss and stillness. My interpretation of that was that I entered another dimension, it was so distinct from my usual awareness. Again that's just the best way I can describe it using words and mind. I refer to all this using the word "I" just for the sake of conversation. I'm not "enlightened" but I do understand that all this is "Maya" that is happening within my mind.    My interpretation of nothingness is there is no experience of that. No "heavenly" feelings. You don't exist when nothingness happens so it can't be described at all. It is a total blank space within awareness. It's a total non-experience. Not even a silent observer is present experiencing a state of bliss so there is no memory of that at all..... So I guess to sum it all up, we all have "awakening experiences" until we get to the point where the "I" vanishes and than there is not even an experience to be had of any kind because there is no experiencer remaining. That's my illusion!

[SkyPanther]

Speaking for myself, I knew, because there was a stark difference from before and after. 

 

The initial experience is different from anything else you have experienced.   For me it was a momentary stillness in thought, and a mind that felt like it was expanding out into infinity.  Basically like the "mind" popped, there was awareness, but no consciousness for a very quick moment. 

Afterwards, the hole most have that they fill with things (material stuff, sex, drugs, partying, drinking, etc), got filled with an ever present contentment.  That is, whatever other mind state I am in, I can focus on the center of my being, the contentment, and the other mind state fades away.   Once I started meditating, and got to the 4th Jhana (equanimity), I could bring that up consciously as well. 

The other big change was that at first I noticed a two second "gap" between my thoughts, emotions, etc, and my identification with them.    I just saw them as emotions, ideas, thoughts, and if I left them alone, they would fade.  If I started to tell stories about the emotion, than I would get caught up again, and act "normally" (i.e like I always used to). The more I meditate the bigger that gap gets.  And now I can just see that I am in a bad mind state, and shift to a good one, (either contentment or equanimity)

I also lost the fear of death, because the self/ego is not "I".  The organism is not "I".  So there is no fear in dying because the only thing that dies is the memories, and tendances your brain held (the organism). 

And it's not that you want to die, it's that you no longer cling to life. 

It varies for people, but this was my experience. 

Edited March 25, 2016 by SkyPanther