EnlightenMyth

There are so many myths and misconceptions surrounding enlightenment. I had plenty, most of which I wasn't even aware of. All the books I had read, hindering as much as they helped. For example even Jed McKenna, probably one of the most important authors out there on the subject, manages to greatly demystify enlightenment but somehow manages to create a whole new quasi-unattainable myth in the way he describes it. This just serves as more evidence of the harm in just taking someone else's word for this. As Jed McKenna himself says, "Having the answer isn't enough. You have to do the math."

Whenever anyone talks about enlightenment, it becomes a mere concept. "The finger pointing at the moon." The finger may indicate that there might be a moon in the first place, and the general direction to look in, but beyond that becomes another obstacle. Stop analysing and looking at the finger, look at the fucking moon!!!

Following maps or charts might also have the potential to be helpful to a degree, but only as rough guidelines rather than a strict lineage to align with. Ticking off each nana or jhana as they happen and sitting in eager expectation for the next one seems like an entirely unnecessary and largely distracting endeavour.

In truth, enlightenment is the simplest thing there can be. When it happens, it is almost anti-climactic. I had some mystical experiences leading up to, and post enlightenment, but they are in no way a prerequisite, and if they do happen they will be different for each of us. The actual moment of realisation is not mystical. It is too easy to work the discovery of the simple truth up into a huge, unachievable fairytale.

You do no need to meditate for years and years. You do not have to give up all your worldly possessions. You do not need to devote yourself to a guru or a god. You do not have to stop eating meat. You do not have to read tonnes of books or study philosophy. You do not have to take heaps of acid. If any of these are things you like to do, then do them. You can even keep doing them after enlightenment if you wish. All you need to find enlightenment is to LOOK, with an honest dedication to finding truth. You can find it right now, in this moment.

Another huge myth is that finding enlightenment means end game, go home, you win. This is NOT the case. Truth-realisation is like discovering a muscle you never knew was there. Finding it once and forgetting about it isn't enough. It needs to be flexed, developed, built upon. The new skills need to be expanded, the implications need to be explored. And the implications are endless. Enlightenment might be the last step in one journey, but it is the first step in a whole new one.

If you become enlightened you do not need to give up anything. You will not lose anything. You will not even lose your self, as you will discover it was never there in the first place to lose. You will still form bonds with people. You will still take delight in hobbies. You can still have a job and a marriage and kids, if that's what you want. Life will still be immensely enjoyable. In fact it will be moreso, because there will be more of a direct contact with it. Reality will no longer be so clouded and murky being filtered through a self.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard was given to me many years ago by my dad. "Expect nothing, and everything is a bonus." This is without a doubt my life's motto, and can be applied to pretty much any situation. In seeking enlightenment, the less you expect the better, and the easier it will be to see truth. Do not expect a huge cataclysmic event. Do not expect fireworks, not even a tiny little one. Liberation is going to be different every time. Preconceptions can be major obstacles. The part of you that is sitting there waiting for something specific to happen means that your capacity to look is being depleted. You just have to trust that when truth-realisation happens, you'll know it to be true. Otherwise you'll just be lying to yourself, and truth can't lie.

You are NOT destroying the self, you are realising it was never there in the first place. This is a very important distinction. It means very little immediate change. However, this distinction also implies that any thoughts or feelings, including thoughts of a self, that were there before enlightenment will still be there afterward. This is why it's important to develop this new muscle.

What takes the place of the self is the void. The space in which thoughts and feelings and experience arise and fall. The space which previously had a self falsely superimposed over it. Once liberated of self, this is what needs familiarising with. This is the way the long sought-after peace can be found, by minimising the negative feelings that arise within it. You see, when there is a problem, and hate or anger or sadness comes up, it reflects off a self image, creating a potentially exponential feedback loop, which can make it spiral out of control. If you take away this self image, and depersonalise the negative emotions, all that is left is the void, and thoughts and emotions cannot cling to or reflect off a void.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUXodFgbDfQ

Spread this:

		Share

Creative Liberation

Freedom Fierceandtrue

• so I guess you did not have any experience after liberation where you stopped drawing or making art, right?


Nemo

• yeah I did, it was beforehand actually

• and extended for maybe a weeks after, but then the urge came back very strongly.

• I think reading Jed McKenna poisoned me a little, hehe. He helped heaps too of course.


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• hmmm

• well I'm glad you have not stopped

• but I have lost any urge entirely


Nemo

• how come?


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• I have no idea

• my guess is that the identity was really wrapped up in 'being an artist'


Nemo

• yeah I totally get that


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• I feel no motivation to do it now

• but the weird thing is that before, I wasn't able to draw that stuff I showed you unless I was trashed and high

• so it was like I used drugs and alcohol to remove 'my self'

• but now that it's really gone... not a thing


Nemo

• hahaha yeah I used to be like that with my music

• I have a little theory about art and self and liberation

• most people who are artists usually start at a young age

• I did, is this true for you?


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• very young


Nemo

• so, your parents start to praise and encourage your art making

• then you go to school

• your teachers praise you for it

• often your talent makes you stick out from your peers in this department

• so this part of your self image starts developing


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• yup


Nemo

• so, due to all this my urge to make art also diminished significantly, especially in months leading up to liberation

• I desperately needed to separate from everything I thought I was, I nearly even shaved my head, as I've been "the girl with the long red hair" all my life

• then I traced my relationship with art and creativity back to the beginning

• back to when I was a young child

• and it became playtime again

• pure joy

• process over result


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• this is a great investigation

• this is totally helpful!



If somebody asked me what my religion was, I'd probably say Music.


I love to create. Art, music, anything, everything. Opinions aren't worth much, but it is my opinion that creating is important and everyone should be doing it in one way or another. For starters, it can be a great outlet and is hugely cathartic. Secondly, it is an effective form of meditation. Last but not least, it can used as a powerful tool to explore the nature of the ego/narrator/inner critic, and the void alike. Pre-liberation, creating was the time that I had the most direct contact with the void. I believe this is what is meant when people say they "lose themselves" in their music or painting, etc. Most people are scared to be creative due to reproach from their inner critics. This is often made worse the more we try to control the act of creating, the more we think we have control at all.

For a time I facilitated a life-drawing class in which methods were encouraged to help surrender control, for example, having the model hold poses for very short lengths of time, drawing with the non-dominant hand, drawing with both hands, even with eyes closed. These are ways in which one can learn to completely step aside, and allow that space to fill up with the void, thereby achieving direct contact with reality and expression in its purest form.

All anyone can ever do is grab onto a moment and express it while it is happening. The process is far more important than the result. And interestingly enough, approaching art as well as life with this sort of integrity becomes apparent in the results anyway. Any other motives, more often than not, will result in something contrived, and it will be apparent.

This may sound like hippy nonsense, but one way I like to describe the phenomena is; I no longer use a paintbrush, I become the paintbrush. And a paintbrush is not concerned with anything more than the quality of the stroke itself in each moment.

All this can have far greater implications if one perceives playing out the role of self as the grandest of all art forms.

Spread this:

		Share

Searching for a Self

This is not religion.

It is not even spiritual. It is the truth, plain and simple.

It can seem like a mystical experience because it is something so important yet so foreign to us. The human mind has been conditioned to take things for granted, not to question things, not to ponder its own existence.

Religion often operates under the pretense of exploring the reality of existence. Only it claims to have done all the work for us, so we need not bother. All it requires of us is blind faith. Our unquestioning belief. Truth requires no such thing.

It is important that concepts of truth are challenged constantly. Yours, mine, everyone's. Because all anyone can own are concepts of truth. Actual truth is not owned by anyone, and doesn't need you or I in order to exist. It exists not only regardless, but in spite of you and I.

The truth is, there is no you or me. There is no self. There is no smaller self, there is no higher Self. There is the universe unfolding. If you look closely, honestly, with integrity and a certain amount of dedication, it will be revealed that self, or sense of self, only resides in thoughts. Thoughts of a self do not point to a self, in the same way that thoughts of a unicorn do not point to an actual unicorn.

This is no dogma. I implore you not to take my word for it, this is not blind faith, please take a look for yourself. This is in fact crucial, and I can't express this enough, that you do not take anyone's word for it. Look for yourself. Look deep and hard for any signs of an actual self. When you find a sign, trace it back to this self it is pointing to. Be absolutely thorough. It is crucial you know for yourself, for certain, that there is no you, as well as the nature of the void.

It's like this; if you've never seen fire, I can describe it to you, but it won't be the same as the direct experience of fire.

What you will come up with on your search for a self, is a mind and a body, and all the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations relating to that body. Only nothing owns them. The components which make up self are real, only they are attributed to the wrong place. "I", "me" and "you" are linguistic conventions which refer to nothing except for a point of reference in experience and/or the universe. And different points in reality simply indicate that it's varied. You are not mind, you are not body, you are not thoughts, you are not even a point of reference.

We think something must own these components, but usually we've never before even stopped to question why something must own them, let alone think about the possibility that there is no owner, and need not be one. We think there is an owner or controller due to this illusion of control, held by the self, or at least the mind. False concepts of self are created from thinking something needs to be responsible for either causing or experiencing something else, when really experience exists regardless. But there is no controlling, of thought, of sensations, or of feelings; you're not even aware of most of the biological and physical functions of the body, let alone in control of them!

A study into any mundane activity can demonstrate this. For example, putting on a jacket. The sun sets. The temperature drops in the environment surrounding the body. The skin prickles with the cold. Thoughts arise, "It's cold, time for a jacket." The eyes locate the jacket, and the hands put it on, one arm at a time. This all happens automatically. I do not need to tell my eyes how to look for a jacket. I do not need to tell my arms how to put it on. There is absolutely no me to be found, logically, in this process whatsoever. It can seem like I am responsible here for making the decision to put on a jacket, but obviously this is not the case. The conditions of the environment have changed, independent of me, and the body has responded by seeking comfort the way it's designed to. I can choose perversely not to put on a jacket in order to prove that I am a separate agent having free will, but this contrary reaction in itself has been forced by the existing conditions, and is dependent on them, and as such does not prove that I exist; just perhaps that a masochistic contrariness is a part of my nature, as well as the fact that the illusory self, when faced with it's own insubstantiality, will fight tooth and nail to prove otherwise.

This is also an insight into the nature of non-duality. If you look even closer, you will even see that all these things aren't even independent, from each other or their environment. There is no real separation here, beyond the illusion of separation. A person, or thing, and its environment are not mutually exclusive. Experience and experiencer are not separate. Reality can only exist in direct experience. Anything outside of that is merely conceptual and speculative, and therefore is irrelevant to what we are talking about here. All that can ever exist is direct experience. As soon as you try to separate experience from experiencer, it is no longer direct experience - a gap is created. The reason truth can't exist independent of the experiencer is because there is no experiencer! Objectivity and subjectivity are redundant because since reality can only ever be subjective (not to me or you - to itself), its direct opposite, "objective", can't exist, and therefore cancels "subjective" out as well.

So, if you're as serious and as desperate to wake up as I was, you wont just take my word for all of this. You wont just pick up a book on the subject and nod your head. You will have questions. You will have doubts. You will doubt what you believe, and what seems true. You will put it through every test you can throw at it. You will shred everything you thought you were and thought you knew to pieces. In fact you will almost certainly teeter on the very edge of madness in the process. But these are the hallmarks of the earnestness, integrity, and unshakable honesty that are imperative in finding truth. And trust me, it is all worth it.

Spread this:

		Share