I’ve been in contact with a researcher that runs MRI’s on people’s brains that are high level meditators. He suggested, after hearing about my state of mind that a guy by the name of “Gary Weber” taught from a similar background. I looked him up and while it was hard to get at what he believes and experienced, finally I found something.
If Gary is speaking about this from a first-hand perspective – he is right on target. All of this jives with my experiences and current state. It was really nice to see it put into words like this, different from my own, and yet nearly perfectly aligned with my ideas, experiences.
Apologies to Gary in advance for copy/pasting a large chunk of his free ebook! Here is Gary’s website (click).
What will awakening/Self-realization/enlightenment be like?
There is much confusion as to what you can expect after awakening. It is critical to remember that enlightenment is not an experience, no matter how ecstatic or sublime it might have been, nor how many you have had. If it has come and gone, it was an experience like so many others. In fact, an ecstatic spiritual experience may create such an intense longing for its regeneration, as it did in my case, that it becomes a great burden and an obstacle to true awakening.
In my case, the page turned totally unexpectedly while doing a yoga posture that had been done literally thousands of times before. I went into the posture one way, and came out of it completely transformed. There was no blinding flash of light, no choir of angels singing, no holding God’s hand. Thought as a continuing phenomenon just stopped. The I was blown out like a candle in the wind. That has continued for what is now many years.
There are many who have a spiritual experience and declare themselves enlightened. You have probably heard everyone is already enlightened, a Buddha, and told to call off the search. Unfortunately, that may not be your reality, but some- one else’s. Since you have never seen it before, it is easy to declare victory and leave the field prematurely. This leads to great confusion and the biggest loss of all, your losing the opportunity to make that wondrous mystery yours. If possible, have your enlightenment checked out by a bona fide Zen master rather than your buddies at Starbucks.
There are some useful markers that can serve as a guide. If awakening has occurred, there is no sense of anything further being needed, nor is there anything that can be taken away to improve it. Thoughts drop away as a continuing all-encompassing phenomenon in the foreground and fall to the background out of lack of interest. You move from being in a flock of birds to seeing a few birds far away in a clear sky. There is an ever present natural stillness, presence and deep quietness.
Thoughts, which are a lot like a sense, become more like taste-a useful tool employed when needed, rather than the constant hearing of a cacophony of jumbled noises. You no more force thought to stop forever than you would put out your eyes because you didn’t like what you saw. It is an easy, comfortable state.
There is a knowing of a deep yes; of acceptance that you are not in charge, in fact that you are not. Rather than seeing that deep stillness as an observer, you dissolve in that deep stillness. You realize that you are that and have always been. There is an unshakable certainty, a knowing of completeness, fullness and limitlessness beyond any doubt.
72 Happiness Beyond Thought
There is also the knowing that this is nothing special, nothing special at all and that no one created it or has it as an achievement. There is the wonderment that it could have been overlooked for so long as it is so clear, intimate and simple.
Daily life continues in apparent duality through a personality, or persona, like an actor in a play simultaneously with a Oneness that is there continuously, naturally, easily. It is like one of those drawings that are two different things depending on your perspective, being either a vase or two people, or an older woman or a younger one. Or one of the current graphics that reveal the hidden picture within the apparent one after you stare at it for a while. A subtle shift occurs.
You do not lose functional competency even for highly complex tasks and positions. If that is what is going to be, you can continue in a complex job with a family, a mortgage, etc. In my experience, your functional competency will increase. Your full awareness will be present rather than the typical situation of having only a fraction available because it has to fight through a wall of constant thought. You will often be the only person there who can see from an unencumbered perspective what is going on. Solutions to complex problems in business situations and relationships will arise in consciousness; solutions that are beyond anything that you could ever have developed by thinking about them endlessly.
It is clear everything is within your consciousness, and that everything is One manifesting as apparent entities. If everything is One, then you as a discrete entity must not exist. Nisargadatta Maharaj’s famous quote on this realization is When I see that I am nothing that is wisdom. When I see that I am everything that is love. Between these two my life moves.
There is much discussion on whether anything changes after enlightenment and if there are degrees of enlightenment. Changes in the state of consciousness after awakening occurs are described by Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and many Zen folk including the contemporary Adyashanti. There are detailed descriptions within the Zen Buddhist tradition of various stages that occur after enlightenment.
A famous dialogue between a 20th century Zen master and his student address this issue. The student wrote Truly I see that there are degrees of depths in enlightenment. The master replied Yes, but few know this significant fact. Their discussion goes on to describe in classical Zen fashion and metaphors what those stages are. The Zen master states that What these people (contemporary Zen teachers) fail to realize is that their enlightenment is capable of endless enlargement. (14) These are virtually the exact words used by Adyashanti, one of the clearest and most accurate contemporary teachers on what happens after awakening.
The prospect of endless enlargement of enlightenment begs the obvious ques- tion of who is doing such a process and who decides when it’s over. If the process
is clearly occurring without a doer, it is all just happening by itself, just as it is and there is no concern. If there is someone there who believes they have become enlightened and is now doing a process to be more enlightened, there is indeed further to go. In my own experience, these processes occur perfectly just by them- selves and are different from anything that could have been predicted or imag- ined. It is all a total mystery, just as it has been all along, out of anyone’s control, although it just wasn’t realized.
Ramakrishna, the 19th Century Indian yogi, admonished students to go further, go further. When in doubt, go further. Search for your own deepest truth. At some level, you know in your deepest space if you are truly free and whether or not there is still something lacking. Be totally, brutally honest with yourself. There is no risk of going past enlightenment; there is a great loss in not going far enough.
There is a trap, however, in hearing all of this. The mind, anxious to grab hold of this threatening mystery, wants a model, a set of parameters and an idea of what it looks like, so that it can produce it and remain in control. It is impossible. No description is adequate because it uses the words and concepts of the mind, the source of the problem. Awakening is outside and beyond the mind. As long as there is a mind or an I trying to construct such a state with its tools, enlightenment cannot happen.
Vern’s Note
This was interesting in a number of ways. Gary is explaining some things that match my state – a combination of me (ego me) and the always present baseline state that I call Non-duality. It was interesting for me to stumble on this.
I can’t find much to disagree on, but definitely a few things.
Gary obviously has a bias toward Zen’s explanation of the experience or labeling of the experience. He quotes a zen student saying “I see there are degrees of depth in enlightenment.” This, and his obvious taking a position of self-awarded authority on the subject – speaking in absolutes about enlightenment instead of pondering whether this or that is a factor of enlightenment, or how it might be experienced for another person. Not everyone is on the Buddhist track. Not everyone is on the zen track.
This is a common theme with people who think they’ve reached a Buddhist, Zen, or other “enlightenment”. They speak as if it’s THIS WAY. As if, because they experienced it that way, that there can be no other way. He says, “If possible, have your enlightenment checked out by a bona fide Zen master rather than your buddies at Starbucks.”
Statements like this show Gary as someone who only believes in the stories he has been told by zen teachers. Zen masters are the ultimate authority on enlightenment for anyone on any path at all.
As if a zen master is going to know anything about my experience, when I’ve done nothing along the lines of zen practice of any kind and not even having read anything about the topic for 30 years. To Gary, a ‘bona fide zen master’ is the only one who can tell you what you experienced. That’s a bit ridiculous, to be honest.
I like to leave it open-ended for most things. I had some experiences. I had some states of mind. I have what I feel is the best possible outcome for my own life and couldn’t ask or want for more. I don’t tell anyone that this is the only state you should try to reach or that enlightenment is THIS. You know?
Don’t try to come to any conclusion on your own about your enlightenment status. Go see a bona fide Buddhist master or Zen master or Hindu master and ask that person what they think of your experiences. Then you’ll know. Otherwise, you’re deluding yourself.
Ha! That’s really, really ridiculous.
I wouldn’t call what I have enlightenment by anyone else’s definition, and I’ve never defined it myself. I choose not to listen to other people’s ideas of what exactly it entails. Gary seems to think he understands exactly what it is in the zen tradition – and thinks this applies to every person on a path in every corner of the earth. I don’t want a label on what I have that comes from zennists, Buddhists, or anyone else.
I just see it as a very nice place to have ended up. The search for anything labeled enlightenment stopped about 15 years ago. I don’t care if someone else calls it enlightenment, it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. If it ever did. I was curious about the term, the state, many years ago, but post 2008-9 – The whole idea of enlightenment didn’t matter at all. It just doesn’t surface in the mind anymore.
Absolute statements about enlightenment in general are all faulty.
You can say something absolute about enlightenment in the zen tradition if you want to. You’ll probably still be wrong, but if you’ve studied zen for scores of years and that’s all you know and believe, then you can say it with some real authority. Zen masters know zen enlightenment because they defined zen enlightenment. They can’t define every sort of enlightenment that occurs across cultures. Just like those who have Kundalini experiences cannot say you’re not enlightened until you have Kundalini.
Same with Buddhist monks. Wait, Buddhist masters. They can tell you whether or not you can even reach Jhana states based on whether you’ve prepared yourself with all the rules of the religion. They can tell you whether you’ve reached what the Buddhists think is true enlightenment. Nothing more.
Many groups have their own idea of what enlightenment is. Guess what? You don’t need to follow any of them. You can choose your own path. You can experiment in your own way. You can call whatever state of mind you think is ideal – enlightenment. It’s OK. A lot of other people will tell you that you haven’t reached any enlightenment, but by that point you probably don’t care at all what anyone thinks on the subject.
Anyway, as I said, I don’t think my state can be defined by me or anyone else as enlightened. I’m in a very good state, and that seems to be all that matters. I came out the other side of an intense set of experiences over time that have given me a really wonderful place to rest the mind and yet to be me with all my ego and humanness as needed.
How Does Deep Jhana Change You?
I recently began offering “Jhana meditation coaching calls“ – 30 to 120 minute calls.