Secrets of Enlightenment

Enlightenment is an experiential understanding from deep within, irrevocable understanding, absolute understanding that “ego exists not”. Ego…The "I" is fictitious, pseudo entity. All that exist is only Consciousness, Divinity, Shiva…. If this understanding has happened to you at your core, which is a first-hand experience…, that is enlightenment. It is not just intellectual understanding but deep within you something has been transformed, a very deep experience by which you know this thing, not just the intellectual understanding of that state. When it happens deep within you in the bottom of your heart, at the core of your being, in an experiential manner, then that is the state of enlightenment. That is called first hand experience of divinity. Where the experiencer is not, only the divinity is.

Enlightenment is for those courageous few who are willing to die completely. In that total death of the ego… enlightenment happens. When enlightenment happens “I” am not. If “I” am there enlightenment is not… So nobody can make a statement that I am enlightened because “I” can never be enlightened. Enlightenment is… I am not.

Enlightenment and the ego are like sun and darkness. You ask the Sun have you seen the darkness. What will be the reply of the Sun? Sun will say, “What are you talking about?” If the Sun is there the darkness is not there. If the darkness is there the Sun is not there. If the enlightenment is there then ego is not there. If ego is there enlightenment is not there. Sun and darkness can never meet.

Ego is the darkness that does not have any existence. It is only because there is no sun, that you have darkness. Darkness is non-existing, it is fictitious, pseudo. Absence of light is called darkness so one should not struggle with the darkness within. The ego which is the darkness, one should not struggle with it, just light the lamp!

The only way out is to light the lamp within. How does one do that? It is merely lighting one lamp with the help of other lamp. When there is a lamp which is already lit take the lamp which is not lit near the lamp which is lit…This is the way the unlit lamp will get lit!. That is why there is so much importance of the presence of the Living Enlightened Master. That is why in our culture there is so much respect and gratitude for all the Gurus.

But which lamp will be lit? One which has all the ingredients like oil, wick and which is ready to be lit. But if in the lamp there is water and you try to light it… will it lit? Never! So how does one prepare the lamp so that it can be lit… needs to be understood.

There are basically five qualities…

1) SIMPLICITY: That person as a personality, as a being, must be simple. Too educated, too logical, learned, intellectual, complicated persons will miss the point. So, simplicity is the first virtue on the path to enlightenment.

2) HUMILITY: The second thing the person should have is humility. One should be willing to receive the grace of divinity. When it is raining, one should be holding the vessel straight to receive the water. If it is upside down, will you get the water? No! Same is with Grace…so be humble.

3) ATTITUDE OF LEARNING: Upanishad means sitting at the feet of the master and ready to receive that grace. If that quality is there then you receive. The electrical energy flows from high-voltage to low-voltage. So also the spiritual energy flows from the master to the disciple. So it is an important quality for the deciple to be able to sit at the feet of the master. An egoist can not do that! Only the right disciple, who is willing to sit at the feet of the master, the one who is humble and simple and willing to learn will be capable of receiving that grace!

4) GRATITUDE: If you have gratitude in your heart towards that enlightened consciousness, if you have sense of appreciation for something wonderful that is there, with that very gratitude, that very appreciation you can catch the fire any moment.

5) COURAGE: The fifth and the most important quality of the right disciple is the courage to die… Willing to let go .. If we talk in the terms of lamp, then we can say that the lamp should be ready to destroy its darkness. It should be ready to go near the fire to catch the fire.

Most people are not willing to go near live fire, the living enlightened master, but they prefer to see it from far…Why? If you go near the fire then it will burn you. Enlightened consciousness is more like fire. If you go close to the fire you will be burnt. But these great intellectual giants they will talk about this fire, they will discuss about it, they will have study circles, they will read books but nobody will be willing to go closer to the fire and get burnt because they are not ready for that. That is why they remain intellectual idiots.

Ego is like a Salt doll. It wants to roam around the shore and keeps asking what the depth of the ocean is? The Salt-Doll has to be ready to jump into the ocean without making any excuses and it will dissolve. How much time does it take to understand this? It's so simple. Our mind is so complex and it creates unnecessary complications.

So if we have these five qualities within us then our lamp too will be ready to lit. When the unlit lamp goes near the lamp which is lit and catches the flame, the lamp which is already lit has nothing to lose. One the unlit lamp catches the flame and it is kept next to the lamp which is already lit, can you tell which lamp was lit first and which one was next? No one can tell!

One more thing to understand is…the flame of the lamp is more important and not the shape and size and the looks of the body of the lamp. Then whether that lamp is made of mud or gold does not matter. If there is respect, appreciation, gratitude towards that enlightened consciousness, your lamp will get lit… otherwise not.

Once you have those five basic qualities, it is possible to discus the breakthrough technology of enlightenment. But before we can get into the technology of breakthrough, we need to understand few fundamentals of life and living. We also need to understand clearly the difference between Brain & Mind and the inter-relation between the two.

Brain is the hardware aspect. It is highly evolved module in the skull, which is the greatest wonder and the miracle the way it functions. It is connected to and constantly in touch with all the parts of the body through various stimuli it gets in the form of neural signals. Hence even though it is placed in the skull, its reach is over the entire body.

Mind is the software aspect. It is the thought-emotions bundle, which is loaded with our likes and dislikes, our associations and attachments, fears and phobias etc.

It is the combination of the brain as the hardware and the mind as the software that is responsible for the miraculous functioning and also the joy and miseries of the human race.

The combination is miraculous because it has the great capacity to compare, calculate, evaluate, memorize, fantasize, imagine, react, respond, intellectualize and intuit etc. It is because of these capabilities that humans are different and far more superior in their functioning compared to any other living organism on this planet.

The combination has also created the miseries for the human race because human mind is now caught in its own web. Its capacity to memorize, calculate and compare has gone to very high levels of cunning-ness. This calculative mind is totally unaware of the other aspects such as to respond, intuit or being silent. That’s why it has gone off-balance. Such people with one-sided development go eccentric very fast! It is this unbalanced growth of mind, which is responsible for the human miseries in the midst of plenty.

You can see the truth of it, when you see that rich people are as miserable as poor or at times more miserable, because material affluence has not helped us in sorting out the human problems, which are mostly psychological. On the contrary the statistics prove that more affluent the society, more the heart attacks, more divorces and more relationship problems.

The time has come where it has become almost a compulsion for us that, we must look into these issues of life, otherwise it will be too late and we will be repenting at leisure! If you are sincere and honest in your seeing, it is not very difficult to see the urgency of it as felt by the speaker. Do you feel this urgency?

If you do feel this urgency and are interested in the breakthrough, how can we proceed further?

The simplest way is to begin from where we are right now, by simply being aware!

Right now are you aware of your breathing, the heart that is beating all the time, the sound of the fan or the air-conditioners, the sound of traffic from far away…?

Now can you look at this software called mind, which is running all the time like an under- current or background music in the form of unstoppable self-dialogue? Is it possible to create some space so that we can see and observe with aloof attention these thoughts which are wondering in the inner sky?

If you can create some space within and unlatch your self from the thoughts and if you can witness the thoughts, you will see there are so many thoughts! Each one moving in its own direction! These thoughts have no coherence. One thought says you have to attend a marriage in the evening. The other thought says you deed not have breakfast. The third thought says you must concentrate on what is being said because it is important. No coherence among these three thoughts at all. And there are so many of them! So this is the condition of our thought-mind right now!

As you start observing thoughts with aloof attention, the witness is created. With this, thoughts start reducing and they fall in line. The thought flow becomes streamlined. In the process thoughts per minute (tpm) reduces.

As the intensity of observation goes on increasing, the flow of thought goes on reducing. It becomes thinner and thinner. Now it becomes possible to see the beginning of a thought, the middle of the thought and the end of the thought as you trace the whole trajectory of thought with great intensity of aloof attention.

As the intensity of aloof attention goes on increasing, it becomes multi-point. With this, now you see the gap at the end of the first thought and before the second thought starts. At this stage change the gestalt. Instead of watching the thoughts, shift your focus on watching the gaps. This has the miraculous effect. As you shift the focus from thoughts to the gaps, the gap goes on increasing.

Now as you remain vigilant in multi-point awareness and continue practicing aloof attention, you will come to “no-thought zone”. This is thoughtless state, without thoughts, only the gap.

As the intensity of witnessing is heightened by additional energy which is now available, as there are no thoughts to dissipate the same, the energy reservoir goes on increasing. This results into high intensity field of observation – where there are no thoughts – resulting into the “non-thought zone”. This state is so vibrant and dynamic that the thought has got no capacity to linger in this zone. This is the state in which one should get rooted into with multi-point awareness. Staying more and more into this state is the invitation to divine. It makes it possible to touch upon that divine quality which brings about the total transformation from the very core of your being through the explosion of the psychological instrument in the inner domain.

As you remain alert, aware and vigilant throughout, there is no chance at all for the thought-mind to play tricks with you in the form of visualization, hallucinations, imagery etc. In fact, this state being beyond the frontiers of thoughts, the thought has no say in it at all.

Once you touch upon that, the awareness falls back upon itself, becoming aware of itself! It results into the total annihilation of the ego-mind-personality, as the huge fire of that dynamic energy engulfs the entire garbage called mind, with all its emotional entanglements. For the first time you feel healthy as you get healed completely with that celestial shower which washes away all the hurt and humiliations faced in the past. This is the process of rebirth. The old goes out, the new comes in. The process continues and it takes its own time to settle, which varies from few months to few years, depending upon the past habits and temperaments of the person.

This is the breakthrough into a new dimension which is beyond the frontiers of thought-mind. The eternal journey continues.

Please practice this… what is being said. Understanding it intellectually is the first step, but that alone will not produce results. You have to practice it and work it out up to the end of it. That is the process of enlightenment!