Open Enlightenment

The Absolute Versus The Relative

The description of enlightenment as the realisation of the Absolute is one of my favourites. Its advantages include the implicit notion that enlightenment is not something a person ‘has’ or ‘is’; not a state or feeling, but the arrival at a form of understanding.

Yet enlightenment as ‘realisation of the Absolute’ has distinct drawbacks. It might lead someone to imagine it is the adoption of an idea, or a particular version of the idea of the Absolute. Another disadvantage is that by identifying enlightenment with the Absolute it implicitly encourages us to draw a dualistic contrast between it and the relative.

The Absolute includes but transcends the relative, so it’s not a dualistic relationship. But not until the process of enlightenment is well under way can we begin to experience this relationship in anything but an intellectual and dualist sense. And yet I still think the notions of Absolute and relative are among the most useful tools we have for speaking about and teaching enlightenment.

This impression was confirmed when I recently read a translation of one of the final works of the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), who offers some valuable ideas for understanding enlightenment (or ‘religious consciousness’ as he tends to call it) in terms of the realisation of the Absolute, but with some important safeguards that prevent this model from degenerating into dualism.

In a sense, however, realising dualism is just as important as realising the Absolute. Nishida writes on how religious consciousness does not begin until we gain an inkling of the contradiction implied by the very notion of a self – that part of the world we pretend is separate from or is looking out on the rest of it (Nishida 1987: 66). Although some might reject outright the model of Absolute versus relative as too dualistic for the purpose of conceptualising enlightenment, Nishida is reminding us here that the manifest absurdity of duality is what fuels the whole enterprise of enlightenment. Duality is such a stupid way of seeing the world that it’s its own best argument against itself.

Nothing gives us a better handle on the stupidity of duality that the supposed dualism between the relative and the Absolute, because if the Absolute were conceived as the dualistic counterpart to the relative (its ‘opposite’, for example, or its ‘complement’, ‘shadow’, ‘avatar’, or any relationship whatsoever) it would therefore be in a relation to the relative – i.e. relative itself – and instantly, by definition, non-Absolute.

The attempt to think dualistically about the Absolute demonstrates immediately that the Absolute requires a completely different kind of logic in order to be conceptualised correctly. As Nishida puts it:

[T]he absolute is not merely non-relative. For it contains absolute negation within itself. Therefore the relative which stands in relation to the absolute is not merely a part of the absolute or a lesser version of it. If it were, the absolute would indeed be non-relative, but it would no longer be the absolute either. A true absolute must possess itself through self-negation. The true absolute exists in that it returns itself in the form of the relative. The true absolute One expresses itself in the form of the infinite many. God exists in this world through self-negation. (Nishida 1987: 69)

Wow…

(Now go back and read that again – slowly, this time…)

In other words, then, the relative has nothing to do with the Absolute (because otherwise the Absolute would be relative to it). The true Absolute, therefore, is non-relative because it negates its own nature, which it does by expressing itself as the relative.

This is the most stunning, the most beautiful description of the radical, bottomless emptiness of Emptiness, the most succinct description of why it can be said that ‘Emptiness is Form’ that I’ve yet come across. It’s also a vivid evocation of precisely what the enlightened mind sees and experiences when it meditates upon Emptiness.

Too bad that Nishida’s writing isn’t more widely read for what it manifestly is: his report on his own experience. Part of the reason for this is the position he occupies in the standard version of the history of ideas. He was among the first eastern thinkers to adopt western ideas and express himself in the style of western academic philosophy. For this reason he is often read in the West as another western academic philosopher – that is, someone who seeks to understand experience through the medium of ideas – albeit those ideas are a little more exotic than average, with their ‘Zen’ trappings and references to thinkers with funny-sounding names that we don’t read over here.

In the translation of Nishida that I own, the editor’s closing essay is revealing in this respect. Peppering his argument with the usual post-modern buzzwords, the editor takes issue with the idea that Nishida’s non-dualism can only be understood within a tradition of eastern mysticism. Yet he never entertains the possibility that Nishida might simply be describing stuff he has experienced. Instead, Nishida’s work is viewed as a kind of linguistic exercise, which has ‘obvious parallels’ in the work of western poets – such as Shakespeare, Milton and Wallace Stevens – and with the work of post-modern philosophers such as (oh, for Fuck’s Sake) Jacques Derrida.

The only thing this clueless argument demonstrates is the possible pitfall of trying to teach enlightenment as realisation of the Absolute. Of course, all models are fallible, but without an appreciation of the non-dual logic of the Absolute as deep and as subtle as Nishida’s, it’s all too easy for post-modern wind-bags to strand themselves in the shallows of rhetoric and ideas.

Source

Nishida Kitaro (1987). Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. Translated and edited by David A. Dilworth. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Great Expectations

OE reader nic asked me to elaborate on my comments regarding the ‘bad time’ I had after enlightenment. So here it is.

A person who has yet to experience enlightenment simply cannot imagine what it is really like. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have good or bad expectations.

Expectations you might have before the event of enlightenment

Here are some of the expectations I came across in books, from teachers and other seekers during my journey to enlightenment, from when I first heard of the idea at about 15, up to the event itself at 29. Some I took very seriously, others less so:

• Enlightenment is the transformation into a God, and it only happens to very special people.
• Enlightenment will confer specific knowledge of everything, ever. The enlightened person knows what happened at the beginning of the universe, everything that is happening now, and everything that will happen right up to the very end. The enlightened person can provide an answer to all the Big Questions, because he/she knows God personally. He/she’s in on the plan.
• Enlightenment is the terrifying knowledge of Absolutely Nothing.
• Enlightenment is the death of the self while still alive.
• Enlightenment can only happen to men.
• Enlightenment is the complete destruction of the universe, right in front of your eyes.
• Enlightenment is a shocking, earth-shattering, cataclysmic, reality-tearing, mind-destroying, adrenalin-fueled mystical explosion.
• Enlightenment is the realisation that the world is an illusion, and so the enlightened person can walk through walls, fly, teleport, and perform all kinds of other miracles.
• Enlightenment is waking up from the dream of reality.
• Enlightenment is knowledge of heaven, hell, past lives, spiritual realms, Gods, Goddesses, dead people, angels, elves, pixies and ascended masters.
• Enlightenment is the end of suffering, pain, depression, despair, anger, hate, revulsion and disgust. It will heal my damaged self, and preserve who I am for ever in eternal bliss. I will never hurt again.
• Enlightenment is perpetual bliss.
• Enlightenment is an incomprehensible non-experience that promises nothing, and it is debatable if it actually has any benefit.

It didn’t take much experience with magick and meditation to learn that most of the expectations of enlightenment I had come across were outright fantasy or delusion. I rejected all of the above, and for a couple of years leading up to enlightenment, I invested mostly in the following:

• Enlightenment is non-dual awareness that happens after going through a process with predictable stages and milestones, including states, mystical experiences and ‘fruitions’ [peak experiences of the non-dual]. It is a result of the right kind of meditation or technique, it is achievable and the sooner I get enlightened the better!
• Enlightenment will radically alter my identity, and I will no longer suffer from fear of death, pain and the loss of my loved ones.
• Enlightenment will not provide answers to questions such as ‘What happens after death?’ and ‘Where do we go when we smoke DMT?’, but will confirm my suspicion that everything is predestined, and that the meaning of life is to get enlightened.
• Describing myself as ‘enlightened’ and talking about the fact that enlightenment actually exists is of benefit to humanity.
• If I could just figure out why I’m not yet enlightened, I can become enlightened.

There was also a secret expectation that I didn’t uncover until towards the end:

• Enlightenment – an event so incredible it cannot even be imagined – could be absolutely terrifying, and once it happens there is no stopping it. Will it feel like dying?

Leading up to enlightenment, sure enough I did experience a process made up of stages with certain milestones as a result of certain practices. I encountered visions, synchronicities, strange dreams, mystical states and experiences (light, vibration, bliss, energetic stuff), encounters with ‘spirits’ and ‘gods’, and other assorted weirdness. So some of my expectations seemed to be grounded in reality, but most of them were not.

What to expect during the event of enlightenment

The unexpected. I don’t mean bizarre things like a unicorn made of cheese riding a unicycle; I mean just don’t have any at all. It’s not worth it.

What to expect after the event of enlightenment

I can only tell you how it has been for me.

Nearly all of my expectations about enlightenment and what it meant were wrong in various different ways. I’ve already explained why believing you can ‘be enlightened’ is a problem, an I’ll explore some others at a later date.

Here’s what I didn’t expect:

After enlightenment, I was Whole; no longer separate, no longer a subject. I had the ability to see the radical truth and conceit was apparent everywhere. But a good deal of my mental activity was based on the ignorance that I was separate and a subject; a lifetime of habitual emotional and mental patterns built on a what was now an obvious lie. Eventually old habits die and new ones emerge; but it takes time, and watching these desperate emotions and thoughts endlessly cycle with no foundation in reality is simply not pleasant. This means I was Whole at a fundamental level, but experiencing bad things at a personal level. Imagine that!

The expectation of ‘getting enlightened’ was based on the same ignorance too; for three and a half years I had chased it, as if it was an object that I – as a subject – could own. So what happens when enlightenment occurs, but it is not an object? The ego continues to try and treat it as one and anxiety over losing enlightenment – supported by the ‘goal mentality’ – becomes inescapable, because it is simply ‘not there’ as an object. Cue alternating smug contentment with desperate recourse to meditative techniques to make sure it is ‘still there’. The goal mentality is a recipe for a vicious circle of imaginary ‘gaining’ and ‘losing’; and all within the context of Wholeness. This is ludicrous behaviour, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Do not think for one second that enlightenment marks a sudden change for every aspect of the self; you simply become aware of the truth, and eventually, over time and with a degree of conscious effort on your part, everything else might follow suit. Immediately after enlightenment, everything exists just as it did before: pain, hate, anger, frustration, fear, attachment, love, desire, want, need, stupidity, restlessness, discontent, and doubt; but again, all within the context of Wholeness.

You should be aware that it is still possible to re-enforce the old habits based on ignorance even after enlightenment, if you simply continue to indulge them. Imagine what the fact of the actual occurrence of enlightenment might do to an ego-maniac? (You don’t have to imagine: check out Andrew Cohen or ‘the Avataric Great Sage’, Adi Da Samraj.)

It is also possible to inaccurately describe or understand enlightenment, much like the millions of humans who believed the sun went around the earth even though they could see the truth right in front of their eyes. Experiencing the truth is not a guarantee of understanding it (as the pseudo-Advaitists demonstrate).

But here is the good news: over time, and with a conscious effort made to understand what is now experienced and what it actually means, the fruits born of a self built on ignorance, such as fear, hate, frustration, attachment, desire and doubt, are less and less produced as the ignorant self dies; and the production of the fruits of a person who abides in Wholeness, such as peace, contentment, bliss, happiness and acceptance, become the norm.

It is very rarely mentioned, but it takes a while – if at all in some cases – to personally reap the full benefits of enlightenment, and to understand it to an accurate degree. There is a good reason Ramana Maharshi spent 20 years on his own after his enlightenment, and a good reason he was so firmly ‘established’ in enlightenment when he began teaching.

Have you noticed how so many people who have experienced enlightenment have such different views on it? How some promote practice, others ban it? Some describe a process, others claim it’s instant? Some say we need to act on enlightenment, some that we can do anything we like? That’s because people – who have experienced enlightenment or not – are simply human. Some humans are stupid, some humans are illiterate, some humans are amateur philosophers, some humans are fantasists, some humans have an agenda (sex, money, power), some humans are confused, some humans are hopelessly indoctrinated, and enlightenment does not change this fact. It simply means that these people are what they have always been, except now it all occurs – you guessed it – in the context of Wholeness.

Enlightenment is the beginning of a new life, not the end of life itself; using the experience of enlightenment as an excuse to do nothing, on the grounds that the event confers absolute virtue, is like refusing to go to school, learn to read and write, make friends, get a job, find a lover, raise a family, use a hospital or see a shrink on the grounds that you were once born.

Enlightenment is the experience of Truth; but without understanding, it confers no virtue; without no virtue, there is no wisdom; and without no wisdom, of what use is enlightenment to humanity?

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Rapid Versus Gradual Awakening

Vipassana plus magick is perhaps the quickest, driest route to enlightenment there is. It was the path I followed, and although I’m not necessarily an evangelist for this route I think there are problems with the criticism that it makes sense to ‘hold back’ on awakening and develop concentration and morality instead.

The first problem is the simple question of time. How much do you suppose you have to plan your ideal realisation? The longer we ‘delay’ enlightenment the greater the risk of dying before we get there. The Great Work is no less subject to impermanence than any other goal.

Secondly, how much mastery of concentration and morality is enough? If you can sit in samadhi for a whole day, should you aim for a week? Similarly, morality: how easily should selfless acts come before you’re a worthy candidate for enlightenment? Should you wait until you’ve landed a Nobel Peace Prize?

Concentration and morality are attainments based in the relative world. There’s always more work you could do on them. This leads to the third problem: because they’re relative attainments they can stand in the way of the Absolute.

If you can remain in samadhi for a whole day, then great, but there will always be situations in which you can’t. You might be ill, or problems may arise in your life that distract you, or the people next door are too noisy, or an earthquake strikes. No matter how good you get, something can always trash the mastery. The same goes for morality: similar sorts of factors can disturb the purity of our intentions and – of course – there’s never any guarantee that even the most refined of intentions will produce its appropriate result in the real world.

In short, the assumption that concentration and morality can be ‘mastered’ sometimes arises from a belief in a masterful self, whereas mastery of concentration and morality actually consists in realising that they can’t be done – not in the way we might imagine they can.

Fourthly, the idea that fast awakening in itself is somehow morally slack or retrograde is presumptuous. What specific harm can a rapid awakening be supposed to have done? Any answer that points to something that may happen in the future rather than to what is supposed to have occurred already I propose to disregard, on the basis that people are innocent until they actually commit a crime.

Doubtless, there are gurus with psychopathic personalities. Their moral failures generally involve financial or sexual exploitation of their followers. Treating students in this way will hold them back rather than awaken them. I’m not aware of any guru who could be accused of awakening too many people too quickly. Quite the opposite, sadly. And let’s face it: concentration and morality were never going to fix people like these. Someone with the moral world-view of a three year-old was never going to sit down and think ‘I really must get myself sorted before I go too deep’, so why pretend there’s any solution to enlightened fuck-ups other than cutting off the supply of fragile personalities who unfortunately flock to them?

The world is full of nut-jobs who will do you over, given the chance. There are probably more plumbers, builders and bankers among them than gurus. If a banker made your investment grow ‘too quickly’, or a builder put up your house ‘too fast’, you’d have every right to be suspicious. But it wouldn’t be correct to assume automatically that they’d committed a crime, or that you were necessarily their victim.

If someone has awakened and discovers that this makes them happier or more free, then choosing to help others follow the same path is surely more morally developed than vanishing into silence. The fact remains that some people have a harder time with dry insight practice than others. If the issue lies with the person rather than the path, then an alternative route may indeed be a good tactic. It’s understandable that someone fortunate enough to enjoy a swifter ride may attract suspicion, but genuine psychopaths behave in the same way regardless of whether they set themselves up as gurus: they intimidate, dominate and exploit.

I strongly doubt that dry insight practice is a common factor among psychopaths.

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‘For-Benefit’ Enlightenment

Shortly after describing enlightenment as knowledge of, say, the Absolute Truth or the Non-dual to people who are unfamiliar with the subject, I am invariably asked, ‘What’s the point?’

Indeed, what is the point? Why would anyone in their right mind want to get ‘all non-dual’? Sounds confusing. Why would anyone want to sit every day for years in order to discover emptiness? Sounds nihilistic and quite boring. And what’s with this Absolute Truth? Postmodernism has proved that everything is relative…

Of course, given 20 minutes or so I can elaborate on a particular model in order to demonstrate the benefits of knowing the Absolute, or that we’re really non-dual, or that Emptiness is actually Form, but of course by then I’ve lost them. I’m usually left feeling a little bit self-important and quite irrelevant.

I’ve been considering the language of enlightenment for some time, and it seems that the labels we use have the tendency of leaving the world ‘over here’ and enlightenment ‘over there’. We cannot seem to escape a fundamental division in our thinking. Some examples:

• Relative vs. Absolute
• Form vs. Emptiness
• Profane vs. Divine
• Duality vs. Non-dual
• Ego vs. Impersonal
• Ignorance vs. Truth

Whenever defining enlightenment to someone who has never experienced it, or someone with only a cursory interest, we automatically put them – and everything they hold dear – on the ‘wrong side’ of reality: the relative, profane, dualistic, egotistical, ignorant; and, crucially, for them enlightenment is left in the realm of the purely speculative or conceptual. Irrelevant indeed.

I don’t believe that the only option for engaging with enlightenment is to spend years studying New Age guff, wasting time with dead ends and enjoying one disillusionment after another, all the while not really knowing what you are looking for, until you eventually sift the small amount of good information from the bad. I’ve recently become interested in evolution, genetics and astronomy because I’ve been exposed to each subject in a meaningful and accessible way. I’m pretty sure I would have been similarly interested many years ago if my initial contact with each of these topics had been relevant and interesting; but they weren’t. It follows that if we can demonstrate that enlightenment is relevant and interesting – which it most certainly is – then more people, who would already like to engage with it if they just knew what it was, will have the opportunity to.

So what am I advocating? That we ‘sell’ enlightenment?

Things have moved on since the Buddha. We don’t need to sit on a mud floor and listen to someone read a sutra; we’ve got powerpoint and auditoriums. We don’t have to rely on the Four Noble Truths, esoteric symbolism, and cultural indoctrination; we’ve got copywriting, design, and New Media.

That’s right: we can use the best methods of communication available today to teach enlightenment, and in a language that everyone understands. I know quite a lot about female beauty products despite the fact I’ve never been interested in them nor will I ever use them. This is due to effective copywriting: a tool so powerful it can educate everyone about the latest mascara, not just the intended audience. Why can’t it be put into the service of educating the public about enlightenment? I’m not talking about scamming the public or treating enlightenment as a commodity; I’m talking about presenting the truth about enlightenment in a way that makes sense to humans living in the 21^st century. We can find a few solutions to the problems of introducing enlightenment to a larger audience in the advertisers’ tool kit, such as the first rule of copywriting:

Sell the benefits, not the features.

Sectors

So what are the benefits of enlightenment? Why should anyone take an interest?

There are some teachers – such as Bill Hamilton, Shinzen Young and Daniel Ingram – who are unsure that there ARE any benefits to enlightenment. This view is a bit like a not-for-profit organisation: enlightenment is about working towards an end that promises no personal gain, although everyone is pretty sure it’s for the common good.

Then there are some teachers – particularly the ‘Direct Path’ Advaitists – who are convinced that enlightenment is all happiness, joy, freedom and bliss, and the sooner everyone gets there, the better. This view is a bit like the private sector: the event of enlightenment is all that matters – an end in itself – and the faster it happens, the happier everyone will be. And damn anything that might get in the way: give all your possessions to your guru, sleep with the boss, and abandon any unsympathetic family or friends.

And the public sector? That might be mainstream Buddhism: a huge, lumbering ‘official’ organisation that looks like it’s doing something, but isn’t actually getting the job done.

All of the above generally present enlightenment in terms of features, not benefits (such as – respectively – techniques and maps, Non-duality, Buddhist dogma).

I would like Open Enlightenment to resemble the emerging For-Benefit fourth sector in this analogy (see what I’ve done there?). That means OE will promote enlightenment just like the private sector, but without lying or selling a fantasy, without comprising on ethics, without treating enlightenment as an end in itself, and by focusing on the benefits, not the features, we will refrain from indulging the gung-ho goal mentality, and demonstrate the relevance of enlightenment to not only our personal lives, but to the community (just like the not-for-profits), straight off the bat.

Everybody’s building

Out of all the labels for describing enlightenment, there is only one that is immediately recognisable as a benefit, and it is the label I used when enlightenment occurred for me. I’m talking about Wholeness.

If someone were to ask, ‘What is enlightenment?’, and I were to say, ‘Enlightenment is the sudden and irrevocable knowledge of your Whole Nature’, it is immediately obvious that a). enlightenment is a growth in self knowledge and b). it offers some form of completion. Note however that the beginner and his or her current life are not left on the ‘wrong side’ of reality, and enlightenment is seen as an addition, not a substitute. The beginner is left wondering, ‘Do I want to grow and build on my life?’ instead of feeling that they now need to defend their current position.

With this definition the beginner is already considering the possible benefits, before they’ve had a chance to ask, ‘What is the point?’. Of which there are many (I really am confused by those teachers who can’t see the benefits. Perhaps that’s down to creeping normalcy.). Enlightenment offers the opportunity to:

• understand yourself and the world at a fundamental level.
• discover your direction and purpose in life.
• heal old emotional and psychological wounds.
• develop the ability to face anything that life can throw at you (including death).
• exercise ethics based on your true nature.
• fall in love with the world.
• realise the joy and beauty of simply existing.

I could go on. Of course, the degree to which these benefits are reaped depend upon the quality of the teaching and the methods and models used to mediate the experience, but the good news is we already have these. By focusing on the benefits instead of the features, the practitioner can begin to enjoy all of the above from the very beginning of the journey, instead of getting hung up on the feature of enlightenment that will occur somewhere in the future. And for the person whom enlightenment has already occurred, the growth of these benefits never ends.

We can still be honest about enlightenment; but we should at least do it with some wisdom. Who would have guessed that advertising could be used for good as well as evil?

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A Non-Dual View of Enlightenment

I recently posted an argument on behalf of the belief that enlightenment is an event that happens to a person, with the intent of having the argument – at some point in the future – reviewed by my peers. In lieu of the fact that there is no one to put forward the apparently opposite argument that enlightenment cannot happen to a person, I thought I would do this myself.

However, my thinking has got ahead of my writing, and I’ve arrived at an interesting place where both views are in some degree accurate and inaccurate. I would much prefer to explore this, although I’ll give the main points in support of the view that enlightenment cannot happen to a person.

I’ve already given the irrational consequences of believing enlightenment is not an event and cannot happen to a person, such as mistakenly identifying Non-duality with doing nothing, giving up and understanding nothing; with the developmental nature of enlightenment – described by every single biography of a pseudo-Advaitist and straight up practitioner alike – left ignored and deemed irrelevant.

But what about the problems with believing enlightenment is an event that happens to a person?

First, if we accept that a person experiences knowledge of the Non-dual, then we are left with the person as a subject and the Non-dual as an object. Hardly non-dual (as Ceri pointed out). Yet personal experience reveals that the Non-dual is not absence of experience; but at the same time, there is no duality. How can we describe enlightenment in order to facilitate an understanding of this, without falling into either trap?

Second, we are left with the consequences of describing someone as an ‘enlightened person’. Not a person who has experienced enlightenment, but an enlightened person. Can you see the difference in emphasis? The first is a description that matches the facts; the second is the ascribing of a certain quality to an individual, and it is very rarely used in the sense that ‘this person has experienced enlightenment’. I would argue that every single bad model, ridiculous expectation and delusional fantasy around what it means ‘to be enlightened’ stem from using enlightenment as an adjective, and it’s a huge contributing factor to the facilitation of the abuse of power by many a guru or teacher. Consider: if enlightenment could not be used as an adjective, exactly how would you ask the question ‘what does it mean to be enlightened?’

The Language of Non-duality

So how do we resolve the two apparently irreconcilable view points? Either enlightenment happens to a person, or it doesn’t, yes?

I think the solution lies in describing the experience of the Non-dual accurately, without resorting to the gobbledygook of pseudo-Advaitists. It’s common here for the pseudo-Advaitist or amateur postmodern philosopher to interject with the idea that language fails us, and that true understanding is not possible with language anyway; we can only ‘point the way’ using feeble gestures and nonsensical phrases.

‘A bad workman always blames his tools’ springs to mind, so let’s continue.

When enlightenment happens, whether it’s just a peek or it’s permanent, it is usually accompanied by the intellectual realisation that consciousness or awareness is not limited to the body, the emotions, the mind, or the individual. What is normally taken to be the self is seen as just another set of sensations, no different from the ground beneath your feet or the sky above your head. Buddhist’s call this ‘no-self’. Advaitist’s call this ‘the Self’ with a capital ‘S’ (or Big Self), as opposed to the ego, or small self.

Duality only exists where there is a subject and object. Normally, the subject is taken to be the sensations that make up a person, who experiences the world as something separate from itself, as an object. But with enlightenment, the ignorance that the person or individual is a subject is gone; we are left with ‘an experience with no experiencer’.

This is exactly my experience. Since my enlightenment I know that I am not this person, Alan Chapman. But Alan Chapman persists after enlightenment just as he did before (much to everyone’s delight, I’m sure). Enlightenment occurred for me, and it was a radical transformation in identity, from subject to Non-dual experience.

‘An experience with no experiencer’ is not meaningless; it is not a garbled, flailing gesture that is supposed to point to the truth. It is an accurate description of what occurs during enlightenment. It is a wonderful definition of Being itself, and perfectly expresses the non-dual nature of existence: Just this.

No doubt some people will argue that it is impossible for experience to exist without an experiencer, and so yet again, language has failed us. But the fault here is not with language, but with a logic based on the ignorance of duality. Awareness is not a thing. Consciousness is not a subject. This can be expressed (and I hope it is right now) very clearly with language, without the need to resort to pseudo-Advaita speak.

Rational Consequences

What does this mean for the belief that enlightenment happens to a person, and the contrary view that it cannot?

The sensations that make up a self or person do not disappear with enlightenment; but the person is very much effected by it. A change in behaviour – physical, emotional and mental – takes place. The person has knowledge of enlightenment, memories of it occurring and persisting, and can express all of this experience in words. Enlightenment happens to people, as an experience.

But the person is no longer a subject. It is assumed by human society at large that a person – his or her physical body, emotions and mind – IS a subject, and they will describe the subject usually in those terms: fat or thin, ugly or attractive, nice or annoying, stupid or clever. For the person who has experienced enlightenment, this still retains its functionality. But can we describe a person as ‘enlightened’ in the same way? Do we not assume that an ‘enlightened person’ is actually an ‘enlightened subject’ when we use enlightenment as an adjective? Does this not imply that there is a subject with a quality – enlightenment – that really exists, when this is actually the opposite of the experience itself?

If there is one thing enlightenment demonstrates, it is that there is no subject to ‘be enlightened’.

Just as describing yourself as ‘fat’ or ‘thin’ still has a degree of utility after enlightenment, even though there is no subject to be fat or thin, can we use ‘enlightened’ in the same way? Consider any description of a person – bar ‘enlightened’ – and you will see that it describes either a physical, emotional, mental or behavioural trait: All the things mistaken to be a subject. ‘Enlightened’ does not accurately describe any physical, emotional, mental or behavioural trait; and that’s why it is frequently assumed as a (usually fantastical) description of a phenomenon that falls into one of these categories.

Describing a person as ‘enlightened’ could be the greatest mistake ever made in the history of genuine spirituality. (Hey, talk about a turn around in opinion.)

So does enlightenment happen to a person? Absolutely. It is an experience that is a perfectly natural development for every single man, woman and child on this planet, and it is perfectly understandable. No pseudo-Advaita necessary.

But there is no such thing as an ‘enlightened person’.

There’s a big difference.

(P.S. I’m not sure what this means for the ‘Small self/Big Self Fallacy’, because I haven’t thought it through yet. More to come no doubt.)

(P.P.S. I’m quite enjoying this. The fact that I’ve arrived at my current position is in part down to the Challenging False Beliefs approach. I think it has definite value. If anyone would like to review this article, I would be greatful.)

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Enlightenment is an event that happens to a person (or The Small self/Big Self Fallacy)

There is an Indian school of thought regarding enlightenment that came to prominence in the 20^th Century and is currently of great popularity in the West, especially in America. It is sometimes referred to as ‘Non-dual spirituality’, ‘Direct-path’ Advaita, or amongst its detractors, as pseudo-Advaita.

This school of thought is a development upon the Indian tradition of enlightenment known as Advaita Vedanta, a teaching that began with Gaudapada in the 7th Century, and championed by Shankara in the 8th. Advaita means ‘not two’, and Vedanta means the ‘end of the Vedas’. The Vedas are a collection of Holy texts that teach enlightenment, and within this tradition enlightenment is considered the liberation (moksha) of the individual in the knowledge of his or her divine soul, or Atman. Before Advaita Vedanta, a popular idea within the Vedanta tradition was that an enlightened person, although realising Atman, is still a separate entity from Brahman, the ultimate principle. Based on personal experience, study of the Vedas, and the teaching of his lineage, Shankara presented the understanding that Atman and Brahman are in fact the same thing. The end of the Vedas is literally moksha, and Atman and Brahman are one (‘not-two’). The core texts of Advaita Vedanta are the Vedas (although Shankara did provide commentaries), particularly the Upanishads, which sanction monasticism and teach Bhakti (devotion or surrender) as the method to achieve liberation. Shankara was the founder of Shanmata practice.

Today, Advaita is taken to mean not the unity of Atman and Brahman that is described at the ‘end of the Vedas’, but the Buddhist doctrine of the ‘non-dual’ nature of enlightenment: ‘In seeing, there is just seeing. No seer and nothing seen. In hearing, there is just hearing. No hearer and nothing heard.’ (Bahiya Sutta). Some Advaitists teach that bhakti and monasticism are obstacles to realising moksha, effort and seeking must be given up, and that a person cannot become enlightened, because they already are. An example of this is given by the Indian guru Gangaji: ‘You are already the Self [Atman]…you are already free!’. Another by Lakshmana Swami when he says ‘The Self is always present. There is no question of realising it.’ (Thompson, The Odyssey of Enlightenment. Origin Press 2003.)

During an interview given in 2004, the popular American teacher Adyashanti gave the following reply to the question ‘Would you claim that you are enlightened?’: ‘Well, no, not with a straight face. I would say enlightenment is enlightened and awakeness is awake. It’s not an experience; it’s a fact.’

After writing recently about becoming enlightened, I came across a blog post by an American teacher who claimed that my awakening was only partial, because no one can become personally enlightened.

It is my contention that people who ascribe to the pseudo-Advaita tradition (yes, I’m not a fan), and particularly those who claim a person cannot become enlightened, are suffering from a poor understanding of the experience of enlightenment (even if it is their own), probably from a lack of applying a modicum of reasoning (I’m being kind. If you think the title of this article is blindingly obvious, wait until you see some of the stuff I’ve had to write below!).

The Argument from misunderstood or degenerated tradition

We’ve already seen how pseudo-Advaita deviates from Advaita Vedanta: ‘Advaita’ means ‘Non-dual’ in the Buddhist sense instead of the ‘Atman and Brahman are one’ sense; practice is actively discouraged instead of promoting shanmata, bhakti or monasticism; and the Vedas are no longer relevant. Pseudo-Advaita and Advaita Vedanta are categorically not the same thing, and I would argue that the former has its origins in the misunderstanding of the latter, although I cannot prove this beyond pointing out the use of various terms and cultural elements from Advaita Vedanta by the pseudo-Advaitists, and the common public misunderstanding that pseudo-Advaita dates back to Shankara.

The Argument from Personal Experience

Prior to 6^th March 2009, I wasn’t enlightened. I know this because I was there, in person. For three and a half years I performed all kinds of practices from Magick to Zen to Theravada to Fourth Way to Christian Mysticism to Sufism and so on in an attempt to get enlightened. There is a public record from this time, demonstrating my unenlightened condition, and the steady progress I made towards enlightenment, as predicted by numerous enlightenment models.

On the 6^th March 2009, I experienced the event of enlightenment. I know this because I was there, in person. Here is a write up of that experience, and a video of me talking about the event. The experience matched exactly the predicted event outlined (again) in numerous models of enlightenment.

(For anyone who thinks my opinion of pseudo-Advaita is based solely on a particular traditional viewpoint, say Theravada or Magick, it should be noted that I became enlightened Advaita style, at the feet of an Advaita guru, at the foot of Arunachala mountain, once home to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the most famous Advaita guru of the 20^th Century. I’m sure if I wanted to I could claim Advaita as my lineage and hop on the ‘no effort’ bandwagon and set myself up as an incomprehensible wise man.)

After 6^th March 2009, I was enlightened. I know this, because I was there, and am still here, in person.

In other words, I wasn’t enlightened, then the event we call enlightenment occurred to me in person, and then I was enlightened. I am Alan Chapman, both enlightened and a person. Please consider me an enlightened person.

The Argument from Basic Reasoning

Let’s go back to Adyashanti and the following exchange:

Q: Would you claim that you are enlightened?

A: Well, no, not with a straight face. I would say enlightenment is enlightened and awakeness is awake. It’s not an experience; it’s a fact.

(As an aside, why is it so funny for someone to say they are enlightened? How many sanghas erupt into laughter whenever the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment is told? This is ironic considering the interview supposedly challenges The Taboo of Enlightenment.)

Adyashanti’s use of language in this instance is very peculiar. If someone were to ask me if I claimed to be educated (i.e. I went to school), would it make sense for me to say ‘no, because education is educated. It’s not an experience; it’s a fact!’? This misuse of language would not be tolerated in any other field, and yet when it comes to enlightenment, so many are all too eager to bow down to the apparent ‘wisdom’ being expressed. Let’s be clear: saying ‘enlightenment is enlightened’ doesn’t mean anything, and all it does is mystify a very natural, straight forward experience.

And there I go again with that word: experience. It’s common to hear the idea that enlightenment is not an experience at all, because it is non-dual. Therefore no one becomes enlightened personally, because the non-dual is not personal.

There is a very subtle – but nonetheless very real – mistake being made here.

Elsewhere, I’ve defined enlightenment as the sudden and irrevocable knowledge of the absolute truth. We can play around with this definition and substitute ‘absolute truth’ for ‘Wholeness’, ‘Self’, ‘God’, ‘Tao’, ‘Allah’, ‘Buddha-mind’, ‘Emptiness’, ‘the One’, ‘the Good’, or the pseudo-Advaitist’s favourite, ‘the Non-dual’.

Let’s do that: Enlightenment is knowledge of the Non-dual.

Note however, that enlightenment is NOT the Non-dual itself. Enlightenment is the gaining of a knowledge not previously available, specifically the knowledge OF the Non-dual. This is an experience, that occurs to a person, as an event. It is NOT the Non-Dual itself.

Now the Non-dual may be our ‘true nature’ (indeed, the ‘true nature’ of all things), or our ‘ultimate identity’; but that doesn’t change the fact that the realisation of this is an event that happens to a person.

The Non-dual is not an experience, not an idea, is not limited by nor has its foundation in people, places, practices, traditions, space or time. The Non-dual can never become aware of itself, because it does not exist in time; a person becomes aware of the Non-dual, as an event, in his or her life. We call this event enlightenment.

The clue to the nature of enlightenment is in the word itself: Enlightenment means something has become illuminated by a source of light. For the pseudo-Advaitist, this light source is the Non-dual, which ‘enlightens’ the individual.

A person can only become enlightened in a personal sense; the unenlightened person becomes an enlightened person. Personal enlightenment is the reason why there are so many obviously enlightened people out there who have very different opinions, ideas and beliefs about what they have knowledge of, how it first became available to them, and what it’s effect has been for them personally. It’s the reason we can talk about it at all.

‘I am Alan Chapman and I am an enlightened person.’ The sooner statements like this become the norm, the sooner people like Adyashanti won’t feel so squeamish stating the obvious.

Irrational Consequences

Pseudo-Advaitists and others who profess that a person cannot become enlightened are making a very simple error: they are confusing the event of enlightenment with the source of enlightenment. Is the illuminated room the same thing as the light bulb? Is the personality or ego the same thing as the Non-dual? And yet they use the term ‘enlightenment’ as if it referred to an object (‘…enlightenment is enlightened…’)

What are the consequences of ‘objectifying’ enlightenment?

If a person cannot become enlightened, because the person cannot become what the person already is, then the person must be the Non-dual itself.

In other words, the person – not the Non-dual – is the source of enlightenment. The illuminated room is the light bulb.

Hmm. ‘I am Alan Chapman and I am the source of enlightenment.’ Now that would be a much funnier sentence than ‘I am an enlightened person’, if it weren’t for the fact that it sounds so depressingly familiar….

To confuse the source with the event renders enlightenment unintelligible, serves to re-enforce the status of the guru as someone capable of understanding something no one else can, disempowers the individual, paralyzes the practice of earnest seekers, obscures the well-documented progressive developmental nature of enlightenment, ensures no sane, open, honest and reasonable discussion can take place about enlightenment, and keeps the whole phenomenon out of the realm of public understanding.

So here we have it:

The Small self/Big Self Fallacy: This fallacy occurs when the small self (personality, ego or ‘I’ thought) is confused with the Big Self (Non-dual, God, Tao, One, etc). The sentence ‘You cannot become what you already are’ is a result of this confusion, which can be highlighted thus: ‘You (small self) cannot become what you (small self) already are (Big Self).’ This idea that the small self is the Big Self is contrary to the teachings of every single tradition that teaches enlightenment, including pseudo-Advaita. A person committing the Small self/Big Self Fallacy can be said to be ‘objectifying enlightenment’. The consequences of this confusion are:

The belief that nothing needs to be done or no effort is required to become enlightened.

The belief that enlightenment is not an event that can happen to a person.

The belief that enlightenment cannot be understood rationally.

The belief that the ‘Non-dual’ is synonymous with the dualistic notions of doing nothing, seeking nothing, and understanding nothing.

By naming this fallacy we can bring it into consciousness. By calling others on the commitment of this fallacy we can help reduce the amount of confusion around the topic of enlightenment, and hopefully move towards eradicating the image of the guru or teacher as someone who understands something beyond anyone’s comprehension.

The understanding of this fallacy leads to:

The belief that conscious participation and some form of active transcendence (meditation) is required to become enlightened.

The belief that enlightenment is an event that can happen to a person.

The belief that enlightenment can be understood.

The belief that the ‘Non-dual’ is not dualistic.

More importantly, it means the guru or teacher is just another person, with all the weaknesses that come with being just a fellow human being. Like everyone else the guru can be confused about all manner of things, and this includes enlightenment.

(It should be noted that I’m sure I’ve committed the Small self/Big Self Fallacy in the not-too-distant-past, and probably somewhere on this site. Hopefully when the new site is launched I will have addressed all instances of this.)

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Challenging False Beliefs

I’ve felt for some time that forum debates are rarely productive, and more often than not the focus of a discussion is lost in pedantic, tit-for-tat rebuttals. I think a forum is a great tool for a community whose primary function is to offer support; but when it comes to challenging ideas or rigorously investigating a given belief, the conversational nature more often than not leaves ideas poorly expressed and researched, with a number of people hot under the collar.

I recently came across a short commentary by an American teacher on my article 10 ideas I’ve changed my mind about since becoming enlightened. The verdict: I’m only partially awakened.

Should I have ignored the commentary?

Should I have dissected the commentary and provided a rebuke for each point (God knows there are so many)?

Instead, I decided to propose a dialogue based on a shared interest in understanding the mystery of enlightenment, instead of a silly and pointless ‘argument on the internet’ between two enemies who have never met. I suggested an experimental format:

Person A writes a well thought out, researched piece on a given idea (such as ‘A person cannot personally become enlightened’ – the core belief stated by the American teacher and the reason he considers my awakening ‘partial’). This means Person A is forced to examine the reason for his or her belief, and sets out his or her thinking for all to see.

Person B then reviews the piece (not the person!). Any apparent flaws in reasoning are highlighted, any contradictory arguments or evidence not included are presented, any references checked, and so on. Does the belief stand? It should be remembered that this is a review: it could be overwhelmingly positive.

Person A then reviews Person B’s response. Again, the focus can only be on the argument and how it has developed. The discussion is kept on topic, the arguments are well presented, and at the end there should be some degree of clarification as to how valid the belief in question actually is. Who knows? With personal feelings kept to a minimum, maybe someone might actually change their mind about something!

All three parts – the argument, the review, and the review of the review – are then open to public discussion, forum style.

I think the above format could work really well in a community format too, with anyone open to submit a piece for consideration, anyone open to review it, and then anyone open to review the reviews (we could even have a star rating system). This would raise everyone’s game a notch.

The American teacher preferred to have a discussion via skype, but I don’t believe this would be anywhere near as beneficial. So I’m putting forward my argument that ‘A person can only become personally enlightened’ anyway, and if anyone would like to review it, and then be reviewed, please do. Of course, comments are just fine too!

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How To Get Enlightened: A Tradition-Neutral Guide

Enlightenment is the realisation of the Absolute.

You might come across people with a more specific definition that involves the acquisition of particular behaviours or qualities, such as compassion or the reduction of our personal suffering.

If you want to become more compassionate, why not go and do voluntary work, or get involved in community projects? There are plenty to choose from. And if you’re set on reducing your personal suffering, you’re probably better off taking painkillers than engaging in the practices that lead to enlightenment.

‘But painkillers are only temporary!’ someone might protest at this. Okay: if your aim is to eradicate suffering ‘completely’ or ‘for good’ (which, as you might have noticed by now, flies in the face of reality where nothing is ever perfect or lasts eternally) then it would seem it is indeed something Absolute that you are secretly searching for.

The Absolute has nothing to do with our everyday experience, wherein everything is relative. The relative themes of compassion and suffering were those that particularly interested Siddartha Gotama, the historical Buddha. It was the investigation of these that led him along the path to his enlightenment, but having those relative qualities was not what made him enlightened.

There’s no need, then, to assume that the Buddha or Buddhism has a monopoly on enlightenment. The best teachers I’ve encountered are those that have knowledge of a range of traditions and are always interested in exploring the similarities and differences. On the other hand, those kinds of teachers that insist only one tradition can lead to enlightenment, or that one tradition must be chosen and practised to the exclusion of all others, often turn out to be simply religious dogmatists.

So – if it’s not about following a particular tradition or religion, how do you get enlightened?

The unenlightened mind is subject to a misunderstanding, a misperception. What needs to be done is to remove this. But this is not an intellectual exercise involving the renunciation of a wrong idea and the adoption of an idea that is right. The clearing up of a misperception occurs when the experience of that which is false is replaced by the experience of that which is true. In other words, a misperception is eradicated by having the experience of truth.

For some people, this just happens and enlightenment occurs spontaneously. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to say that probably for the majority of people enlightenment rears its head spontaneously in their lives, although usually in a temporary form. For that majority, some kind of practice is usually necessary to enable the experience of truth to ‘stick’.

The function of the practice is to provide an experience of enlightenment ‘by proxy’, or a sort of ‘pretend’ enlightenment. We continue with the practice until the taster that it gives us finally yields to the real thing. All practices, by their nature, are relative. Different traditions offer different kinds of practice. And it doesn’t matter a monkey’s testicle which one you choose – as long as it’s one that works.

If you find a practice that appeals to you, determine what it is that the practice promises to deliver. If the promised object is something relative, then approach with caution. Any practice that promises as its reward some kind of specific power or virtue – such as psychic powers or invulnerability to pain – is offering something specific, something relative. Also beware of practices that promise certain states of consciousness, bliss, or mystical visions of light, etc. Any practice like this, that aims to produce certain states and return the practitioner to them at will, is again offering something relative and should be regarded with caution. These states of mind are exotic, but they are simply variations on everyday states of mind: they come and go, and they are specific and limited by their very nature.

The type of practices to treat with more respect are these: firstly, anything that leads us into minute and serious investigation of reality or our lived experience as it is, or of what it is that constitutes the experience of being oneself. As long as the practice doesn’t involve changing or intervening in that experience – for example, engaging in guided visualisation. Secondly, although it seems wildly at odds with the first type, any practice that involves surrender to a sense of a higher power, or the universe itself, may prove useful. As long as the practice isn’t concerned with changing one’s behaviour with respect to this higher being in order to ‘please’ it or make it ‘happy’.

Both types of practice have this in common: they engage us in a process of pushing away or emptying the everyday self. The everyday self is being supplanted by our awareness of it. In the case of ‘surrendering’ oneself to the divine, this allows the emotional faculties to come more fully into play and may suit the temperament of some people better than others. But by whatever means, this emptying out of the self is a process that encourages an encounter with the Absolute.

If only it were as simple as choosing between practices that are useful and those which are not! Sadly, it’s often the case that practices that aren’t useful will dress themselves up as those that are. And oddly, sometimes the opposite is the case. For example: the western alchemical tradition, which disguises itself as instructions for making gold but is really concerned with spiritual transformation. Also, of course, it’s possible that the person teaching a practice doesn’t really understand its features or function, in which case a useful practice can be corrupted and rendered useless.

But let’s assume we have identified a practice that works and are engaging with it correctly. I shall limit the discussion of what happens next to the relationship between the two basic terms that the practice brings into engagement: the self and the Absolute.

When we begin the process, there is the self on ‘this side’ of awareness, and that is perhaps all we are aware of. We may not even have any belief or confidence in the reality of an Absolute. Even so, there is a strong urge or intuition that there is something ‘out there’ that can be grasped, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it even this far. And so, at the beginning, we engage with our practice in this spirit. We try, but our mind wanders, or we fail in some other way to realise our practice fully. We want to get it ‘right’ but we don’t and it seems we can’t. We furiously desire that the practice would transport us to the ‘thing’ that we sense is out there, but the self is too weak to stick to the practice properly and force it to deliver.

As we persist, this sensation of falling short of our goals intensifies. Or continued failure to be good at the practice often transforms into negative feelings that are turned back at the self. Our own efforts appear to us pathetic. In truth, we’re gaining important insight into how easily distracted and how full of trivia and irrelevancies our minds are. This is very upsetting and demoralising, and is the point at which most people give up. But what’s happening is simply that process of emptying out the self, which all the useful practices will put us through. (Useless practices often won’t, which is why they’re more popular.)

If we stick with the process, resolve to see it through and act on that resolve, eventually the self is emptied out to a degree where the perception of something other comes through. This is our first taste of the Absolute. It just suddenly appears, at a point which is probably the most crucial of all – because here is where our doubts evaporate. This first taste shows that ‘it’ is out there, although ‘it’ is probably not anything we imagined. Most people, having come this far, don’t give up but will now see the process through, the reason being that the Absolute, once glimpsed, is pretty compelling. It’s not an idea, sensation, image, feeling, or an experience – yet there it is! It’s completely unimaginable, inconceivable – until we are touched by it.

Understandably, what tends to arise at this point is the idea that our perception of the Absolute is the product of our practice. After all, doing the practice led to the experience, so surely ‘I’ brought this on through my own skill and ability. In a sense this is true, because doubtless it is progress, but even as we continue in this spirit there may come a point when the relationship to the Absolute changes again, in a way we may not expect.

We may be practising in the same way we always have, diligently, effectively, and we reach that climax where the Absolute peeps through at us again – but instead of fading, it remains. It comes into awareness and stays – or, at least, is suddenly always available to awareness in a way that was unthinkable before. This is quite disturbing, because we’re used to having the Absolute arise as the reward for putting effort into the practice. Now, however, it’s just there. All the time. We might not be practising particularly well, but it’s there. We might notice that our mind is wandering and we haven’t really been practising at all – yet even so, that contact with the Absolute is still there.

It now becomes properly evident for the first time that the Absolute has nothing to do with the self. Whether we practice well or badly, it’s always there. This is the mature section of the path. Over time, it may tend toward an increased focus on the role of the practice itself, alongside or perhaps even above the Absolute. Because if it’s now apparent that it’s not the practice that causes the Absolute to appear, then the burning issue becomes: what do we now do?

Perhaps we’ve been working on our practice for a good few years and have become good at it, only to realise now that it’s not necessary to support the goal we supposed it was there to produce. So why bother to continue? And yet, there’s still tension and uncertainty here. Something obviously not yet resolved in the relationship between us and the Absolute. These are probably the final kinds of questions to be asked in these terms before enlightenment proper, which relies upon a final shift in the relationship between self and Absolute that involves seeing how they are fundamentally aspects of the same.

I won’t go into further details, because my aim has been to focus on how the path is not dependent upon ideas and concepts, but upon bringing understanding into experience, because this is what is entailed by overcoming the misperception of the everyday mind. This sketch of what happens along the path is only pointing at certain kinds of experiences. The sketch itself is formed only of ideas; it’s not the experience itself.

If you’re seriously interested in getting enlightened, I’m more than happy to express these experiences in the form of ideas, but the most important part is your job: to find out how to gain those experiences for yourself.

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529AD And All That…

Antiquity ended in 529AD when the Byzantine Emperor Justinian suppressed the Platonic Academy in Athens. This event betokened the triumph of Christianity over the philosophy of the Romans and Ancient Greeks.

At least, that’s the common view, but it’s questionable whether it’s that straightforward. There’s no doubt that Justinian was on a mission to impose Christianity upon Byzantium, but the pagan traditions of the empire never died out. The Byzantines continued to regard themselves as the descendants of the Roman and Greek traditions, and the ancient philosophers remained a part of their education system throughout the Empire’s astonishingly long life, well into the thirteenth century.

And what of the Platonic Academy at Athens? For starters, the notion that it represents an unbroken lineage of teaching back to Plato is a myth. It started in 410AD. True, there were earlier versions of the Academy, but all of them flourished and fizzled long before the birth of Christ. The Neoplatonic Academy of Athens had reached its apex by 485AD, the year that Proclus died.

The notion that its final demise in 529AD was entirely due to Justinian is open to question. What is known is that Justinian wanted to suppress Hellenic beliefs within Byzantium and that – around the same time – seven key Hellenic philosophers, among then Damascius, who was Head of the Neoplatonic Academy, departed from Greece and journeyed to Persia.

The Hellenes weren’t fans of the Christian philosophy and could see the situation at home wasn’t developing in their favour. Persia (at the time in question, The Sassanid Empire) seemed a far more attractive option. Here, philosophy, science and magick were flourishing; there was greater religious toleration and a more orderly society; and Persia was also a gateway to India, providing access to Hindu and Buddhist ideas. Indeed, there was already a tradition of intellectual exchange with Persia: notably, Plotinus had paid a visit in 242BC.

Quite possibly the Hellenes had an idealised view of Persia, but also quite possibly the end of the Neoplatonic Academy wasn’t due to Justinian. It’s debatable that Justinian cared as much about what people in Athens believed as he did about those closer to home in Constantinople. Maybe the main reason for the closure of the Academy was simply that its leading lights shut up shop and moved somewhere more interesting. It’s possible the Hellenes simply crapped out on Christianity and opted for Persian Zoroastrianism instead.

I’ve recently been re-examining with Alan the prophecies that we received from an astral representative of the A∴A∴, which led to the setting-up of Open Enlightenment. These included a vision of a ‘cathedral’ that bore the architectural hallmarks of all the world’s great religious traditions. Our aim is to build that cathedral, but it’s also becoming clearer to me that in an important sense we’re already living inside it.

History is nothing like the tidy narrative that gets written up and handed down after the fact. It’s a mess. The vision of the cathedral is as much about a union of traditions that is already the case as about something supposed to happen in the future.

In my reading about Byzantium, I was delighted to stumble across hesychasm. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century may seem to us an enemy of genuine tradition, but in the thirteenth century, within that same Empire, a practice was beginning to be adopted that definitely seems to have swung the pendulum again in its favour. Hesychasm is a set of techniques evolved within Christianity for ‘turning inwards’ and experiencing directly ‘the uncreated energies of God’. It includes postures and breathing exercises, which are not generally considered essential, but also techniques of constant prayer and vigilance over the mind, which definitely are.

In the fourteenth century hesychasm gave rise to a major theological tussle between the abbot Barlaam and St. Gregory Palamas. Barlaam was scandalised by hesychasm which, in his view, arose from polytheistic tendencies. He argued that because no part of God could be perceived by humans, the so-called ‘uncreated energies’ encountered during hesychasm were in fact created and therefore undeserving of any special significance. Gregory Palamas, in reply, drew a distinction between God in His essence (or ousia, which cannot be known) and God in His energies – i.e. the way in which God reveals Himself to humanity. Palamas argued that the uncreated Light of God seen in hesychasm is the energy of God, and is perceivable with the help of certain spiritual disciplines.

Looking back on the debate, it was at root a contest between the Platonic view of nature (Palamas) and the Aristotelian (Barlaam) although, at the time, Palamas was drawing primarily upon the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius for his arguments, and Barlaam was leaning on Aquinas. At Church Councils in 1341 and 1351, the views of Palamas were upheld as the orthodox view. In response Barlaam recanted and moved West, becoming a Bishop in the Roman Church. Hesychasm was adopted as a formal practice within the Greek Orthodox Church and remains so to this day, but it never gained the same acceptance within Catholicism.

A religious controversy that arose within the same Empire traditionally associated with the closure of the Neoplatonic Academy actually strengthened the Platonic tradition in Europe – at least, in the East. But what is ‘the Platonic tradition’ anyway? Understandably, practitioners of hesychasm to this day deny that it bears any similarity with the techniques for illumination practised in Buddhism and other eastern traditions. This seems to me a very fragile position to attempt to defend. You could tell yourself that story if you wanted to, but the truth seems to have a habit of escaping from the stories we try to impose upon it and getting itself mixed up everywhere in everything.

Sources

Herrin, Judith (2008). Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. London: Peguin.

Erhart, Victoria (1998). The context and contents of Priscianus of Lydia’s Solutionum ad Chosroem. Catholic University of America.

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Video Testimonies to Enlightenment

As part of our ongoing effort to de-sensitize the touchy subject of enlightenment, we offer these two YouTube movies of ourselves each describing our moment of ultimate realisation.

For Alan it arrived in the presence of a fat Texan guru with ‘Mom’ tattooed on his arm. Duncan, meanwhile, claims the unusual distinction of having ‘awakened’ whilst he was asleep.

We invite every enlightened being on the planet to follow our example and make their own video statement. (Send us the link!)

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