Open Enlightenment

Alone With Ghosts

Fancy a change from your usual meditation practice? Give this a try:

He who practices sadhana is supposed to go at night to a deserted house, a mountaintop, or a cemetery. There he must sit astride a corpse that has been laid on its belly, facing north. He must draw on the corpse’s back a graphic symbol (yantra), usually an inverted triangle, representing Shakti. At this point he evokes elementary forces by reciting mantras and by projecting prana in the corpse with the purpose of animating it… If the rite is successful, this force actually manifests itself in the corpse, whose head will then spin around and speak to the apprentice. The apprentice must be able to impose his will right away on the ‘ghost.’ This practice is considered terrifying and most dangerous. [1]

Maybe it’s not so easy in modern times to dig up a fresh corpse as it may once have been. But suppose that wasn’t the case and you had the means – are you up for it?

Even supposing the head doesn’t turn around and speak (which I imagine is quite likely), this would still be probably one of the most frightening experiences of your life. Even to reach the point where you had proved to yourself the spell didn’t work, you would have to master a massive whack of fear that it just might.

And if the corpse actually did turn around and speak? Well, then you’d have to master a whole whack more…

On Halloween this year I’ll be doing my own version of this ritual. I’ve arranged to spend the night all alone and in the dark in a very haunted place: The Old Police Cells Museum, in the basement of Brighton Town Hall.

Some of the cells have been renovated and turned into a museum, but the remainder are still derelict. They were in use throughout the 19th century, right up until the 1960s. A police chief was murdered there in the 1840s, and who knows how many poor souls died or languished down there in misery. No wonder the place has a reputation for being vigorously haunted.

I’ve wondered for a while about making a point of facing my fear and doing something like this, so I’ve decided to collect sponsorship for the challenge. The proceeds will be split between the museum and the local branch of a national mental health charity, Mind.

I’ll have a night-vision camera for company, but I’m not planning a ‘paranormal investigation’. Instead, I want to see how good my meditation skills are at dealing with fear.

I recently read an account by a paranormal investigator of his most frightening moment. He fled from a house after being physically attacked by a poltergeist:

As I stood in the back garden I contemplated my future in paranormal research. I thought I had been in acceptance that such phenomena existed but apparently not. I had been fooling myself! This was all a bit too real for me… [2]

Fear and reality go hand-in-hand. We can’t fear something unless it becomes real; fear of something that isn’t real we instead call ‘worry’ or ‘anxiety’, whereas – as in the example above – the more real something becomes (especially when it hasn’t quite been recognised before) then the more incredibly, mind-blowingly scary it suddenly is.

But where is ‘real’ when we look at it in our experience? A sensation of reality involves things becoming vivid and impactful. Yet if things are not vivid or impactful, is our experience therefore less or only partially real?

I don’t think so. If it were, then we couldn’t recognise non-vivid experiences as being real – and yet we do. Also, the opposite couldn’t happen either: an experience such as travelling at speed would never cease to be vivid – but of course, over time it does.

Reality is not a concrete quality that experiences do or don’t have, but a description of our relationship to experience. In sensations of threat, awe or powerlessness the causes of these feelings spring into vivid relief as being ‘out there’ and a strong sense of reality is initiated. But this feeling of reality is just the flip-side of the sense of self; generally, the less there is of self, the more reality – and vice versa. But the fact we can recognise and shift between either implies that both are there, bound up in each other. It’s the habit of drawing a dividing-line in different places that makes some experiences feel more real than others.

Now, I’m not saying that being punched in the back by a poltergeist didn’t happen to the paranormal investigator, or wasn’t real, or that he was chicken. But although you can change your circumstances (by running into the garden, for instance) there’s never anywhere to hide from experience. Everything in experience is always how it seems, whether that means things feel vague, or else that things are far too weird or vivid to bear. Fear is what arises when we assume we can somehow hide from experience. If we remain accepting of experience then fear will not arise – and if it does, then we should accept that too.

I’d say it wasn’t quite the case that our paranormal investigator didn’t believe poltergeists were real; he did, I’m sure, but it was the experience of being punched by one that drove him into the garden. Who can say they wouldn’t have reacted the same?

Will I be able to spend a night in haunted cells without cacking my pants? I doubt it. It’s going to take every gramme of willpower to keep me down there. Hopefully, the even worse prospect of letting down my sponsors will keep me standing firm(ish). But if I’m able to make use of them, there should be plenty of opportunities to work with my fear.

I’ve set up a new blog for this project, with more information, a diary of the build-up to the event, and various observations on the paranormal. Drop by if you’re interested – and wish me luck!

References

[1] Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1992), p. 96.

[2] Steve Mera, ‘The Invisible Assailant’, Paranormal Magazine, 50 (August 2010), p. 51.

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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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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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