Enlightenment One, Oh One?

this is from a dialog going on at the Integral Institute pod in the "Chapel Perspicacious" section. check it out!

What is Enlightenment?

1) enlightenment is a mythic symbol, a metaphor that should not be literalized.

the idea of enlightenment has caught on in the west and is used variously to refer to everything from non-dual consciousness to the fantasy of achieving mind over matter a la neo in the matrix, to being “free from suffering” in some new age meets buddhist way, to being a state that is beyond the limitations of the ego, to being in a fully psychedelic state all the muthatruckin' time etc etc

the literalization of enlightenment resonates with a kind of saul on the road to damascus image in which suddenly, in a blinding flash of light, everything is DIFFERENT.

this causes some serious problems because a) it feeds into our instant gratification culture and we long for that moment of radical transformation - this also b) plugs into our unworthiness/protestant work ethic programming and makes us feel that we are never quite good enough or trying hard enough or thinking the right thoughts - fill in the blank…

c) it creates the concept again literalized whereby people buy into the notion that certain masters actuallly are “fully enlightened” and therefore are worthy of our submitting ot them, abdicating critical thinking and constructing various “crazy wisdom” rationales for their often abberant behaviour when not delivering satsang (see my thread on gurus cults and aliens for more on this sad but uniquitous issue…)

2) enlightenment is either a) held out as the reward at the end of a lot of gruelling work often having to do with various sadomasochistic “ego-frying” activities or b) claimed to be always already the case and so the answer to wie is “who wants to know?” said with a smarmy smirk and a knowingly gleaming prolonged eye contatct…one can no more attain enlightenment than one can attain one's feet….but do you know this yet like I do? - says the always already poseur… :O)

and c) sometimes there is the more nuanced perspective that enlightenment refers to both the awakened state and the journey toward the realization that we have always been in it - just not fully aware of it. one becomes more deeply oneself….

the problem is basically this:

the concept of enlightenment is a place holder - a way of talking about a specific state of consciousness.

the state itself doesnt translate into words.

the word used to signify it is empty.

it should not be literalized or thrown around as an adjective, nor even an adverb. in fact i think it shoudnt be thrown around at all because mostly it is either meaningless or manipulative.

from one stage of consciousness development the stage one or two higher appears absolutely mind-blowing and heart opening when it is glimpsed in meditation, moments of adversity, on drugs etc etc….just like the way south sea islanders were stunned and amazed at the godlike powers of the gunpowder and musketball bearing sailors…..imagine if they had tv's or computers with them?

but too often ( as many american seekers did in the 70s and 80s) we generalize the signs of the adept in one area to their whole being and imagine that there is some final ENLIGHTENMENT in which all the lines of development converge and are completed - we then project whatever idealized fantasy we have onto what we think that would look/feel like and get all caught up in a regressive fantasy about having found the perfect daddy/mommy who can help us to be perfect like them and cure us off this icky world in which we have to deal with suffering, imperfection and having our narcissism frustrated.

this makes us tend to overlook two importnat things:

1) everyone has a shadow, because everyone has a psyche - the fantasy that the work will one day just be done is a subtle kind of allegiance to the self-hatred that got us into neurotic trouble in the first place.

2) as wilber has so brilliantly observed, lines of develoment (like cogntion, spirituality, empathy etc) are usually differently developed in each individual - an example might be the computer genius who cant have a conversation in public, or the profound artist who cant calculate the tax on the bill at dinner….. (too bad ken didnt figure this out before he sent people into the jaws of adi da samraj! - but thats another story…)

now generally, if we have bought into the literalized concept of enlightenment, we are in the camp that gets set up with what i think is a FALSE duality between “the ego” and “enlightenment”.

here the ego (boo, hiss!) is seen as the bugaboo of enlightenement.

well as far as i can tell having no ego doesn't make you enlightened - it makes you psychotic!

i suggest that it is not the ego that is the problem.

in fact when we say someone has a big ego, we actually usually mean that they have a weak ego - but highly developed EGO DEFENSES - and it is these defenses that can be so obnoxious.

the tricky thing is that to relinquish the ego defenses actually requires healing and cultivating authentic  self-esteem, not humiliating even further the already weak sense of self……(thats actually an old cult leader trick that does no-one but the vampirish guru any good)

the false duality between so called enlightenment and the dimly viewed “ego” creates a situation in whcih seekers basically feel that they have to be at war with themselves in order to wake up and it is this sadomasochistic transcendentalism that i think is so problematic. usuallly of course he guru is doing none of the practices that the student is doing and is enjoying all of the pleasures forbidden to the student - but hey when you get to be nlightened you can do whatever you want…

simple formula - where there are ego defenses there is unprocessesed pain. when the ego defenses come down the pain will be intense. on the other side of processing that pain there is more freedom. that more freedom eventually leads to more of a tolerance for the imperfection of being human and less narcissistic fantasizing about idealized and “permanent” states of being. practice becomes more mature and more about seeing reality clearly, warts and all.

the skillful and (i would say) integrally informed teacher/guide has compassion for the suffering underneath the defenses and ccreates a space within which that suffering can be processed, inner resources can be accessed and the sacredness of being human can be discovered in a way that actually transforms one's life, relationships, psyche etc…they also know when to refer to others and are aware of multiple practie methods and therapeutic approaches - to better meet the complexity of each person.

now - i think that the process, through meditative disciplines, of gaining acccess to various profoundly insightful states of consciousness is very, very valuable, but it is not a solution to anything at all, and for many it perpetuates a dissociative or narcissistic patternt hat might be bettter resolved in a therapeutic setting where the grasping for “enlightenment ” and hatred of “the ego” might be itself deconstructed….