somebody asked me a question recently about
what is meant by the term enlightenment or awakening and so i
thought i would say something about this as there is so much misunderstanding about it
many of us went either physically or intellectually to the east
to hear about enlightenment or awakening or liberation to india japan
china tibet thailand and so on and these cultures are of course by comparison with western culture
extraordinary exotic and
as a result many people myself included conflated the idea of enlightenment or awakening
with the extraordinary exotic natures of these cultures believing that
enlightenment itself is something extraordinary or exotic that it is a marvelous experience beyond
any experience that we could possibly imagine and as a result we set up a
a goal to um experience this marvelous experience that we have heard about or read about
nothing could be further from the truth enlightenment or awakening is not
an extraordinary exotic experience indeed it is not an experience at all
it is simply the recognition of the nature of our being which underlies and indeed
pervades all experience irrespective of its content
and it is for this reason that i sometimes refer to this
approach as a way of recognition recognition meaning of course to
to know again something that we have always known but have overlooked or ignored or forgotten
so what is it that we have overlooked or ignored it is simply our being our essential self
why have we ignored it or overlooked it simply because we have become
fascinated with the content of our experience thoughts images feelings sensations perceptions
activities relationships and and so on these have um occupied our attention so exclusively
that we have forgotten or overlooked the simple fact of being
which lies so to speak behind or underneath the content of our experience what is referred
to as enlightenment or awakening is simply the recognition of the essential nature of our being
the essential nature of anything is that aspect
of that thing that cannot be removed from it or separated from it when everything that
can be removed from ourselves is removed then what remains is what we essentially are
thoughts images feelings sensations perceptions activities relationships all of these
appear to us exist and sooner or later vanish but there is one aspect of ourself
that never arises never evolves never vanishes and that is the simple fact of of being or being aware
so the this this way of recognition
is an approach in which we
remove from ourself i don't mean we literally remove we do this in um in our imagination we go
deeply into ourselves discarding not rejecting but discarding letting go of
anything that is not essential to us thoughts images feelings sensations perceptions and so on
in this way tracing our way back to our essential irreducible self or being it's a bit like getting
undressed at night when we go to bed at night we take off all our clothes until our naked body
stands revealed we do not suddenly become our naked body my naked body is simply revealed
underneath all the layers of clothing in which it was wrapped or shrouded during the day while the
way of recognition proceeds in a similar way we we undress so to speak we take off all the layers
of experience thoughts images feelings and so on in which our being has been clothed so to speak
and at some point our naked
irreducible essential self or being stands revealed
we do not become this being we are always only essentially this being
albeit much of the time clothed in experience
so for most of us this process
is not something that happens
once for the vast majority of us we trace our way back to our essential self for being in this way
only to find that through force of habit our being is soon eclipsed again by thoughts images
feelings and so on in fact our essential being is never really eclipsed any more than a a screen
is eclipsed when a movie appears on it but our being is colored and seemingly qualified
by the content of experience and thus its essential nature seems to be veiled or obscured
and in this case we have to embark on this way of recognition again we have to
trace our way back again through the layers of experience until again there is this
recognition of our naked being and every time we do this
we find that we that that the power that our objective experience has to
take us away from ourselves or our being is diminished
and in this way we begin to find ourselves
not just briefly glimpsing or tasting our being but we begin to be established in that as that
as our being is divested of the qualities that it inherits from the content of experience
it loses its it loses the agitation that characterizes our thoughts
and as such it is experienced as peace
it loses the sense of lack that characterizes our afflictive emotions
and as such it is the experience we know as happiness in other words peace and quiet joy
are the the very nature of our being
it is said to be the
the peace that passeth understanding
that is the the peace that does not depend upon what is or is not taking place in our experience
the peace its causeless peace and joy the peace and joy that has no cause
in our experience but is the very nature of our being this our innate peace and joy is obscured
when our being is obscured or mixed up with the content of experience
in which case we seem to lose touch with
this peace and joy and as a result we embark on a on a great search out in the world to recover it
sooner or later we intuit or understand that nothing in the world nothing in objective
experience can give us the peace and joy for which we long and sooner or later either spontaneously
or with the help of a friend or on reading a book or i'm watching a video we we return to our being
and we return them again and again and again until in time it's innate peace and quiet joy
begin to make itself begin to make themselves felt in our experience and
the more this happens
we find that the fewer and fewer experiences in life
have the the power to take us away from our self and this is referred to in the tradition as
becoming established in one's true nature in time we begin to feel that our being is
is not really our being in other words our being does not belong to us as a person
our being divested of the qualities that it acquires from the content of our experience
is revealed simply as being utterly intimate but impersonal and unlimited
and
as a result of this we begin to feel that being extends way beyond the borders of our self
as a person that being is the essence of our self but is
the essence of everything it is that from which we derive our sense of our self it is also that being
from which everyone and everything derives its apparent individuality or its apparent existence
in other words we begin to intuit and feel that what we essentially are on the inside
is the same reality the same being that all people all animals and all things essentially are
and this recognition is of course the experience to which we refer in
relation to people and animals as love and in relation to objects and nature as beauty
so
in a couple of weeks time i'm or in the near future i'm doing um an online weekend on the way
of recognition in which we will explore numerous pathways back to our essential self and also
pathways where we return again to the content of our experience in particular the way we
feel the body and perceive the world and in this way not only recognize the nature of our being
but increasingly feel that we share our being with everyone and everything
so
i wish you all the very best keep well stay safe and see some of you again soon god bless bye