Here's a question sent by Ian who's from Canada.
He asks, "How can I even hope to gain enlightenment when I see people like you and your guru,
Swami Dayananda, who have spent so many years completely devoted to Vedanta before becoming
enlightened?
I've been studying Vedanta for close to a decade now, but I haven't attained moksha,
liberation, although I do get glimpses of my true, limitless nature from time to time."
How long does it take?
To get a college degree, it usually takes 4 years.
To become a fully qualified medical doctor, it might take 12 years.
But we can estimate time spans like these only when there's a fixed syllabus or a specific
sequence of required lessons.
As you might expect, the process of gaining enlightenment is utterly different.
Instead of a fixed sequence of lessons, the process is actually non-linear.
Yet, Vedanta's non-linear process does pass through several stages, and we'll discuss
those stages here.
First, we have to understand properly what enlightenment really is.
According to the rishis, the sages of ancient India, enlightenment is the discovery of your
true, inner nature, atma, which is pure consciousness, unborn, eternal, limitless, perfect, and divine.
But, your true, limitless nature is covered by a so-called veil of ignorance that prevents
you from recognizing your own essential divinity and transcending all worldly suffering.
So, enlightenment is the recognition or realization of your own true nature by removing the veil
of ignorance that covers atma.
That ignorance is removed by knowledge, a special kind of knowledge, knowledge of atma,
self-knowledge.
So, how long does it take?
Ironically, the veil of ignorance covering atma is removed instantaneously, as soon as
self-knowledge arises.
So in in a manner of speaking, enlightenment doesn't take any time at all.
But, to gain that special self-knowledge, you have to be ready for it.
You have to be adequately prepared, and all that preparation takes time.
Let me explain.
In high school, before you could learn trigonometry, you had to study algebra and geometry first.
In the same way, before you can gain self-knowledge, you have to undergo several crucial steps
of preparation first.
Just as college handbooks list prerequisites for each course, traditional texts on advaita
Vedanta list certain prerequisites that are indispensable for gaining self-knowledge.
Not surprisingly, these prerequisites are extensive.
They include being able to discern what is real, and cultivating complete dispassion
towards worldly pleasures, as well as developing deep inner silence, unwavering self-control,
one-pointed concentration, and firm conviction in the truth of Vedantic teachings.
These extraordinary qualities are not easily acquired.
And, only when they've been fully developed are you able to gain self-knowledge.
But there's a further problem here.
These qualities are so extraordinary that they can be gained in full measure only by
someone who's already enlightened.
So, you can't get enlightened unless you're fully prepared, and you won't be fully prepared
until you're enlightened.
It's a catch-22 situation, as a common idiom says.
Fortunately, this paradoxical problem does have a solution, a solution that's found in
Vedanta's unique non-linear approach to spiritual growth.
Instead of first becoming fully prepared and then seeking self-knowledge, it's possible
to work towards gaining preparation and self-knowledge at the same time, pursuing them both in parallel.
Each pursuit supports the other until you become fully prepared and simultaneously gain
self-knowledge.
There's an excellent metaphor that describes this non-linear process.
Suppose you want to start a fire with some twigs, but the twigs are soaking wet.
The wetness of the twigs represents your lack of preparation.
Only when the twigs are dry will they burn, and only when you're fully prepared can you
gain self-knowledge.
Suppose you strike a match and try to ignite the wet twigs.
They won't catch fire, but the heat generated by the match helps dry them out a little bit.
In the same way, when you first study the teachings of Vedanta, self-knowledge won't
arise because of your lack of preparation.
But, studying those teachings will help you become a bit more prepared.
After striking dozens or even hundreds of matches, the twigs will eventually dry out
and finally burst into flames.
In the same way, studying the teachings of Vedanta for a sufficient period of time will
eventually help you become fully prepared, and then, the fire of self-knowledge will
ignite, burning away the veil of ignorance, and revealing your true, divine nature.
Returning to Ian's question, just as the length of time needed to ignite a pile of wet twigs
depends on how wet they were to start with, in the same way, the time you need to become
enlightened depends on the degree to which you lack the qualities needed for preparation.
In my case, many years were required because I sorely lacked many of the necessary qualities.
In particular, I lacked emotional maturity, which is a crucial requirement.
I was like a freshman in college who had to take a lot of remedial courses.
But, there's another aspect of Vedanta's non-linear path to enlightenment that's not often discussed
or understood.
When you become fully prepared and self-knowledge finally arises, the veil of ignorance covering
atma is instantly removed, enabling you to realize your true nature.
But, that self-knowledge arises in a mind subject to human limitations and imperfections.
In particular, your mind is deeply conditioned by countless experiences you've had from childhood
onwards.
Those experiences have built up and reinforced a false self-concept, a false sense of identity
based on identification with your body, mind, and your roles in daily life.
Factors like your age, gender, and profession have molded your self-concept and have come
to define you.
When self-knowledge first arises in your mind, all that conditioning won't just vanish.
Your false self-concept won't immediately be transformed because it's so deeply embedded
in your thinking.
As a result, when you first gain self-knowledge, instead of attaining moksha, liberation, you'll
merely get a glimpse of your true divine nature, as Ian observed in his question.
Ian's experience of merely getting glimpses of truth sounds familiar to me.
In the early 1980's, my formal study of advaita Vedanta began in weekly classes taught by
a senior disciple of Swami Dayananda.
Those classes were amazing, and I left each class feeling elated from the wonderful insights
I was led to discover.
After class, it took me about 20 minutes to drive back home, and by the time I arrived,
all those marvelous insights seemed to have faded away completely.
Later, I came to understand that a period of assimilation was required for those glimpses
of my true divine nature to grow strong and develop into abiding, unshakable knowledge.
For thirty years, I had been enveloped by a veil of ignorance, and that ignorance permeated
every aspect of my thinking.
A mere glimpse of my true nature couldn't possibly wipe out all that conditioning.
Patterns of thinking formed in my childhood and maintained for decades, patterns that
were all based on ignorance, needed time to be transformed with the help of Vedantic teachings.
So, here's the big picture.
After spending many years studying Vedanta and simultaneously gaining the necessary preparation,
self-knowledge finally arises.
But then, even more time is required to fully assimilate that knowledge.
A traditional metaphor compares this process of assimilation to making rasagulla, an Indian
sweet in which little balls of cottage cheese must be soaked in a sugary syrup overnight
before they're ready to eat.
Just like rasagulla must be immersed in syrup for a sufficient length of time, in the same
way, you have to remain immersed in the teachings of Vedanta, long enough for those teachings
to completely permeate and transform your thinking.
Of course, this process of assimilation begs the same question, "How long will it take?"
A cookbook will tell you how long to keep rasagulla immersed in syrup, but there's no
similar guide for the process of assimilating self-knowledge because it's different for
each person.
Fortunately, at that stage in your spiritual growth, you've already discovered your true
nature, even if your mind doesn't continually abide in that truth.
So, whenever your mind gets distracted and drawn away into a state of suffering, you
can easily bring your mind back and lead it to abide in your true, divine nature.
This is the thirteenth video in a series that answers questions submitted by viewers.
If you have a question that would serve as a good topic for a video like this one, please
email me at this address, and be sure to indicate "video question" as the subject of the email.
I'll try to address your question in a future video.