That's It!
—
The Enlightenment Experience
I
HAVE BEEN ATTENDING SATSANG for years. I’ve gotten very close to
enlightenment. In fact a few times the teacher told me I was
actually there. But then it seemed to go away. This has
happened to lots of others too. Why?
A: Many satsang attendees report this. It seems like this
experience came, then went, correct?
Q: Yes!
A: This coming and going is called the “flip-flop.” It’s
one of the main dynamics at most satsangs, as well as their main
problem. It is the onset of a transcendent experience followed
by its departure.
Q: Yes, that’s right.
A: Now at satsang, didn’t the teacher tell you that it is
not about having an experience?
Q: Yes. They all say that.
A: And yet you are wondering about the onset and
disappearance of an experience.
Q: Uh, I guess so (smiling sheepishly). I think it is
because at those times I am in contact with my true nature.
A: And at other times you are not, correct?
Q: Yes, that’s right. It is blocked.
A: This is due to some of the satsang teachings
themselves. One well known teaching is that at some moment there
is a direct, experiential, knowing contact with your nature,
while at most other times this knowledge is veiled or confused
by story, belief, doubt, fear, anger or scattered-mindedness.
According to the “veil” teaching, there are certain moments at satsang where the student has heart-opening, oceanic, loving,
emotionally blissful experiences. It is taught that during these
moments, the normally occluding veils have dropped away, giving
the student a direct experience of their true nature – sometimes
called a “free sample.” Not all satsangs teach this. It’s less
common than it used to be, as some teachers seem to have
recognized problems with it. But the veil teaching sounds
familiar, doesn’t it?
Q: Yes, this sounds pretty familiar. And I must say, it
sounds pretty good, too. Are you saying that something is wrong
with it?
A:
It tends to identify the timeless truth of your nature with a
coming-and-going experience. And it is based on the false
assumption that there are times in which you are not in contact
with your nature. It creates the expectation that to be
enlightened, to be free, one must perpetually have the same
blissful, expanded experiences. Because all experiences come and
go, this impossible expectation leads to repeated frustration
and actually borders on nihilism.
The teaching that a veil can come between you and your nature,
and that you peek through the veil at those times when you feel
open, confuses a particular feeling of openness with the
openness from which feelings arise. You are always in direct
contact with your nature as awareness. Enlightenment does not
reside in a feeling; it is much vaster, sweeter, and more
effortless than this.
There is deep irony in this. In the satsang teachings, these
oceanic states are usually not seen as experiences, since
satsang is usually interested in coarser and more tangible
experiences such as emotions. But since they come and go, they
are experiences. So when the satsang teaching fails to see these
more subtle happenings as experiences, it privileges them by
converting them into impossible experiential goals. This makes
the goal just another phenomenal experience. A subtle one, but
an experience all the same. What the nondual teachings speak
about is more subtle and infinitely more pervasive than this.
Q: Do you mean I am in contact with my nature even when I
have doubts and confusion?
A: Yes. Doubts are simply passing objects, just like
bubbles of bliss. They all come and go. Their arising and
passing are directly noted by awareness – there is never a veil
or covering. You as awareness certify this each moment.
Q: Is there a way for me to be as sure of this as you
seem to be?
A: Look very deeply. The Awareness that I’m speaking of
isn’t the activity of the brain. It is That to which appearances
appear. Can you find a time when awareness is out of touch? When
awareness is not present? Even in deep sleep, you are there as
awareness registering the fact that there are no objects at that
time. Awareness is present – you are presence – in the midst of
objects, in the absence of objects, and beyond all objects. Try
to find a time when there is an object arising – pain, pleasure,
bliss, anger, depression – when awareness is lacking.
Q: Hmmm. So how does this mistake get made in satsang?
A: It often goes like this – it emerges in the teacher’s
performative cues and language. Let’s try something, and I’ll
demonstrate what I mean.
Q: OK.
A: So now close your eyes (speaking very slowly). You may
have questions or anxieties about your state (pause). You may
have yearnings to have a feeling of knowingness, a sense of
security about yourself. Let these questions and yearnings arise
in this very moment (pause). Let them come up and be seen in the
full light of your awareness. Don’t solicit them, and don’t
chase them away. Rest in openness…(pause – about half a minute
goes by).
Q: Mmmm…
A: Where are the questions and yearnings now?
Q: They are not there.
A: That’s it! Now open your eyes.
Q: But I know the questions and yearnings will come back.
A: Exactly, and what we saw in our mini-satsang emulation
is how the confusion arises. This very same procedure has been
used in satsangs many times. You attend the meeting with certain
experiences you wish to transcend, including your doubts and
questions. You are encouraged not to push these experiences
away, but to open to them. A gentle frame of mind ensues in
which the undesirable experiences are not present. The teacher
points to this moment by saying, “That’s it!” or “You are
there!” The teacher may add that at this moment you are directly
in touch with your true nature without veils or coverings of any
sort.
Q: OK, so what’s wrong with that?
A: Through the teacher’s endorsement of this one moment
you are led to believe that the experience during this moment
has a special, perhaps enlightened status. You end up chasing
more moments like it, motivated by the impossible hope that they
last forever. Because of the teacher’s congratulatory remarks,
you become dissatisfied with any other experiences.
Q: But it wasn’t an experience, it was a direct moment of
direct seeing, wasn’t it?
A: No more direct than banging your shin on the coffee
table. It was a particular pleasant experience in which doubt
was not present, but a feeling of spaciousness was. In satsang,
the feeling of spaciousness tends to be misunderstood as the
spaciousness that gives rise to all thoughts and feelings. So
when the feeling of spaciousness is not present, you come to
judge yourself as being out of touch with yourself.
But you as pure spaciousness are never out of touch with
anything. Passing feelings are just objects. You experienced the
object of a phenomenal pleasantness which consisted of the lack
of doubt and yearning. And the absence of one object is merely
the presence of another object. Absences are a bit more subtle,
so might not be treated as experiences in the same way as the
emotional experiences favored in satsang. The very subtlety of
the expanded feeling is responsible for its mischaracterization
and the demand that it be present one-hundred percent of the
time.
Q: I see now.
A: This misunderstanding is endemic to most of the
satsangs I have seen or heard about. With teachings like this,
the “flip-flop” is inevitable. No wonder you feel an intense
desire to replicate those “That’s it!” moments.
Q: So what should the teacher do? How could he or she
teach this kind of thing?
A:
By reducing the felt distinction between moments, not
increasing it.
Q: How?
A: By piercing the myth of filtered access to your
nature. This dualistic model is an introductory teaching
metaphor, but at a certain point it was taken literally and
became another piece of baggage. You can see through this myth
by being true to your experience and checking for evidence of
anything blocking awareness. Can you find any such thing? And if
you find something, consider this – its very ability to be
“found” certifies it as not being apart from awareness. So just
where is the block? Comfort is not the criterion of being in
touch with awareness, and discomfort is not the criterion of
being out of touch with awareness. On the contrary, any
thought or feeling is brilliantly lit up by awareness, as
awareness.
You will come to see that every moment is exactly like your
“That’s it!” moment.
You will find that you are always thoughtless just like in the
satsang moments. This is because your nature is that space
within which thought arises. Thought is free to arise or not.
And you are always in contact with awareness because there is
nowhere else to go, and nothing else available for you to be.
You are in unbroken contact with awareness because you are
awareness. You and awareness – two words for the same thing.
Q: And what is enlightenment?
A: The unshakeable knowledge that your nature as
awareness has never included separation. Enlightenment is when
the difference between enlightenment and unenlightenment drops
away.
