(EASTERN) ENLIGHTENMENT

Who are you? Aham brahmâsmi: I am the Cosmic Whole.

The English term Enlightenment in its spiritual sense is an approximate translation of certain fundamental concepts in the Hindu/Buddhist traditions, with parallel ideas in other Asian cultures like those of China and Japan. It refers to the experiential recognition – not the intellectual understanding – of the roots of Ultimate Reality as distinct from the Physical Reality of tea-cups and tables, ants and animals.

Since ancient times reflecting humans have wondered about who they (we) ultimately are, and what, if any, is our relation to the experienced world. During our waking hours, most normal humans think about and do many things. But if one asks oneself who that Self is that thinks and acts, there does not seem to be a readily available answer. Most people give up the inquiry and get back to routine activities. But there have been a few who take the Delphic command of gnothi seauton (Know thyself) quite seriously.

Knowing oneself is equivalent to understanding what consciousness ultimately is. In its efforts to unscramble this apparent mystery, modern science continues to anchor itself to physically detectable neurons in the brain, proteins, genes, and to conceptual (hypothetical) entities like quantum tubules.

Millennia ago, Indo-Buddhist explorers of the Self inquired inwards through the spiritual disciplines of yoga and meditation and came up with some fascinating answers. As Carl Jung put it: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

Their results were not speculations of a philosophical nature, but fruits of experimentation with the Self. Their investigations led to experiential certitudes arising from sustained introspection: deep probes into the subtlest centers of the inscrutable Self. Their words and wisdom are taken, therefore, not as grand poetry, nor as insightful conjectures, but as findings about an elusive aspect of the universe we call consciousness. In other words, what they say on this matter do not sub­tend theoretical systems, any more than that Maxwell’s theory of elec­tromagnetism is mere mathematics. Rather, they were telling us something that is not only meaningful, but revelatory as to the ultimate truth about ourselves and the cosmos. They were not building a system of thought but unveiling aspects of the deepest perception of Reality.

For outsiders, those conclusions may sound like tenets of a religious system. These include the following: (a) The physical world of matter and energy, stones and stars, colors and contradictions is only an ephemeral mirage without substantial existence. (b) The true nature of the world will be understood only when, through spiritual disciplines, one transcends the sensory bounds of the experienced world and recognizes its essence.

It is not difficult to hear and read about these matters and regurgitate them as explanations of Ultimate Reality. That is what most professors, exponents, authors and preachers do, as I am doing here. Commentators know what the spiritual masters have reported on the nature of Ultimate Reality, but few have directly experienced it themselves. While it is true that experiencing spirituality is altogether different from understanding it, without verbal elaborations of what the original sages uttered as pithy aphorisms, common people can never know what one is talking about.

The message is that as long as we live in the normal world of everyday experience, we are like a person in a dream state: imagining the irreal to be real. It is only when we wake up from sleep that we become aware of the pseudo nature of whatever we saw and seemingly did while dreaming. It is this awakening from the unreal to the real, from the darkness of illusion to the light of the Real, that constitutes Enlightenment in the Eastern framework. The word for this awakening is jñāna in Sanskrit; another is siddhi. It is satori in Japanese. Yet another word is bodhi, and one who has been thus awakened is a buddha.

One who has had spiritual enlightenment in this sense is said to be freed from the cycle of birth-death-rebirth. Such a person is believed to be liberated, or to have attained nirvana. In other words, in Eastern traditions, enlightenment is the equivalent of salvation in Christianity. But one achieves it not by good behavior or surrender to a God, but by intense spiritual discipline which is within reach of all, though more people have claimed to have attained it than have perhaps actually done so. The few who are believed to have had spiritual enlightenment are regarded as saintly in the traditions, revered by the multitude in various ways. But of a hundred who undertake the quest for the ultimate experience of merging with the Whole, perhaps just one reaches the goal; the rest waste away their lives in routine chants and emaciating fasts, squatting away precious hours contemplating on the void. In a more realistic sense, one may use the word spiritual enlightenment as a heightened awareness of the commonalty of all human beings, indeed of all life. In that state, one is without rancor and racism, judgment of others and negative feelings towards fellow humans. When this is internalized, one is kind and gentle, caring and compassionate all the time, to one and all.  Some would say that this type of mundane spiritual enlightenment is in some ways of a higher category, for it benefits other members of society too. This type of spiritual enlightenment does not call for controlled breathing and deep meditation, and may not make one realize the ultimate nature and roots of Reality. But it is valuable since it contributes to a more tolerant and peaceful society. This type of spiritual enlightenment is also associated with awe and reverence for the enigma of existence and engenders humility in the face of the Grand Mystery, whether or not it provides flashes on the nature of the Self.