
Every enlightened teacher tells you that there is no way to teach a person how to recognize their true self (enlightenment). I should be pissed off with them because it seems to me that there are some very simple steps to waking up and if someone would have pointed these out to me, I wouldn’t have wasted most of my adult life futily pursuing dead ends. But I’m not pissed. To me, all that futile seeking means nothing.
Perhaps the problem is that the major (living) enlightenment teachers either woke up the traditional way meditating for decades (Adyashanti), or via the “surprise” method from severe depression and suicidal contemplation (Eckhart Tolle). Naturally, to them, there is no way to “make it happen” as to each of these, enlightenment kinda “popped” for them.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that enlightenment should be fairly easy to teach, so my guinea pigs readers, the next few articles – hopefully – will help you to recognize yourself as the Witness (the see-er of your experiences) and not the ego story. In many traditions, the Witness is seen as the ultimate level, but which I’ve come to think of as Stage I Enlightenment. If everyone were at Stage I Enlightenment, there’d be no wars, no murders, and no need for billion dollar defense budgets, so it’s probably good enough for most of us. Stage II Enlightenment is Pure Consciousness, but since I’m still shifting in and out of that, I’ll hold off talking about it as I want to speak from experience, not theory.
Funny thing is, I’m not pissed at having spent the majority of my life seeking enlightenment. Not in the least. That’s one of the cool things about it – you realize that this moment is all there is and events that happened to “you” (your body) in the past are completely irrelevant to You (as the Witness). It’s very cool.