I Want Enlightenment?
When first told to “know the self,” many well-intentioned seekers misconstrue that the self is something that has to fist “known” and then “experienced.” This is also sometimes mistakenly referred to as getting “enlightened” in pop-spirituality. The seeker starts imagining all sorts of things from seeing the “blue light” to hearing unstruck sound!
If being enlightened means experiencing Reality or one’s true Self, then experiencing the Self becomes a self-defeating proposition, since the Self cannot be experienced or known—not at least in the usual sense. Why? Because we are the Self! How can the experiencer be experienced? How can the Knower be known? How can eyes see themselves, ears hear themselves?
It seems that two things have to be clearly understood to avoid any pitfalls on the path.
First, Self-knowledge is not something to be gained afresh; only self-ignorance has to be removed. Therefore, enlightenment is not about gaining some new knowledge about the self, it is about removing the ignorance about the self .
Second, we should understand that the logic of “first-information-then-experience” only works in our ordinary experience. In our day to day experience, first, we come to “know” about things and then we want to “gain” those things or “experience” them. It is because those things, being external to us, are separated from us by time and space. For example, I come to know about an expensive car. I want to get it; I want to experience it because car is separated from me in time and space.
However, this logic does not work with regard to Self-knowledge. Self is not separated from us at all. It is the closest, the inner-most core of us all. Being so, it is ever-attained. Being the closest to us, we tend to miss it. This has to be recognized.
In the realm of Self-knowledge, therefore, to know the self is to be the self.
One may ask: What is the need of studying with a teacher or reading wisdom texts if Self is already an accomplished fact? Only this: Just as we need a mirror to see our eyes—we cannot see them directly—even so we need teachers and books. They do not reveal the Self; only remove the self-ignorance. They act as a mirror.
Being is ever-experienced and ever-realized; it is just that it is not experienced as an “object” as such. Being or the Self, being the very Subject, by definition, it cannot be objectified. Knowing [this] is being. These were the parting instructions of sage Yajñavalkya to his consort Maitreyi: “By what can one know the Knower?”
With this enigmatic question the sage left for good, we are told, for there was nothing left to be told further.
Thus, the “wanting” to get “enlightened” business has to go. You are already That!
Reclaim your original status and just be!
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