Can you talk about what we experience upon awakening?
Can you talk about what we experience upon awakening?
Nukunu:
It is very difficult to describe because it is a dimension that the mind cannot understand. I will try anyway to point at it, but don’t mistake my “finger” pointing to enlightenment for enlightenment itself.
First of all awakening is not really an experience. An experience involves two things: the “me” (the subject) and that which the me experiences (the object). All experiences are dualistic but the truth is non-dual. When you realise the truth there is no me and no you. Instead there is a non-dual being. Because it is non-dual we feel oneness with everything in an indescribable comfortable intimacy. It is literally the feeling of being one with God.
In Advaita Vedanta, the ancient Indian philosophy of non-duality, the truth is called “THAT” because this will keep us from falling into the temptation to give it a name. THAT is the ultimate nature of all we can experience and in this way it is the true nature of everything.
How to get there if it it is not an experience? Jiddu Krishnamurti had a beautiful expression that can help us. He said “when you see through this, you become THAT.” “Seeing through” means to realize that all experiences are impermanent (Maya). No experience has any self-nature; seen rightly all experiences are impermanent. This will be realised if we “experience our experiences”. Stop labelling and conceptualising; that is the sickness of the thinking mind. Come into life, be intimate with life and see through the drama of life! Then you will know that everything is THAT – our innermost reality which is one with the Divine.