Enlightenment: A Leap into the Void

5 minute read

Lately, I have found myself facing questions about enlightenment - how I reached it, how someone can reach it, what enlightenment is - and recently I received the greatest virtual slap of all, in the form of a question: how do I know that I reached enlightenment and did not stumble upon something else?

These questions are inevitable, and of course they put you on the spot... You can offer a meaningful answer, or make a joke... or, to seem like a normal person, begin explaining the similarities between your experience and the descriptions in religious books or the accounts of others who are "certified" in enlightenment... But the reality is that no one can prove it... The best answer would be silence... because you do not need to prove or demonstrate enlightenment... Only those who practise prayer and have "religious" experiences can understand the pointlessness of certain questions about the existence of God, enlightenment, the existence of the soul, and so on.

The moment you accept someone else's belief as truth without practising in turn, or at least being on a path, the possibility of spiritual development disappears. That is why I prefer silence to writing about sensitive subjects, although these are precisely the ones that awaken interest. I can therefore understand why the great masters "struggled" to explain these states as faithfully as possible, using ordinary examples from our lives and describing them as simply as they could.

But you cannot explain or describe what can only be known through a personal inward search, and what each person perceives differently. The experience is the same for everyone, but each person's perception is different, because we are unique.

Although I have already written a fairly clear article about enlightenment, seekers of spiritual treasure, drawing from many sources and still at the beginning of their inward search, expect powers, extraordinary things, miracles... or something special. The very experience of love is a miracle... It is the path towards experiencing infinite and absolute love - "the blood of God".

Although I previously preferred not to guide anyone, leaving each person to follow their own destiny, the present situation has made me a little more open. The more spiritually accomplished a seeker is, and the greater their potential, the more life's temptations can lead them astray. Everyone has suffered to some degree in life, and that suffering has made them more open to the inward search, to the search for life's meaning.

But situations like these help you understand why it is good to live in retreat, or as a hermit, rather than in the midst of the world, when you devote yourself to inner experience. You understand how much effort it would take to guide others, whether they are interested or hungry for "truth", and above all that not everyone who reaches enlightenment is destined to become a teacher of it...

For someone to understand enlightenment in silence, they would need to be continually in my presence... I would have to form a community based on my own practice. In this way, they would be open to searching for and realising enlightenment, the meaning of life, or whatever else each might seek among spiritual truths. But would I not then perhaps become another "master", like Bivolaru?

Because of the tares, the wheat can seem dirty even after you have cleaned it... Perhaps I could do more for those who are searching by being more open and actively helping those who believe in a God beyond conventional boundaries... in a personal God. But I still believe that, sooner or later, each person will find their own inner master... and realise that there was no need to search for what they already had... that they only needed to wake up.

That is why, in recent years, I have concentrated more on practice and less on gathering information, so that I can better explain what love means in our lives and how even its weakest form helps us on the path towards finding the meaning of life and happiness.

I find it harder, however, to discuss inner experience. I prefer to guide people towards the actual practice of prayer rather than unnecessary explanations and discussions. At first, when you pray, it may seem that you feel nothing, but if you persevere, enlightenment can come at any moment, and you can understand and enter that inner experience. Most of the time, I hide within the world... I blend in so well that no one puts me on a pedestal or labels me a saint, an enlightened person, or any of the other names borrowed from books.

In this way, I have built a bridge across what might have been a chasm between my soul and society.

To reach the state of enlightenment, you do not have to do anything in particular, because it arises spontaneously when we are fully conscious... when we awaken from the sleep of life... It is an inner experience.

It is enough to practise inward prayer and remain open to the experience of love... not to run away from it. Seek to give yourself completely to the experience of love, and try to see the divine reflected in its existence... to realise that God is Love!

To finish, I have found a perfect example of how enlightenment can be described...

What is enlightenment?

One day, a disciple asked his teacher:

"Master, what is enlightenment?"

The master replied:

"When you are hungry, eat! When you are tired, go to sleep!"

Traditional Zen parable

... or another clear illustration of enlightenment...

Enlightenment - what is that?
A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a
stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically
holding out his old baseball cap. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger.
Then he asked: "What's that you are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar.
"Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember." "Ever
looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar. "What's the point?
There's nothing in there." "Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar
managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw
that the box was filled with gold.
I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look
inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside
yourself.
"But I am not a beggar," I can hear you say.
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being
and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have
great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or
fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within
that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the
world can offer.

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, Chapter 1, "You Are Not Your Mind".

First published in Romanian on 24 May 2012. This English translation preserves the perspective of that period.

Original Romanian article: Iluminarea - saltul în neant.