Today, I would like to conclude our exploration of Enlightenment.  For the past three weeks, we have looked at both the nature and the attributes of the Enlightenment, focusing especially on the formulation described by David Hawkins, a 21st-century American physician who wrote extensively about the spiritual journey.  We have contrasted Hawkins' views with those of Theravadan Buddhists to arrive at a clear understanding of this important concept.

On the face of it, it would seem reasonable to focus our inquiry just around the Theravadan view.  After all, this is the earliest description of Enlightenment that we possess, and it appears to come directly from the words of Gautama, the Buddha himself.  Ahh… if only life were so simple!

The problem with the Theravadan descriptions is that they are all but incomprehensible to the contemporary American reader.  For example, the Visuddhimagga describes the first Enlightenment state, Change-of-lineage Knowledge, as “the state where the object of awareness is the signless, no-occurrence, no-formation, cessation that is Nirvana.”  

Could someone please explain to me what these words mean?  I know the lexical meaning of each of these words, but taken together they are incomprehensible.  Or how about this description of the next Enlightenment state: “The base consisting of neither perception-nor-non-perception, which has the function of exploding all greed, hate, and illusion and extinguishing all suffering.”  I have no clue what “perception-nor-non-perception” means, and I have absolutely no idea how it explodes greed, hate, and suffering.

As we explored in previous weeks, there appear to be multiple points of contact between the Theravadan view and the view that Hawkins presents.  There are also significant differences: while they both describe an inward journey that leads to the establishment of non-dual consciousness, Buddhism describes the process as freeing the self from desire.  Hawkins, on the other hand, describes the process as one of surrender or letting go.  From my point of view, this sounds like a difference of perspective rather than a substantive difference.  In either case, from both perspectives, the sense of self or ego is relinquished.

I often find it helpful to clarify what a new term or concept is not.  Typically, this deepens my understanding and helps me place the new concept in relation to other things I know.  So, our task for today is to explore what Enlightenment is not.

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The first thing Enlightenment is not is a state of emotional ecstasy or bliss.  There are, in fact, blissful states leading up to Enlightenment, but Enlightenment itself does not result in such a blissful state.  In fact, in many cases, the enlightened one returns to ordinary functioning in the world, albeit from a vastly different perspective than our ordinary consciousness allows.

Important for American Christians to understand, Enlightenment does not entail moral superiority.  Evangelical Christians, for example, tend to equate a spiritual life with moral perfection.  While both Buddhists and Hawkins discuss the importance of ethical behavior, neither understands Enlightenment in moral terms.  For both, moral behavior provides a stable base for spiritual advancement.  While a stable moral base is useful, it is not a sufficient condition for Enlightenment.  

Many of the great teachers of our present age seem to be ordinary people who come from ordinary families.  It appears that Enlightenment does not bestow on them a sense of constant happiness.  It does not confer business or commercial success.  As far as I know, no enlightened person has ever achieved the kind of financial success enjoyed by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or others like them.

In fact, one of the most profound enlightened beings of the 20^th century, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a petty shopkeeper in Bombay.  Maharajah was a heavy smoker and died of throat cancer in 1981 at the age of 84.  From his experience, it seems clear then that Enlightenment does not confer business success, the habits of clean living, or the avoidance of death.  

Neither does Enlightenment free people from the sorts of psychological trauma that develop in ordinary families.  They are just like us: ordinary human beings with all of the frailties that that implies.  While some may find this disappointing, I am quite encouraged by it.  I, too, come from an ordinary family, and I, too, have experienced the same kind of psychological trauma that everyone else has.  The good news is that people like me are not shut out from these deep states of spiritual realization.

Finally, Enlightenment does not confer some special sort of social functioning.  Enlightened beings are not necessarily graceful socially.  Often, they are quite awkward in social situations.  From my perspective, this is to be expected.  Given the deference that tends to be accorded to enlightened individuals, e.g., the Dalai Lama, I would expect them to behave in socially awkward or maladaptive ways.  If a crowd of people surrounded you, waiting on you hand and foot, you would be socially awkward, too.

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I would like to conclude this essay by discussing how Enlightenment comes about.  In this, I am following the writings of Hawkins.  From Hawkins’ perspective, Enlightenment is not an action that we take.  It is not something that we can do.  It is not something to be achieved.

Instead, Enlightenment occurs with a radical letting go, a profound surrender.  This surrender entails releasing our habit of positional thinking and letting go of our ego.  As we have explored in previous essays, our ego-based, positional way of thinking occurs when the mind attaches itself to beliefs, opinions, and identities, and then defends these positions as if they were the self.  To be enlightened, one must forgo the dubious pleasures of judgment.  In practice, this means letting go of concepts such as ‘good and bad,’ ‘right and wrong,’ etc.

In Hawkins’ framework, positional thinking has several defining characteristics.  First, there is an identification with a particular viewpoint. The person somehow magically becomes their position rather than holding a position provisionally.  We see examples of this every time someone says, “I am right” or “This is who I am.”

A second characteristic of positional thinking is the use of binary framing, which is totally consonant with a dualistic worldview.  Reality, here, is reduced to right/wrong, true/false, us/them.  By employing this maneuver, all nuance is lost; everything is reduced to a ‘this’ or a ‘that.’  The tragedy inherent in this maneuver is that the person thinks they fully understand the situation.  However, by eliminating all nuance, they have precluded any possibility of real understanding.

A third characteristic of positional thinking is its emotional charge. Positions are energized by pride, fear, anger, or desire for control.  Disagreement feels like a personal threat.  In response to perceived threats, we characteristically become defensive.  When this occurs, we become resistant to reality-based evidence.  New information is filtered or rejected if it destabilizes the position.

Finally, positional thinking becomes a great source of suffering.  Our attachment to positions generates both internal tension and interpersonal conflict.  For some reason, we seem unable to identify our positional thinking as a major source of our discomfort and suffering.  As a result, we often feel trapped in a hamster cage, running faster and faster until the momentum finally overtakes us and we collapse.

Hawkins contrasts positional thinking with non-positional awareness, which emerges at higher levels of consciousness and is characterized by openness, humility, and the capacity to see multiple perspectives without defensiveness.

In short, positional thinking is the ego mistaking its opinions for reality – and then fighting to survive through them.

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I suspect I have given you more than enough to chew on for the week.  The point of these essays is to prepare you for the actual work of perceiving our bare, unvarnished awareness.  By exploring spiritual concepts such as Enlightenment, positional thinking, and related ideas, we are developing the vocabulary we need to engage in our actual spiritual work.  It’s important, therefore, not to mistake these intellectual formulations as our main task.  If you will, these essays are like prerequisites to a college course.  They won’t give you the “real stuff,” but they will prepare you for understanding the real material when you experience it.

I hope that you continue with your daily meditations, and that your reflections on the matters presented here continue to deepen.  You’ll find, I think, that reading and rereading these essays will significantly deepen your understanding of these spiritual matters.  Together, we will find our hearts opening.  Together, we will find ourselves enfolded in God’s most marvelous Love.

With deep affection,

P.S.  These newsletters were written in a particular order, but due to the limitations of our email delivery system, we cannot send them in the order in which they were written.  We can send out the first five in order, but then the system sends out the next one, whatever that happens to be.

So, if you are suddenly moving from issue #5 to issue #whatever, it might be a little jarring.  If this sounds like you, I would encourage you to go back into our archives and do your best to read them in order. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter series helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

To access the other newsletter editions of the “Inside The Invisible Newsletter,” or if you’d like to read ahead or go back.

Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.