enlightenment
Q: I know there is no doer, but I still keep on getting lost in thoughts and worrying about things
Think of it this way: there is never a doer, even when thought says there is one. This knowledge can set you free. Don’t worry if it seems like you’re a doer. It’s just like the sun rising and setting – it seems like the sun is orbiting the earth, but the knowledge is there telling us that it is the earth that is orbiting the sun.
Don’t worry too much about the appearances or whether or not you get lost in thoughts. Sometimes, in fact very often, thoughts needs to express themselves, and in expressing themselves you can learn about yourself on the human level/level of the mind. A bit of worry can be quite good, as it helps us prepare for future events.
The ugly duckling didn’t need to become a swan. It was already a swan.
The ugly duckling didn’t need to become a swan. It was already a swan.
Contemplate the following points:
- Freedom is here already. Totally here. (You don’t need to achieve it)
- No separate doer-entity is already the case. (You don’t need to remove anything)
- Awareness already accepts everything that happens within it and is already unattached from objects/untouched by objects. (You do not need to let go)
- Awareness, in our direct experience, is ever-present and constant. It is the essence of who we are (experientially speaking). (This is the basis of emotional security: all emotions come and go but our essence remains untouched).
- Reliance upon (limited) objects to give lasting happiness results in inevitable suffering. (There is no need to compulsively chase subtle or gross objects)
Look, investigate, and see things as they are.
Various teachings can help you along the way, but in essence, what more needs to be done?
Note, it can take time for all this to be seen, and thankfully for the seeker, there are a set of teachings that can guide one through this process. I call these ‘the structured teachings’, and it forms the basis of the way I share this message. Please see tomdas.com/events for further information or the video below for an introduction.
Q. I find I am unable to practice genuine acceptance in my life. Lots of resistance keeps on coming up. Can you help?
Tom: Practicing acceptance is a powerful teaching, but ultimately if you think this is about accepting or not-resisting, then you are identified with the body-mind entity, as it is the mind that accepts or resists.
See this: acceptance and resistance are both objects that appear spontaneously to you. There is no need to change anything, no need to accept or reject, no need to imagine there is a separate doer-self there.
What is, is. Simple.
Q. Does the ego really disappear with Self-Realisation?
Usually in eastern traditions the word ego is a translation of the Sanskrit word Ahamkara*, which refers solely to the (false) belief in doership and not the personality or decision-making apparatus in the mind.
It is the belief in doership that goes with enlightenment or self-realisation, not the personality or decision-making apparatus.
Hence it is perfectly right to say the ego is no longer present in one who has realised.
(*Aham = I, kara = do)
Your Essence remains Unaffected by all of this
Is enlightenment an experiential or energetic shift?
Often enlightenment is taught as being some kind of experiential shift. But is this true? This post will attempt to explain and illustrate how it all works. So is enlightenment an experiential shift? Yes and no. The essential factor that changes occurs in the mind. Fundamentally the experience doesn’t change. What changes is the way experience is understood. Understanding is the key.
Let me illustrate this with an example:
eg. If you realise that Father Christmas doesn’t exist, and that he never existed, it will dramatically change the way you experience Christmas: the days before Christmas will feel different, it will feel different going to bed on Christmas eve, and it will be a different experience seeing your presents in the morning under the Christmas tree.
Now, is this an experiential shift?
Well it may seem that way, but actually what has happened is that a belief/thought that was once taken to be true is now seen to be false, and that understanding in turn has changed the way we experience the same set of events.
I italicise ‘same set of events’, as the raw sensory experience of life remains unchanged both before and after enlightenment. All that changes is understanding, and that change is at the level of the mind/thought. Understanding is the key.
To put it more simply perhaps, the experiential shift, if it occurs at all (it may not), is a symptom of right understanding, which is the essential underlying cause.
How this affects teaching enlightenment
Now, if a teacher who is genuinely enlightened does not understand what has happened to them, then they may teach that enlightenment is some kind of experiential shift. Because that’s how it can feel. This may happen if if they have not come to this realisation through a teaching such as Buddhism or Vedanta, both of which explicitly emphasise understanding on the level of the mind as being central, or if the teacher has not sufficiently analysed their experience well enough in order to teach it effectively. When the latter happens, the results is often a very vague teaching which is imprecise and difficult to understand. This reduces the effectiveness of the teaching.
This brings me to another point: just because someone is enlightened, doesn’t mean they can teach effectively. A comparable example is just because you can speak English, doesn’t mean you understand the grammar, syntax and other rules and techniques that are often very useful in teaching someone else English. This understanding of grammar, for example, greatly increases the efficiency of the teaching.
The same goes for enlightenment, the end of suffering: there are many beautiful techniques and lovely teachings that mean that the teaching works much more effectively at sharing this wonderful Understanding.
The mind, no doer and action
The key way the teaching works is upon the mind by removing the belief in the notion of doership. This belief is the key source of suffering, and when this belief is seen through then the suffering which is dependent on it dissolves away.
Often there is a process by which the habitual tendencies that cause suffering gradually fall away over time as the understanding of ‘no-doer’ infiltrates and has its effect on the mind’s conditioning.
Note that the notion of a doer is a false belief – there is no evidence for a doer being present, just as there is no evidence for a volcano god that erupts volcanos or a sea god that ravages the seas. The lack of belief in a doer does not mean there is no action, just as lack of belief in the above mentioned gods does not render the volcano or seas impotent.
Action and movement continues as they have always done. They happen seemingly by themselves, spontaneously you could say. Live goes on, and it feels much the same, the whole range of feelings and emotions continue, just without the suffering.
Pointing out mistakes
The following is an excerpt from: Who cares about Freedom?
We can go a little further too: we can also point out mistakes in our thinking. If we think Father Christmas is real, we can notice and point out there is no conclusive evidence to support that, despite appearances to the contrary (eg. presents appearing beneath the tree on Christmas Day). Any happiness or pleasure we derive from believing in Father Christmas is similarly based on our wrong notions/illusion.
Similarly, if someone takes themselves to be a doer, an entity that is free to choose and take credit and blame for its actions, then we can point out that there is no evidence to support this position, despite appearance to the contrary. All suffering that results from belief in doership is similarly based on illusion.
Tom Das 