A lot of people think that enlightenment is a single state. Many people also think that once it is reached, it is always reached.
The article below is not the last word on this subject. It's just a way for me to say what I think.
My view is that enlightenment isn't just one state, but rather a series of states of consciousness that come together over time.
I haven't come to the end of the road yet. But after spending years on a spiritual quest, I can safely say that enlightenment happens in a series of self-realizations and self-discoveries.
Usually, there is a difference between waking up for the first time and stabilising that stage later through practise or experiences. The first awakenings are new discoveries about how consciousness works, while stabilisation is the process of integrating what is being learned into one's life. A new discovery can sometimes completely replace or change an older one.
Presence is linked to almost every step on the path to enlightenment. But the enlightening Presence comes in different levels of clarity and strength. The level of intensity is directly related to how clear and deep a person is, as well as what they realise or find out.
Also, as time goes on, it becomes easier to see how one is connected to the universe and to life in general.
The list below gives a very brief example of how enlightenment happens in stages:
When you first start to meditate, you may feel the all-pervasive Presence for the first time. Most of the time, this Presence is felt when thoughts stop for a moment. Our true self is this Presence that exists in the Eternal Present Moment.
But this kind of thing can only be called "waking up to the true self," which is "no-self." This is because the Presence seems to have gone away after the meditation. No one can understand what presence is and how it fits into our everyday lives. Because of this, it will be hard to get the Presence back. And it takes a long time and a lot of realisations to understand how Presence relates to the world we see. It is possible to say that the stages and depth of realisation affect how long Presence lasts.
Also, in the beginning, we might confuse another state for the pure presence. For instance, we might think that "I AM" means pure presence. This is because the thinking mind has made an image of Pure Presence that is a reflection of itself. "I AM" is a picture of the absolute.
Most of the time, a person must move on to deeper understandings in order to get past the "I AM" stage. One of these may be realising that one's personality is not the one who does things. Before the person realises that subject-object separation is an illusion, this stage may last for a while. At this stage, you have to recognise the hypnotic feeling that there is an observer and that you are being watched. Here is where one starts to see that the world we live in is just an illusion.
I can't say anything about the stages ahead of me because I don't understand them. Still, from the above description, it's clear that enlightenment is not so simple after all.
For your own good judgement. We appreciate you reading.
