I’m Enlightened. What the Hell Do I Do Now?
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I used to be dissatisfied with my life so I became a spiritual seeker. I thought that enlightenment was the missing jigsaw piece that would complete my life. Most spiritual seekers come from a point of dissatisfaction. This can take the form of low self esteem, feeling like an outsider, or somehow knowing that there is something missing from life.
If you become awakened, then the dissatisfaction goes, the spiritual seeker has gone. Now what do you do?
Most spiritual seeking is done out of self interest. You have pain and you want spirituality to take it away. An element of the awakening experience is that you see that you are not an isolated individual. You are the whole. In non-separation there is only the whole, and your ego has gone. However, in order to function again in the world a sense of a separate identity has to come back, otherwise you could not function.
You have had a sense of transcending your life, of seeing the whole rather than the individual parts, and yet here you are having to engage in the world. You still need to earn a living, deal with your family commitments, pay the bills, communicate with your neighbours.
How do you engage in the world? Having seen that you do not have a separate self and that all humanity is one, do you still operate out of self interest? Or do you engage in actions that help your fellow humans? Do you become socially or politically active?
In the traditional model, enlightenment is above moral and ethical considerations. You can do exactly what you want to do. This is correct from a absolute point of view.
A new model is emerging in which enlightenment is seen as an evolutionary force leading mankind to a sort of new global consciousness. In this model you have an obligation to join forces with others to hasten the next evolutionary step of mankind. This global consciousness is a movement away from the emphasis on the individual to what some have called the Higher We.
I am just asking questions here, speculating, pondering. Do I rest in the transcendent space of emptiness, where the notion of me and you does not exist and no actions are required of me? Or do I engage fully in the world in order to help others awaken?
Andrew Cohen says:
“If a group of people can sublimate their egos enough to allow Spirit to emerge through them, a higher matrix will arise that expresses something more profound and more significant than any single Buddha could.”
Is he right?
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This is my very question at this time so imagine my surprise at finding someone asking it just the way I was asking it in my own mind. I hope you get lots of responses because I really want to know too.
I have had the very experience of which you speak. Though I am not sure about enlightenment and lately I am understanding why. I feel that only an ego can be “enlightened”. This is my experience which of course I can only experience from an ego state. This is not a bad thing. It is like walking on top of a fence, neither on one side or the other, but aware of both sides.
I am totally in tune with this life just being a part of the evolutionary process of returning to Oneness or god. As such, I agree with your point of fully engaging the world.
Actually, I have no choice right now, or so it seems. What needs to be done just presents itself with or without a great deal of my involvement. I can resist, or effort or any number of actions all of which can be judged from some subjective viewpoint, but none of that matters. Things will just happen as they will happen and I will experience them on some or multiple levels.
The higher matrix is here, as it always has been. I can only experience it or not. The impulses of “life” are just part of the evolutionary process which I am enjoying more and more each day.
How do you engage in the world?
You don’t. There is no world. All is one. There is an obligation to try to help others realize what they already are. This is my current dilemma. How do I help others, especially those still mired in dogma and samsara to move a step closer to nirvana? Is it a dualistic nothion to help “others”?
Having seen that you do not have a separate self and that all humanity is one, do you still operate out of self interest?
There is no self only SELF. If you help yourself you are helping ALL.
Or do you engage in actions that help your fellow humans?
I see all as a part of me. I now try to speak only what is LIND, NECESSARY, and TRUE. Try it. It is harder than you might think.
Do you become socially or politically active?
To what end?
“If a group of people can sublimate their egos enough to allow Spirit to emerge through them, a higher matrix will arise that expresses something more profound and more significant than any single Buddha could.”
Is he right?
In my opinion No.
What people? What ego? WHO has an ego to sublimate?
The one who is aware of being enlightened is the one who has returned from the Unitive state in which I am all, eternal and boundless, to the egocentric witness-to-existing in a relativistic hologram. The thing is, as one realizes that all states of engagement are ego derived, the dilemma becomes, “Is there something I WANT to do that is genuine?” Or, in other words, “Now that I have achieved enlightenment, do I have a (next) purpose?” I don’t know.
Writing these words is happening by no-one and maybe a so called person is reading the same words at the same time. IS there an ‘I’ who engages in writing these words and is there an ‘I’ who choose whether he/she should help humanity. To express this is like writing on water. YOu can see the meaning behind it from a different angle and nobody is doing the seeing either. Apparent choises to live in Oneness are being created.