Enlightenment: What It Is And How To Get It
www.uncoveringlife.com/awakening-story/
I had found an online community of people that shared my aspirations, and there were some enlightened people there too. At least they said they were.
“You become enlightened by practicing meditation,” I was told.
They gave me some pretty simple instructions; and if I just followed them, my enlightenment would be assured. But although the instructions were simple, executing them was not. I don’t know if you’ve tried it, but sitting in meditation is plain boring. You were supposed to “investigate phenomena” which is about as boring as it gets. And when one of the enlightened guys finally said that I would have to sit for years before I could expect any significant progress, I knew that I would never pull this meditation thing off. I couldn’t sit for five minutes, let alone five years.
So I went off looking for something different. I immediately found others who promised that enlightenment could be attained in no time at all. I really liked that.
Instant enlightenment.
They taught something called Advaita Vedanta, and their core message was basically that everybody is already enlightened – we just have to recognize it – and that, they told me, only takes an instant (although I later learned that sometimes you have to wait a very long time for that instant to come.)
I guess I took the long way
In conversation with a friend just the other day we mused about the "problem" of vocabulary - awakening, enlightenment - and how differently people can use these terms. There's no "standard" - unless perhaps you work within a specific tradition. Pragmatic dharma in particular, and other modern spinoffs that draw on a variety of traditions for influence - tend to be such that each person uses the terms they prefer in the way they prefer. I recall arguments somewhere that we shouldn't use the term "enlightenment" because it had too much baggage. I have tended to use the term awakening rather loosely myself in the past, just because that's what I was exposed to.
The second thing is that it seems there are two basic approaches to awakening. One being perhaps:
The one view is that awakening happens (even if it's a "little awakening" or "glimpse") - and that is considered Awake (or Enlightened, depending on the person's vocabulary), but then there's a process of maturation and integration over the life that follows. The other being that little glimpses and big glimpses happen along the way, and only when the last of the hindrances or reactivity falls away would one consider that one is Enlightened. Which is sort of the same thing, except seen from opposite ends, so to speak.
My take on this somewhat confusing messiness is that it is just part of the way things are. The strategies for trying to control the messiness - secretive initiatory systems, inquisitions, social exclusion of those who don't follow the party line, and so on - are not very effective, besides causing a lot of harm. Awakening seems (if you think of it as a life form!) to have a desire to share itself, and this tends to burst forth with enthusiasm any time someone has a big insight. Guilty.
Which is why at some point or another most everyone either goes running to tell their colleagues, writes a book, starts a blog, etc. It's a beautiful human adventure, messiness and all. 