Enlightenment - The Three Different Types of Enlightenment

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are three different types of enlightenment or three different perspectives one can have when experiencing the truth of their non-

dual nature. The first perspective is from one who first recognizes the self experientially. This recognition comes in a temporary experience of nirvikalpa samadhi that profoundly changes a person’s life. Temporary nirvikalpa samadhi (also called Yogic Samadhi) is when subject/object duality collapses. The body shuts off and there is no longer any distinction between subject and object.  There is also no longer any thoughts or an appearance of empirical phenomena throughout the duration of the experience. This person directly experiences the pure self as the pure self but without an appearance to compare with since all empirical phenomena is suppressed (forced to in-activity).  The experience is therefore unknowable, yet the person knows when the body-mind becomes active again as their awareness was fully present throughout the entire process from beginning to end.  So when the mind awakens, the experience can be recapitulated.

 

The second perspective of enlightenment is when one uses the power of discrimination (viveka) that has been cultivated from practicing nirvikalpa samadhi to experience Brahman while the mind is fully awake (without having to suppress it).  This experience of Brahman is known as Jnani Samadhi and is a result of identifying with Turiya (the underlying witness) while the body-mind continues to operate.  In this experience, one's attention completely rests on the self as the self, while witnessing the body-mind appearance inside its own screen of awareness.  Since there is an appearance to compare your true self with, it is also referred to as Atma-Jnanam because acknowledgement can be made as to what your true self really is.  This experience is required to produce moksha as it helps in removing ignorance (the mind), since it exposes the mind to the knowledge of Brahman.  The third perspective is the permanently enlightened individual who is no longer an individual but rather abiding in awareness as Turiya at all times without effort. This is a Jivanmukta or liberated while the body is alive. One is no longer identified as an individual but is in firm abidance with Brahman while the appearance of duality unfolds within itself in a non-separate experience. 

 

​​​Any individual who lives life from any of these three perspectives are highly evolved, although the last ranking has transcended any concepts of evolution. One who is living from the first perspective can also lose their high position if they allow their vision of God to remain hidden within the strong attraction of duality. They may stumble down the evolutionary path, though if this happens, the person will not be lost forever as the experience of Brahman will pull them back to regain their status. It is important to understand that any experience of enlightenment is not liberation unless the experience is permanent. Therefore, one must practice to remain in a unbroken enlightenment experience until it becomes natural and effortless. With that being said, lets dive deeper into each perspective.

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The First Perspective:

 

Someone living from the first perspective now knows God as an unknowable presence. At first, this person may not make sense of what they directly experienced. If the experience was authentic, it will be validated afterwards either by the scriptures or from a realized being. This type of enlightenment is not a mind-experience. The mind here is inactive or suppressed temporarily for however long the individual remains in the unknowable experience. Because of outstanding vasanas that remain unresolved, the individual regains consciousness of body and mind and is now subject to suffering in duality since all pairs of opposites arise again. Note: The concept of vasanas is just a way to explain the imaginary dark force that pulls consciousness back into its own body-mind illusion it reflects within itself.  Once attention is immersed inside the false reflection, the individual regains body-consciousness.  The enlightenment experience is then registered with the mind and now the individual tries to make sense of what happened. These short and temporary experiences serve as recognition or validation of truth. The person who believes in Brahman just by reading it on paper really has no idea what Brahman really is until he or she has directly experienced it themselves when all layers of body and mind are temporarily dissolved (manolaya). Understanding Brahman on an intellectual level with body and mind is no where near as close in proximity as knowing Brahman on an experiential level without the use of the body and mind. 

 

The many innumerable lives we’ve all lived as individuals (jivas) is just a linear process of slowly removing the curtain of ignorance (mind) to reveal the fundamental nature of Brahman. Though keep in mind, Brahman and Mind are never separate.  We just refer to Brahman as the Mind when Brahman's own innate attention is no longer on its fixed self but instead on an illusory appearance when attention becomes diverted.  For the person who has removed the curtain of ignorance temporarily for the first time, it is a direct recognition of that which was always present.  It is recommended that the person comes down from the experience and integrates it in their waking life.  Moksha cannot be produced by simply experiencing nirvikalpa samadhi unless one drops the body and produces liberation in the higher realms via kramamukti.  For most, the experience is short lived and unknowable.  If it is unknowable, then nothing can be removed since there is nothing present to be removed! This is proven to be true since we come back from the experience.  However, this doesn't mean the experience is useless.  The experience itself serves as validation and trumps faith as you now directly know there is a non-dual substratum pervading all experiences.  In addition, the process of cultivating nirvikalpa samadhi heightens your power of viveka which is required to turn inward while in the presence of empirical phenomena.  This means one can use this power to perform self-inquiry (nididhyasana) in the waking world to turn away from all thoughts and objects and shift their awareness from the object of perception to the power of perception.  If you perform self-inquiry correctly, you can expose Brahman without having to temporarily suppress any thought or object from being perceived.  You will come to find out that by using viveka or your discriminatory ability to separate the non-self from the self, you can separate awareness from the appearance of duality.  This means your attention transitions from being identified with a body-mind (that places attention outwards) to being identified with turiya (which keeps attention grounded inward on its own source).

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The mistake most people make when experiencing nirvikalpa samadhi is believing they have reached the goal.  However, when you first experience nirvikalpa samadhi, it is only the start of your journey towards liberation. It is also important to understand that the actual experience of nirvikalpa samadhi becomes fruitless after a while since during the experience, everything exists in dormancy (latent form). Therefore, no progress towards liberation can be made during the experience since there is no doer in such a state to make any progress! True progress is actually made during the momentum build-up that leads to nirvikalpa samadhi. It is this act of withdrawing and keeping concentration stable that helps build the power of viveka.  It is this viveka that is required to turn inward and negate each subtle layer of the mind one by one.  Self-inquiry can only gain fruit when it is stable without being broken into thoughts, which only multiply and further enhances the delusion of samsara.

 

When one has come down from nirvikalpa samadhi, they are still subject to all of the inner problems most face such as anger, anxiety, lust, etc. This will only cause one to re-identify with their false self and perpetuate samsara by falling down the evolutionary path if they don't take things to the next level.  Duality is not something that can be removed so easily.  It takes great perseverance and effort to stay on the path and remain dedicated to the goal.  Therefore, one must strive to transition from the first perspective to the second perspective if they want to remove ignorance (the mind) for good while still retaining the appearance of duality.

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The Second Perspective:

 

If one integrates their nirvikalpa samadhi experience with the waking world and uses their power of viveka to perform self-inquiry correctly, there is the possibility of being fixed on the self while the body and mind continues to operate. The process of self-inquiry unfolds when attention is turned away from all objects and thoughts and travels inward in continuous motion until all layers of the mind are fully negated.  Negation is the act of keeping attention flowing inward while it passes through the more subtle aspects of the itself. In other words, each layer is negated when attention passes through them and moves on to another deeper/subtler layer. You must keep attention flowing in the opposite direction until there is no longer the capacity to negate. This means doership ceases (i.e. the functioning of the ego) and one exposes turiya (the witnessing form of consciousness).  This is the knower behind the thinker.  This unbroken experience (without thoughts) first comes in intermittent glimpses for one who is not yet fully sattvic (spiritually purified).  Purity must be sought by practicing inquiry over and over again until there is only sattva left (i.e. without the potentiality of tamas to conceal the truth nor the potentiality of rajas to pull attention away from its source).  When one exposes turiya, this is known as jnani samadhi.  When it is experienced intermittently, it is also referred to as savikalpa samadhi or clinging on to the self with effort.  This samadhi must be practiced since it is the only way to remove the deep rooted primordial ignorance (mula-avidya) which keeps attention grounded in a false body-mind appearance.  If mula-avidya is not removed, then the pure "I" will always get buried in its own appearance via vasanas that forces its attention inside the reflection of the illusory world.   

 

The person who lives from the second perspective is God’s devotee. This person is only concerned with liberation and only speaks of Brahman since there is no other knowledge that satisfies them. This person can never go back to living an ignorant life because truth has changed them permanently. They cannot unknow the known.  This means they can never be tricked by the false appearance of this world even when they are identified as the false self.  They embody too much dispassion and indifference from being in samadhi. Their only purpose in life is to show others the way who are called upon to uncover this truth themselves. This individual is also not strictly confined to the laws of reincarnation in the lower realms. They only embody a physical experience in this world out of compassion and love for others. They have the option of becoming fully liberated if they choose to but may still retain the status of a Sage to enjoy the play of maya and to help keep the highest knowledge from being lost. There still remains small traces of ignorance so that this individual can retain a mind.  They will eventually remove the necessary vasanas to avoid stumbling down the evolutionary path.  This means they will burn enough vasanas to remain dispassionate and non-attached to the world before they physically die so they can transmigrate to the higher realms where knowledge of Brahman is more pervasive and less distorted due to the nature of its subtlety. If the person goes past a breaking point by burning all vasanas, they will remain in turiya permanently. The mind will then become completely purified without any hidden potential for it to turn outward again. They are now immersed in their own intensified presence as Turiya while witnessing the appearance of their natural self within.

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When the experience of Turiya shines forth, you will no longer perceive objects outside of you.  Rather, everything is now seen as a mechanical appearance within.  The presence of Brahman becomes so strong and intensified, you identify as that singular presence while witnessing the world of objects (as seen from the body/mind) inside your own screen of awareness.  You will also innately feel that there are two distinct personalities:

 

1) Turiya (which you currently hold)

2) Body-Mind (which continues to operate on its own via God's will)

 

This means you only witness everything the body-mind experiences.  Witnessing is different than experiencing because you are no longer intimately involved in what happens to the body and mind as you remain detached from what it experiences.  It like being out of the body (OBE) but instead, the body is inside you as an appearance being shown to you since you make up the very substratum that allows it to appear. You witness the sight that the body-mind experiences, you witness the taste that the body-mind experiences, you witness the sound that the body-mind experiences, etc.  You witness everything, but you are not experiencing it as if anything belongs to you. This is the crucial difference.  You are free from pain, emotions, trauma, and anything that can possibly be experienced by the body-mind. You simply remain in un-broken truth (truth of your true presence) while you witness the appearance of duality within.  This can only be unbroken so long as you don't perceive any thoughts that creates the illusion of linearity (since thoughts can only be perceived by the body-mind within the illusory boundaries of time and space).  

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Turiya will first be held intermittently since it may not be firm right away.  The goal however is to practice consistently so you can remain there permanently and live from the third perspective. 

 

The Third Perspective:

 

One who is living from the third perspective has gone beyond the breaking point and is no longer identified with the body and mind (nor will ever identify with it again). There is no need to practice jnani samadhi since they have completely destroyed their will for there to even be the possibility of putting in effort.  How can effort be made if ownership of body-mind has been completely given up? This individual is not an individual anymore and is only called an individual from an ignorant person who perceives them as such. One who lives from the third perspective is abiding in their own nature as Brahman. Only prarabdha karma remains which keeps the body operating under God's will so that the jnani can enjoy being a silent witness until the appearance eventually fades away automatically on its own via Grace (the ownerless controller).  

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When turiya is held permanently and naturally, the appearance of the mind will eventually vanish as there is no longer the power of Brahman to sustain its existence.  The illusory existence of the body-mind can only be sustained so long as attention from source is immersed inside it. When the appearance is removed, turiya will now remain on its own without any underlying appearance to witness.  We now give this same turiya a new name: Nirguna Brahman, i.e. Turiyatita. 

 

This perspective is really not a perspective at all since nothing can be known. There is no karma nor the empirical world.  The illusion of the mind is completely removed (manonasa).  With the death of the body, the person is known as a videhmukta or a disembodied jivanmukta, though there is no difference between the two  since one has already transcended such concepts. One's personality is expanded into infinity since there is no appearance left to create the illusion of duality, i.e. of there being the meaning of 'two'.  This is only Advaitam left (non-duality). It is an unknowable experience, yet you shine strictly as a pure presence without anything ever to be known since your truth is completely in unbroken silence and brilliance.  

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It is important to note that enlightened beings do not have ALL the knowledge in the world. He/she is neither smart nor intelligent. Intelligence is part of maya and hence is delusion. An enlightened being is beyond intelligence. A worldly man has the capacity to be more intelligent than an enlightened being. The enlightened however is wise in that he/she is firmly established in self-knowledge as a result of unlearning everything.  This means one has taken attention backwards in the opposite direction and reversed the process of coming into existence as a separate self. For this to happen, everything needs to be thrown away, even the words of Vedanta.   

 

As human beings, we all have the ability to live from each of these three perspectives if we continue to perform our spiritual practices. For those who are persistent, the curtain of ignorance will be removed and what is revealed will forever change your life. This will allow you to live from one of these three perspectives depending on how purified your mind is. Only the person who has been enlightened will truly know how qualified they are by gaining the intuitive wisdom through samadhi which confirms their status of mukti (liberated). This knowledge comes as instantaneous sparks of knowings that is fully grasped intuitively without any doubts behind them.

 

While it can be said that nothing actually happens since Brahman is all there is, within the appearance of maya, things do happen. We all possess the illusion of will to reach samadhi which will help remove ignorance once and for all. That’s the game we’re playing - dissolving the part to become the whole or to simply remove yourself from the game of maya by removing your identification from it. This doesn’t happen in a single lifetime unless you are a Sage ready to give it all up. For the average person, it is something that fructifies over many lifetimes.......and the exciting part of the journey begins with enlightenment.