Enlightenment 101
Enlightenment is a state of consciousness whereby the very root of your being is allowed to shine through the fog of your human mind-made persona, or ego, and be the dominant presence out of which your thoughts, words, and actions arise. Following the original text, an update of 26 Dec 10 further describes enlightenment, and is the first text ever to ask and answer the question: Who actually becomes enlightened? The answer WILL surprise you. Enlightenment 101's purpose is to help you achieve the end of the false self or ego. The ego is the stream of thoughts and histories and body you consider to be you on a purely physical level. No ego is a state as close to pure spirit as possible. To want enlightenment for the betterment of the self is False! That is a craving of the ego! To want enlightenment in the service of all beings is in synch with the God-source, and proper. If you are attempting enlightenment for the purpose of the self, you will not get it. Welcome to Enlightenment 101. The entire course consists of six words. They allude to the very source of all creation. At the same time they allude to your very essence.
---Love Unconditionally--- Love all things seen and unseen, known and unknown, manifest and unmanifest, and you will love yourself. To love all things is to see the connection that they have to the totality. It is to know that there is a hidden perfection in everything there is and everything that happens, even if your reaction to the content is negative. Know the difference between the content and your reaction. The content simply is. You color it with your senses and the frequency of your consciousness. Recognize that all matter is made up of things that perform feats that defy logic and even go beyond what could be described as magic. Quantum physics experiments even allude to the possibility that subatomic particles are in some way aware, as they behave differently based on whether they are being observed. Or could it be that the observer is the one who creates the result by the very act of observation? Or could it be a little of both? Either way, it's looking more apparent that the building blocks of both animate and inanimate objects may be in some form conscious. Recognize the possibility of a shared consciousness with all matter, or at least the fact that all matter is energy, and that rocks and dirt and planets and you are matter. Know that you are made of energy as is everything else in the material world. This relationship was proven by Einstein's E=mc2. Energy is matter times the speed of light times itself. To realize and appreciate the common thread between you and all beings and things (energy) is as close as I can get to an explanation of unconditional love.
---Allow Everything--- Be always in a state that allows the present moment to be whatever form it takes. After first allowing, you may try to change it or not, from an attitude of acceptance and logic as opposed to resistance and emotion. Allow the shifting of all energy to form and dissolve as it will. ---Judge Nothing--- By attempting to know things through words and labels, you assign incomplete or even false meaning to things and situations that are impossible to know completely. By refusing to assign the label "good" or "bad" to whatever form the moment takes, you deny the ego the pleasure of false victimization. Neither can you be falsely elevated. Disallow the ego form by refusing to name or judge the shifting of energy as good or bad.
Put no limitations on the six words that enlightenment 101 teaches. Don't try to explain or understand them in terms of everyday life because they only point to a "knowing" that is beyond words. They point to a state of being that defies all understanding. They point to the being that you always were, always will be. They point to you. Be what they point to. Enlightenment 101 Grading: Do these words resonate with your highest state of being? If they do you will know beyond doubt what they point to. If you "don't get it", that's ok too. You cannot fail the course. Memorize the words. Live them at all times. Be the intent of them. The truths to which the words point will come to you in flashes that will last longer the more you live them. If, after memorizing the words, you ask: But what about this or that?...then you have not been exposed to what the words point to. Never stop being the intent of the words and eventually you will see where they lead. The only rule is that the six words must be lived as a package. You don't apply "allow everything" to a particular situation and declare the situation resolved. You apply all six words to every situation every time. The words override your train of thought. They must reside in your subconscious. You do not come upon a situation and then apply them after the fact, you live them all the time. You are a sphere that consists of the intent of the six words. Everything that happens in your life lies within the boundary of the enlightenment 101 six-word sphere. The sphere is the space around which the content of your life occurs. The sphere is your true essence. The sphere is connected to everything. When you stop asking questions of what the words mean or what they point to or how to apply them to everyday life, only then will you know that to which they lead. Only then will the heaviness of the world be lifted. And when it is--you will know. THE EGO The Spirit is a derivation of the God-source. The human is a derivation of the spirit. Free will is a characteristic of the human and is a gift from God. It allows creativity. To be creative is to be God-like. The ego is a bastardization of free will and is a false self born of the appearance of, and the belief in, separation from all things and beings. The ego seeks self enhancement and knowing through things and doings. It seeks to know itself and the world through naming and judging, only to imprison itself in a hell of resistence and suffering, and in the end it is unconscious and knows nothing. Words are a beautiful invention with which to convey and communicate, and at the same time they are a hideous wall of limitation. When not speaking, attempt to eliminate words from your existence. SUMMARY If in a state of allowing and non-judgement you can love unconditionally all things seen and unseen, known and unknown, manifest and unmanifest, then you will love yourself and know the mind of God.
26 Dec 10 Update In many of tolle's teachings it appears he is speaking to the human reader but the more I read the more I think he is teaching god how to use the body to know himself. Enlightenment is the simultaneous realization by god that he exists and that he could not know this but through inhabiting the human form. It is as though humanity is popcorn and millions must cook to get a few precious kernels to pop while most remain old maids. Who becomes enlightened? The human or the god? It is god who becomes enlightened, not the human. That is the secret of enlightenment and also the paradox of all paradoxes. It's god who becomes enlightened! He knows his godliness through the human he inhabits. It's not the human who becomes enlightened, it's god. When the profundity of that hits you, you will know enlightenment. When Jesus said "father forgive them for they know not what they do", he was speaking to his own I am. He was forced into his mind by the physicality of the moment, and used faith to know that he needed to forgive them in order to return to his enlightened state. Faith that his true essence is god, not a man, though in the moment there was no evidence of this. And faith is a knowing without a feeling of knowing. It is mind without being and is lower frequency than enlightenment or a state of pure consciousness. And who becomes enlightened? Never the mind-made persona, but god himself, through the human. Forgiveness is but one of many doors through which god can return to an enlightened state. Like an electron zipping in and out of existence and materializing in a new spot within the space of its cloud, the awakened human-god's consciousness varies between knowing its true self (consciousness) through the human, knowing it is one with the human (enlightenment), and not knowing (unconsciousness), and a state of faith which is knowing without feeling. Consciousness-knowing and feeling the I am is you. Enlightenment-knowing and feeling the i am and the mind are one with all. Unconsciousness-pure mind. Faith-the mind knows it is one with god but is at too low a frequency of consciousness to feel it. Enlightenment update Cont'd Based on the previous entry, we come to know that awakening in a spiritual sense is not an awakening of the mind made persona. It is the awakening of the underlying entity. This entity might be referred to as universal intelligence, the soul, the source, or god, to name a few. The mind made persona is apparently awake during what we'll call waking daytime hours. During these waking hours, the underlying entity sleeps and the mind-made persona's life is the underlying entity's dream. The mind-made persona is told through religion about this underlying entity but cannot truly know of it until the entity awakens within the dream of the human life. A human can be told of awakening but cannot know it until it occurs within them, if at all. The possibility is that the awakened being is an entirely new being, aware of it's true essence and form essence simultaneously. This being will fluctuate between thought, being, and both, depending on the present state, which will be determined by the frequency of consciousness at any given time. This frequency is indicated by how good the being feels in the moment. The human may experience any of a myriad of worlds simply by choosing. They can dwell in the physical or spiritual or dream world or imagination or walk the fine line of enlightenment, which is a combination of physical and spiritual. It may be the purpose of humanity to allow the universe to know itself. If the universe is made up of pure consciousness, then that consciousness is aware but is not aware of itself. And the consciousness said I am and it was. The world of form came into being when the consciousness asked what am I? And it became everything and slept the dream of humanity, in which its true nature was hidden by the very mind it created to define it. And the awareness remained aware, but not of itself, until it began to use the human mind to search itself out. Through a few enlightened humans, awareness came to know itself. But it is the unconsciousness of humanity that would paradoxically show pure consciousness what it is not, and in so doing shows pure consciousness what it is. Pure consciousness awakens within the dream of humanity, still in human form, to know itself. Ironically, man needed to be unconscious, so as to allow pure being to see itself through awakening within the dream of humanity. Life is simply a door through which pure consciousness steps to become aware of itself. Pure awareness is just that. It needs humanity to reach the next level, where awareness becomes aware of itself. When a human dies it is like consciousness removing a worn out shirt. Another takes it's place immediately after. But consciousness cannot be aware of itself until it awakens. This is referred to as enlightenment, and it is the enlightened being that shows the universe itself through the being realizing it is the universe and through the universe realizing it is the being. The being and the universe then cease to be separate. This state of oneness allows the underlying awareness to override the mind made persona as the dominating entity. Awareness knows itself and the human ceases to suffer from mind-made, fear induced problems. These enlightened beings are currently a minority on the earth, but when they become the majority, unconsciousness will fade, but likely never disappear. It is the very unconsciousness of man that allows consciousness to be aware of itself.
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