Chris Marti:
Thanks for your detailed reply - but all of that didn't quite answer my questions. I'm happy you are happy, feeling good all the time, are at peace. But I'm really interested in more and better descriptions of your ongoing experience: how is it different than it was ten years ago? What is the "oneness" you describe like to experience directly? How long has this been going on? How do you experience emotions? How do you experience thoughts?
We need phenomenological descriptions from you or the things you claim might ring hollow to everyone.
Make sense?
Thanks in advance!
Hey Chris - Thank you for engaging with me on this in such a clear and straight foreward manner! Phenonemenoligical descriptions, so a description of how my experience apears to me. I will do my best here, but I have to say the best description of the enlightened state I have found it that it is beyond conceptual conprehension or encapsulation. In fact the path of progression in attainment leading to full enlightenment is a process of gradually stripping away the false concept of our minds and coming to percive firsthand that which lies beyond the veil of conceptual permenance and solidity.
How is it different thatn ten years ago? Six years ago I was a senior in high school who had rescently had an enlightenment experience and started meditating. I struggled with social anxiety, but I had hope in a brighter future, which was lacking in the time before this. Prior to my enlightenment experience I had a pretty normal idea of happiness for a modern american teenager, which was to go skiing as much as possible and hopefully somehow resolve my fears and anxieties. I think we naturally develop a lot in the 10 years from 15 to 25, but maybe highlighting some aspects of my personality can give you a glimpse into how things have changed for me as a result of enlightenment.
Social anxiety, gone. A feeling of inferiority, gone. A sense of purpose and destiny, gained. I think the most telling indicator is that of the search. I was always searching when I was younger, I thought I would get some lasting recognition and happiness through skiing well, or pursuing an extreme carreer. Once I really started meditating, obviously I was always searching for a genuine change in my mind. I am not searching anymore. I know I have found what I sought. Whether or not anyone believes me is ultimately a secondary concern, because I know I have gained a final and lasting peace.
Thoughts - When we meditate, a primary obstacle is our thoughts; our gross conceptual thinking. I don't mean our ability to logically think, but thie thinking that is rampant in our minds. We all probably agree we cannot stop our thoughts; unbidden thoughts that flow through our minds are part and parcel of meditation, even when we have begun to gain attainment. When I gained enlightenment, I still had a such a thought stream, but with continued meditation after enlightenment, this stream was exhausted and ended. I gained a state of complete mental silence. I was free to think whatever I wanted, but there were no gross conceptual thoughts to work with in meditation, no thoughts apearing in my mind unbidden. At this point, Buddhist meditation was rendered totally obselete as I overcame the very object itself.
Emotions - The path of post enlightenment progression is complex and in my case involves Qi Gong and the system of the three dantiens. I will not explain it here, if you are interested let me know. However, the short version is that after enlightenment, after fully entereing into an extinction of 'self', and the end of the thought stream I had terrible emotional difficultie, especially with jealosy and insecurity. After a long time of struggle, I encountered the teachings of Robert Peng, who said explicitly that an enlightened person with unbalced energy centers (dantiens) would experience emotional turmoil and insecurity. Following his teachings, I balanced my dantiens; a process I strived for diligently but did not fully expect until one day it suddenly happened. At this point I developed emotional balance which still persists.
How long has this been going on? - I gained 4th path 4 and a half years ago. I gained enlightenment almost exactly 3 years ago. I gained emotional balance almost 2 years ago, and I gained a final peace close to 1 year ago. In three years, my experience of oneness and unity did not change, and the same for these latter acomplishments. Since reaching a final peace last summer, I can say that although relative development continues, my ultimate experience has remained exactly the same at all times. I have no doubt; I am sure I will be saying the same thing any potential length of time from now. I glimpsed a state of perfection, and I have miraculously achieved it. I am not posting primarily to convince anyone of this, but to say, "it is possible, and here's how".
Finally, what is it like to experience oneness? Well this is kind of the big question isn't it? What is enlightenment and what is it like? I think there are a lot of analogies for this, like the finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon and will never be, it just tells you how to get there. I can tell you the techniques I followed and the stages I encountered and what genreally the journey was like, but the very point of the journey itself is to come to an experiential understanding of something that lie beyond our abliity to aprehend. How many systems describe this? Islam has One God, Christianity has the holy trinity. In a book about Black Elk, a latoka medicine man, he describes the goal of the lakota spiritual rites as ultimately to "realise their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all of its powers". Hinduism has the realization of Godhead, which is also very similar if I'm not mistaken. The point being is that all major religions and spirituality have been seemingly focused on the same universal thing, but none have been able to describe it in clear and universal terms. We cannot describe ultimate reality in using a relative system! Only through direct perception can such a thing be genuinely apprehended.
The best decription is similar to that one quote; I am all, and I am nothing, and between the two my life flows. So be it! That our life flows seems to be the main point in some sense. When we know what we are, everything else follows naturally.
To experience oneness is like this; we are totally unrestrained. We act according to no system whatsoever, we jsut simple are who we are and we do the best we can all the time whatever the situation. It doesn't seem like perfection to the outside observer because we are acting in a relative and incomplete system, and we are constrained by our circumstances; physical, as well as emotional and mental development. These three factos, physical, emotional and mental and ever evolving, personally and universally, and although we may be at a personal peak in every moment, always there is further to go and more to learn. Spiritually however, we are perfection. There is total awareness of the situation, and yet there's noone who is aware. The lights are on, the car is driving, and there is no driver, but at the same time there is the ultimate of utmost driver. We are nothing, we are totally extinct, and we are also everything, we have complete connection.
Cheers!
Edit: I came up with a more concrete example of the beneficial changes of attainment, and ultimately of reaching a state of final peace. I said I had social anxiety before I started. The summer after 4th path I worked as a raft guide, a job in which you do in some sense need to be a social person. I did fine, but the reality of interacting with new people closely for several hours at a stretch was daunting. Part of this was insecurity, and part of was a lack of ability to really relate to people in meaningful way. Partly I think this can be chalked up to being on the path, which is a time in which, for me personally, the only thing that mattered largely was continueing to progress in attainment; this was the solution to the root problem, and everything else was secondary. But at anyrate, my social skill were not what they could have been, and this was painful.
Now, having reached a final ultimate state, I am working as cna and looking at going to nursing school. I like interacting with people, I like meeting new people, frankly this is now more exciting to me than anything else. As a consequence of energetic balance I have the vitality to maintain my personal space, love for patients and coworkers, and a sense of spiritual connection and purpose. In the final ultimate state, there is no personal territory whatsoever, and therefore there is no fear. There is no me or mine to protect. Of course I need to protect me and mine physically and emotionally and mentally to whatever degree seems necesary; we live in the physical world and no one is going to look out for us ultimatly but ourselves. But in a neurotic, or 'egoic' sense, there is nothing to protect, there is complete openess to the unknown, and as a consequence there is complete peace.