I am 29 years old and have been practicing for about three years. My daily experience of reality has changed vastly in that time and I am curious about how people who are further along on the Path experience daily life. If you read this and are an Arhant could you please comment on how Enlightenment has affected your daily life:

1. How has your relationship with family, friends, and/or spouse changed?
2. Same for attitude/motivation towards work and colleagues.
3. Do you sleep better?
4. How do you react if people are rude to you throughout the day (in a subway for example, or online at the bank)?
5. Do you lose your temper and yell at people?
6. Do you care if the dishes get left in the sink all week?
7. Do you feel like if all of your friends and family died and you lost your job things would be ok?
8. Do you feel like if you died tomorrow that would be fine?


I find that if I am all alone then I can get into the space of non-duality, feel myself as an energy field, and not get tricked into thinking "I-Thoughts" are who I really am. As far as the above list goes, however, not much has changed, although I feel a vast spaciousness when my conditioning comes up. I do sleep very well, however. Is this to be expected?

Does anybody ever meet-up in New York City to discuss this stuff over coffee?

Hey Josh. Good luck with getting a straight answer to that! I recently posted a question on something similar (albeit not identical) in this thread. The resulting discussion might be of some use to you.

Thanks for that. And thanks to all of the other Arhants for for their words of wisdom.

Told ya! Don't get discouraged though. I'm still banging my head off the same wall perhaps you are. Just keep banging until either head or wall breaks.

As far as I know there are currently no living person on this planet claiming to be an Arhant.

Why is that?

1. Religion/dogma advises not to talk about attainments.
2. Person still feels like things are unfolding and evolving so doesn't feel 'done' enough to be Arhant.
3. Person doesn't want the attention for various reason.
4. The 11th Army of Mara
5. To become an Arhant is impossible.
6. Something else.

Regarding your other questions: Many have asked similar questions in the past, if you try and search the forum you might find some answers, but it's not easy to search and I don't have any links saved. Highly attained people will shy away from such questions as they tend to be more motivated answering questions directly related to practice. That being said you should check out the happinessbeyondthought blog. The author answers many questions similar to yours asked by his readers.