Question: Some say “you are already enlightened here and now”. Yet they themselves did awaken, did have some kind of profound inner change and ego identification ceasing permanently. What does this saying mean? Is it just that we are all part of existence?
Sri Prabhuji : The word ‘you’ has three levels of meaning. 1) What world thinks of you based on your interaction with the world. World treats you as body or engineer/doctor based on your profession. 2) What you think of yourself – I am smart, I am suffering etc. 3) The real ‘you’ – which is Consciousness. Of these three levels of meaning level 1 and 2 are relative and keep changing. The real ‘you’ never changes. The real ‘you’ is existence-consciousness-bliss (sat-chit-ananda).
The teaching ‘here and now’ enlightenment is about real you. Real ‘you’ is never changing – eternal Now. Real you is like background screen of a movie. Screen never changes while movie of world keeps changing. The movie of world is called Maya. In any scene of the movie, screen is available in the background all the time – Here and Now. Seeking enlightenment is happening in movie. The character in movie is trying to find screen in the movie by doing lot of spiritual practice. In other words, he is trying to find the screen in the movie-time without realizing the screen is always there Here and Now in all the scenes of movie.
It is true that enlightened beings had some experiences. For example Buddha did intense spiritual practice. He stopped taking food. He became very weak. He fell down into a small river stream. He got his sanity. He realized that punishing body is not needed for enlightenment. He accepted food that day from a lady called Sujata. He sat silently – his seeking for enlightenment had stopped. He had reached home – Here and Now. That was his awakening.
We need to understand the value of experiences in spiritual domain. All experiences are in the domain of Maya. The Maya of movie is playing on the screen. Experiences can shake you from your deep rooted notion/belief system about the reality of movie. In our dream, we may see a tiger and get scared and then wake up. If we say waking up is reality, the value of tiger is causing the scare in the dream which is triggering waking up. They may appear as cause and effect. In reality the consciousness of the waker was not at all effected by the dream – like screen not affected by movie.
Any experience is not enlightenment – however profound it may be. Enlightenment is your nature. Experiences are temporary. SELF nature is eternal. Enlightenment is not a new experience. Enlightenment is recognition of eternal awareness which is background of all changing experiences.
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