Enchantress said:Intellectual enlightenment and suffering
Last night, someone really hurt my feelings. When I woke up this morning, I found myself completely stuck in a "dualistic" perspective, and honestly, I couldn't find any way out. I tried everything—trying to manually "click" back into awareness, attempting to recall all those previous "insights" and "knowledge," focusing hard, breathing, practicing... Nothing worked! Then panic set in—I genuinely thought I’d be trapped there forever. Eventually, things slowly settled, and I realized that as the day progressed, I would be capable of "clicking" back at any moment. This isn't the first time an emotional shock has knocked me right back into that dualistic viewpoint.
Now I’m wondering—what kind of realization is it if a simple physical hormonal imbalance can disrupt it? It's intellectual, obviously. But then again, maybe intellectual insight isn't actually "insight" in the true sense of the word.
Real intellectual insight is what Raman talks about when he says you'll shed 90% of the weight from your shoulders, because that insight is essentially a realization of the non-existence of free will. Once someone understands that free will doesn't exist—that it's just an illusion—their entire view of reality and existence changes completely. But...
Everything happens on its own, including this intellectual insight. It either happens or it doesn't. Just like "true" realization. It arrives exactly how it arrives, and it can leave just as easily. That's exactly what happened to me this morning. Remembering an insight is not the same thing as experiencing the insight itself. An insight is only valuable if you can "summon" it into your consciousness at any given moment or simply live within it. What if that insight just vanishes one day? What if we fall back into the hell of a "personalized consciousness" with no way out? Or—what if everything just stays like this? What does that even mean?
Having an intellectual insight leaves a person eternally split in two. One part is dualistic, the other is not, and both sides pull the individual in opposite directions. If you spend your whole life with one foot in and one foot out, your suffering remains eternal. To fully withdraw "there" while remaining equally active "here" might only be possible after spending a long time "there"—but none of us can manage that given our actual lives, since we are so actively engaged "here" on every level.
And what kind of realization is it where "here" and "there" still exist, where I am still "shifting perspectives" and "clicking"? True realization is where there is no "here" or "there," no shifting, and no clicking—ever.
Have we actually gained anything through this insight? Does it even make sense to draw others into it if we ourselves can't handle it and don't know what it will ultimately become within us? Maybe it disappears forever one day, and then what was the point of having it at all? Will we just end up speaking empty words?
I don't even know what I've just written, but I wanted to share it all with you guys...
That is exactly what I was trying to convey by using those old, worn-out words: "emptying the mind."
Only when a person empties their mind using "certain methods" do they enter Samadhi or Zen (Samadhi is a state of an undisturbed, empty, pure mind, and it doesn't matter who or what enters it; don't get hung up on words and concepts by taking them literally or trying to grasp them with the intellect) and then nothing can touch them anymore because they transcend duality and all worldly connections.
Now, that state isn't something you achieve; it is always there, and it is our true nature. Everything else is just personalization, ego, ego trips—call it whatever you want. How do you reach that state? People suggest meditation, fasting, prayer, and so on...
But it's all nonsense; I've tried it all.
Samadhi arrives—or rather, it is revealed—only when a person clears their mind of programming, habits, customs, and cultural or national identities... You have to be like a small child.
That's why Jesus said in his mystical teaching: "Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
I don't need drugs, fasting, studying, or anything else; I've tried it all and seen that they can help, some more than others... So, how do you empty the mind? And what does "emptying the mind" actually mean?
We all enter this world fully enlightened, and truthfully, we remain so even now. The only real variable is how much an individual recognizes their true essence versus how much they’ve become lost in their ego-driven persona. There has to be a balance! Think of the ego as a tool—it's meant to be used, not discarded. You can't have one without the other. But you absolutely must stay aware of your fundamental nature; otherwise, everything feels like an uphill battle and we just end up running in circles.
I personally became aware of my immortal nature when I was only five years old. Even then, I knew I wasn't just this physical body or this little ego-personality.
As life goes on, however, the mind tends to get cluttered. That’s when you have to sit down and start clearing out the mental junk. I like to call it "mental decluttering."
Essentially, whether you were raised in a strict Christian household, grew up under socialist ideals, or were brought up in an atheist or Muslim environment—you have to toss that baggage aside!
After that, comes the practice of short mantras. I’m not talking about repeating a single word a hundred times like a parrot! It’s much simpler than that. You just state it clearly and firmly: I am not my body.
Try a new mantra: Who am I? Or perhaps: Am I truly my anger or my pain?
You can do this occasionally—maybe once a day or even once a week. Don't force it! Everything flows naturally once a person finally lets go. It becomes like an unstoppable avalanche.
For instance, I couldn't stop the "Who am I?" mantra even if I had wanted to! You’ll see—once it starts coming to you spontaneously, there’s no stopping it.