Why Am I Not Enlightened Yet?

Enlightenment is the recognition of our essential nature of ever-present, unlimited Awareness. It is not a new experience but rather something we have simply overlooked due to our fascination with the drama of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.

Video Transcript

It's just the frustration I have of, you know, doing these sorts of things for 40 years now, and not being awake. And you know, a lot of the time it's okay. But some of the times like the last couple of days, it's not okay,

You're not awake? 

You know what I mean, the shift you talked about this morning, that ‘aah this is the way it is’. I would settle for that. It doesn't have to be dramatic. I mean, I've read a lot of books about the dramatic that's really what I want. But you know, I'll settle for the *sigh* for now, I have those in small increments. I'm not saying I don't have any, I'm just, I'm just explaining to you what's happening with me. I just feel a need to say it. I just want to hit my head on the wall and say ‘Wake up, wake up’. I'm just so sick of this illusory, separate one. And as you just said, serving her I mean, I'm exhausted. You know, I'm getting old. I'm getting tired. And this has been my main focus for 40 years. And you did say once to me, the desire for liberation is important, but I know that hitting my head against the wall, is not very productive. So fact of life is in there somewhere.

You're still expecting something to happen? 

Unfortunately, yes. 

That's the problem. You still conceive of enlightenment as a marvellous event? Okay, you're you're you've agreed to settle for not so marvellous event. Right. But nevertheless, you still want quite a nice event. Something? Just, yeah, just something just some you still want something? That's it, that that's the problem. I know enlightenment is not an event. It's not a marvellous event. It's not a mundane event. It's not any kind of an event. It's not something that happens.

A shift. I've heard it explained. It's a shift.

Even that is to say too much,

But that's an event.

Oh, no, it's not even an event. It's not, it's not that that's just it's a concession to the inadequacies of language to call it a shift or an event. Let's say you're watching TV, and you're watching a movie. And you're looking at our favourite view, the landscape. And someone comes in and says to you look at the screen. What do you do?

Well, if there's something on the screen, I can't really see the screen unless there’s no image there. Or I can see through it.

when you're looking at a TV, the TV's off yet, you just look at the blank TV, you're seeing the screen. You turn the movie on, the screen doesn't disappear. You're still looking at the screen. But the screen now appears as a landscape. You get involved in the movie, it's a wonderful film, you get totally involved in it. You forget that you're seeing a screen, you think that you're seeing a landscape. So your friend comes in and says, your friend says to you what you looking at? What do you see? And you say I've seen this marvellous landscape. And your friend says to look at the screen, are you not already seeing the screen? Were you not already looking at it?

In the form of the landscape.

Yes it but it's the same screen. It's exactly the same screen that was there. Before you turned the movie on. It appears now it's taken the shape of a landscape but it's still the same screen. The screen hasn't disappeared yet. So would you say that it was a new screen? to see the screen was a new event? Is it a marvellous experience in the movie?

Not in that metaphor, no

No. Does the screen even show up in the movie? No. What you're looking for is an event in the movie. You're still subtly imagining that enlightenment is a wonderful or even a not so wonderful event in the movie and as long as you're looking for it in the movie, you're going to seem not to be seeing the screen. Because your attention is focused on objects. So what do you have to do to see the screen?

In that metaphor, nothing.

Yes, that the screen is not something new that comes in enlightenment is not something that is new. It's not something that was lost, and now has to be found. At best, and even this is not quite true. But at best we could say it was overlooked. 

Due to our fascination with the drama in the movie, that is the drama of the body, mind and world. Due to our fascination, our exclusive fascination with these appearances, we seem to have lost sight of that reality the screen. And as a result of that, we think, Oh, I must go looking for it. And off we go around the world, visiting teachers and ashrams and everything, we go on this terrific journey around the world, which is like the character in the movie, searching for the screen. 

So now you are searching going the equivalent in your life as you are looking, travelling your character in the movies travelling around the world looking for the screen, in other words, you are looking in the mind and the body, in your case, not in the world, but in the mind in the body for some special experience, which is, ah, that's it. That's the shift. That's the event. Now I'm on the other side of the fence. There isn't a fence that you've finally cross to get to enlightenment. Enlightenment is like the moment you recognise the screen in the movie. And the moment you recognise it simultaneous with that recognition, you recognise, oh, I was always seeing the screen. I never really ceased seeing the screen. But only because of my fascination with the drama in the movie that it seemed to be absence the screen. And as a result of that apparent absence, I went off out into the world searching for it.

It's, it's, I was always the screen, right? I mean, that's the next step.

Yes, you have never for a fraction of a second ceased being the presence of awareness, the unlimited, ever present awareness. You have never ceased to be that.

I feel that more and more but that this illusory, separate self sometimes she's kind of melting away and becoming more vague, you know? And I go, Oh, wow, great, you start to disappear.

Why do you want her to disappear?

She’s miserable sometimes. 

What you're saying. So the equivalent in, in our metaphor of what you're saying is I, you're watching this period drama, there are lots of characters, and there's one woman in the movie wondering that you don't like what you're saying is, until that woman gets out of the movie, I can't see the screen. Only when she leaves the movie, only then will I notice the screen. That's what you're saying?

Well, as you said earlier, all the energy that is that is spent on her to no avail.

But whose problem is she that does fit for the screen is that is this troublesome woman in the movie a problem? She might be a problem for one of the other characters.

Right! Part of her own cell.

But she's not a problem for the screen. In fact, awareness doesn't have problems and doesn't know problems. Why? Because in order for there to be a problem, there needs to be resistance. There needs to be the ‘I don't like this’. That's what makes a situation a problem. But awareness is like empty space. It's never saying to the current experience, ‘I don't like you’. And therefore she doesn't have problems. So it's not saying Oh, my horrible separate self needs to be got rid of I'm fed up with her. The AI that is fed up with her is another form of herself. In other words, the separate self is perpetuating itself by trying to get rid of itself, right. And so you're caught in a in this mind from which you are understandably tired. have tried to get rid of yourself. ‘I, the separate self’ want to get rid of myself so that ‘I, the separate self’ can experience enlightenment. And you're going round and round and round and you're rightly frustrated and disheartened, because you're engaged in a never ending endeavour, which is perpetuating the separate self by trying to get rid of it. Just see the situation clearly. You cannot get rid of an illusion.

You know, I see all that.

Really none of it took to really see it right would bring that endeavour to an end? Because what do you have to do to get rid of the, the landscape? That you're watching it, you can't do anything? Because the landscapes not really there? What can you do to an illusion? What do you need to do to an illusion? Just to see that it's an illusion. Don't spend your life trying to get rid of an illusion, it's a waste of a lifetime. 

What I mean by trying to get rid of it is seeing it as an illusion that to me what you just said, but I also see that.

Okay. So now to see that what you are is not a separate limited self. Is it not clear to you now that you are the one that is aware of your experience? Okay, now, if you were to turn your attention towards that one, where do you go? if you were, can you even turn towards it? Which direction? So how can it be separate or limited? If you can't find it as any kind of an object? You answered both those questions from your experience that was obviously true.

So if you cannot find the awareness that you know yourself to be if you don't know where to look for it, how do you know that it has a limit, or that it is separate? Only an object could be limited or separate? Exactly. You don't know that? Right there. Right there in that understanding? And I can see you're answering these questions from understanding not because you've read books. Right there is the knowledge that what you are, it has no limit.

Just live what you understand. Take your stand there. That one, that awareness is always wide awake. The Enlightenment is not for awareness. Awareness is already the light. That illumines all experience that makes all experience knowable. It cannot be enlightened, what would enlighten it? It is already the light that makes experience knowable.

One definition of awakening, I've heard this awareness recognises itself.

Are you aware right now? Yes? Okay, how do you know you're aware? Why did you want to see? How come? You answered yes to that question.

It's self evident.

It's self evident. And what is it to whom is it self evident that awareness that you are aware to itself? Right, there is the experience of awareness, being aware of itself? That's it. It never gets better than that. 

You were the one that quite rightly defined enlightenment as awareness, being aware of itself. And then I asked you the question, are you aware? And from your own intimate experience? You answered Yes. In other words, ‘I, awareness am aware that I am aware’, nothing else can be aware that I'm aware. In other words, enlightenment is a fancy name.

For the most simple, the most ordinary, the most well known experience, there is and all 7 billion of us know it, however, because it cannot be found by the mind. In most cases, it is deemed missing. And as a result of that, the peace and the happiness that are inherent in it are also considered missing. And hence the imaginary self goes off into the world in search for the missing piece and happiness. And as we all know, it doesn't live there. Where does it live in the simple knowing of our own being, it's knowing of itself that is awarenesses awareness, of awareness and it is your innermost experience at all times, it's just, it's not a new experience, it's not something that has been lost and has to be found.

At worst, we could say it has been overlooked. Apparently, the screen has been overlooked due to our exclusive fascination with the body, the mind and the world. All that’s necessary, is just to relax the focus of your attention from the body, mind and world don't, you don't have to get rid of them just just cease being exclusively focused on and just let's like just withdrawing your attention is like putting the camera slightly out of focus. And your attention flows back to its source, which is yourself, you just stand as this space of awareness and you just let the body, the mind and the world do whatever they've been conditioned to do just let them flow by.

So I was gonna ask you what you meant more by stand.

To stand as awareness.

I'll just say something about that. The suggestion to stand as awareness would seem to be given to someone who is not presently standing as awareness, and who might do so in the future. So to say that is a concession to the belief that we are a separate self. It doesn't really make sense. But it's sometimes used in the context of the conversation, what would be more accurate would be to say, Be knowingly, the presence of awareness. The reason I say knowing is just to say be the presence of awareness. You already are that. You've never been anything other than eternal, infinite awareness. So hence, be knowingly that know that you are that that's what I mean by take your stand as that.

Yeah, I can feel that I know, I know what you mean. 

You can't actually be anything other than that another way. Another way of saying it would be just notice that you are that instead of mistaking yourself for a cluster of thoughts and feelings, just notice Oh, no. I'm the one that is aware of those. I'm not a cluster of thoughts and feelings, all these flow by but I'm not flowing by I'm just always here. I would recommend really forgetting about enlightenment.

I don't think that's going to happen

But you know what I mean? Forgetting about enlightenment because of this tendency you have to conceive of it as an event.

Yeah, I know. I stopped reading all those dangerous books

You don't have to read any more books. Another question to ask yourself is just to look for that which is ever present in your experience. And just stay with that just look in all experience for for that which is always there it's looking for the screen in the movie. You don't have to look for it. It's actually it's it's staring itself in the face. What is always present in experience just the knowing of it this knowing runs through all experience. That's it just be with that just allow that to come from the background into the foreground.

Yeah, I experienced that more and more, so I know what you mean

About Rupert Spira

From an early age Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the age of seventeen he learnt to meditate, and began studying and practicing the teachings of the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India, which he continued for the next twenty years. During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P.D.Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path teachings of Atmanada Krishnamenon; Jean Klein and the tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism; and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience.

In his meetings, Rupert explores the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mystical Christianity, Sufism, Zen etc., and which is also the direct, ever-present reality of our own experience. This is a contemporary, experiential approach involving silent meditation, guided meditation and conversation, and requires no affiliation to any particular religious or spiritual tradition. All that is required is an interest in the essential nature of experience, and in the longing for love, peace and happiness around which most of our lives revolve.

Rupert is the author of nine books, with his most recent book, Being Myself, published this year.