Jed McKenna - Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

S PIRITUAL E NLIGHTENMENT

The Damnedest Thing

Jed McKenna

To Lulu, with love.

Contents

Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? 63

Selections from S ONG OF M YSELF

Who is to judge? 207 3 3 No-Self is True-Self 216

Why Not? 244 Epilogue 246 About the Author 248 Bibliography 249

E-Book Bonus Content

^ Preview Chapter: Recipe for Failure 250

^ Dr. Pillay's interview with Jed McKenna 268

Vitam inpendere vero.

Stake life upon truth.

Juvenal

That which cannot be simpler.

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.

Walt Whitman

She has just finished enumerating for me the many facets of her spiritual journey and is now looking to me for a response; hopefully approval, perhaps even praise. I don't really take pleasure in dashing the hopes of pretty young ladies, but that's my job. I'm the enlightened guy.

"So, the reason you're doing all these things," I count them off on my fingers, "meditating; praying; chanting; yoga; vegetarianism; attending darshan and satsang with realized beings; donating money to Greenpeace, Amnesty International and Free Tibet; reading classical spiritual literature; purifying yourself; abstaining from sex and so on. The reason for all this is what?"

She just stares back at me mutely as if the answer is too obvious to need stating, but it does need stating. I want it out here in front of us where we can examine it and poke at it with our pointy little brains.

"Well, you know," she begins, still not quite believing I actually want her to state something so obvious. "Spiritual growth, I guess. I want to, uh, you know, be a better person and be able to love more deeply and, you know, raise my vibrational... you know."

I'm hanging on every word. "Your vibrational what?"

"Uh, frequency? I want to, you know, raise my level of consciousness, to be more in touch with, you know, my inner self, my higher

self. I want to open myself up to the divine energy that's, you know, everywhere."

"Oh, okay. Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why everything you just said. Why do you want to raise your levels and be in touch and open yourself up and all that?"

"Well, you know... spiritual, uh, enlightenment." Ahhh

"Okay, is that it? You want to be enlightened?"

She looks at me like it's a trick question, but it's notit's the first question. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Where's this going? If you know, you'll succeed. If you don't, you won't. That's not just pretty talk, that's the law.

"Yeah, I guess so."

I smile reassuringly. "Good. So, the reason you do all this stuff is to become enlightenedto achieve spiritual enlightenment. Does that sound about right?"

A pause. "Yeah... I guess."

"Well, let's just spend a few minutes talking about it and see if we can make it any clearer. What do you think spiritual enlightenment is?"

She's giving me the big eyes again, but now a bit of perplexity seeps in. It was so obvious a moment ago that it hardly needed asking. Now it's becoming a little fuzzy.

"Uh, like God... God mind... unity, you know, unity consciousness?"

It's always like this with new students. They do the student thing, I do the teacher thing. I'm never quite sure why they came or when they'll go. The whole process is equal parts fulfillment and frustration. I talk, they listen. They ask, I answer. I speak, they... who knows? They something.

How my words are received or what becomes of them after they leave my lips is beyond my ability to control. I speak, that's all. The words flow like song and soothe me. That's my thing. Nodding and maintaining a facial expression that conveys interest and receptive- ness is her thing. I'm into the speakinginto my words and how well they represent the underlying ideas. It would be nice to believe that my words were clicking in her mind like the beads of an abacus, but I know they're not and I'm comfortable with that. "Act, but don't reflect on the fruit of the act," said Krishna to Arjuna. Sign me up.

"It's very simple," I tell her. "Enlightenment is truth-realization. Not only is truth simple, it's that which cannot be simplercannot be further reduced."

I can see from her expression that that got us nowhere. My bad. I have a copy of the Gita on the table between us. I open it at random with the intention of finding a passage well-suited to the subject I'm discussing.

Works every time. Gratitude permeates me as I read her this statement by Krishna:

"I am come as Time, the ultimate waster of people, ready for the hour that ripens to their doom. The warriors, arrayed in hostile armies facing each other, shall not live, whether you strike or stay your hand."

I fall silent as layers of meaning wash through me one after another and my appreciation causes a swelling in my chest. "Wonderful," I think. "Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful."

The young girl before me nods, understanding the words at whatever level she is able. She knows that the words are spoken by Krishna and that he is speaking to Arjuna, the mighty warrior who has thrown down his arms rather than signal the beginning of a war that will surely scorch the earth and his own family to ash. She knows that Krishna is revealing to Arjuna the truth of how the world unfolds, and she knows that at the end of this conversationthe

Bhagavad GitaArjuna's delusion will be dispelled and he will launch the battle.

But that's probably as far as her knowledge goes. I doubt she identifies herself with Arjuna, paralyzed by confusion at the start of the Gita. I doubt she equates enlightenment with the direct experience of reality in its infinite form. I doubt she knows that in her own life war is coming and that she is a breath away from giving the signal that will spark the conflagration that will incinerate her world. I look at this young girl and I know she has no idea where this road really leads.

I smile.

"Unity consciousness is great," I say, and she looks relieved. "Mystical union, being at one with the universe, the direct experience of the infinite. Bliss, ecstasya taste of heaven. Beyond time, beyond space, beyond the ability of any words to describe. The peace that surpasseth all understanding."

"Wow," she says, aptly. Her name is Sarah. She's young, early twenties, and I've just pushed all of her spirituality buttons. If I were a guru, that would be my full time job. I shudder at the thought.

"Yeah," she rides on it, "that's exactly..."

"But that's not enlightenment."

"Oh."

"Enlightenment isn't when you go there, it's when there comes here. It's not a place you visit and then remember wistfully and try to return to. It's not a visit to the truth, it's the awakening of truth within you. It's not a fleeting state of consciousness, it's permanent truth-realizationabiding non-dual awareness. It's not a place you visit from here, this is a place you visit from there. For instance, I myself am enlightened, right here, right now. I am free of delusion and unbound by ego, and although I have had the great fortune of experiencing mystical union on several occasions, I am not presently in that state and I have no plans to return to it. Nobody resides in a state of permanent bliss, Sarah, that's just something out of a sales

pitch."

"Whoa..." she manages.

"What I'm trying to do here, Sarah, is get you back to square one. You've started offjust like everyone doesin one direction, but enlightenment is in another. What you have to do now is figure out what you really want. Do you want to dedicate your life to the pursuit of the experience of mystical consciousness? Or do you want to wake up to the truth of your being?"

She spends a few moments thinking about it, and then impresses me with her answer.