Stages to Enlightenment

1. Answers. 
At first answers and descriptions come up. These are mere answers and do not change anything. “Well what I am is an architect, that’s what I do , that ‘s what I am.”

2. Intellectualism and logic 
Looking deeper turning to education and logic for the solution. “I’m looking out at you from in here, so I must be some kind of an entity existing behind my eyeballs somehow…”  These do not produce a fundamental change of consciousness.

3. Memories.
Memories of childhood, old lovers other times. “I’m remembering how my mother used to stand in the kitchen, near the stove, I have this image of her there….”  Useful to communicate but this is not enlightenment.

4. Insights and releases.
Encountering inner restraints and fears, insights come. New realizations about life and neurotic patterns. Sometimes these come quietly or with deep emotional releases. “Oh God, I’ve just been trying to live for my parents! When do I get to live for me?” Or “You know, I think I talk too much. I think I talk to avoid feeling what’s really going on inside me.”     These have real therapeutic value. Whole layers of mental and emotional tension begin to fall away. Some will feel lighter, more emotionally released, more in your body. But these are not different from a counseling session or other means. These are not enlightenment.

5. Trying to see the Truth.
While trying to see the Truth, making efforts to locate the actuality of oneself, life or another, we tend to look, either into the inner space of mind or outwardly.  It’s natural. “Where am I/ Ah! I’m behind my eyeballs! Okay, I’ll go look there. Nope. I’m not there anymore, now I’m the one looking at the space behind my eyeballs. I am the looker! I need to somehow jump into the me that’s looking”.  This is called ‘chasing’  It is an inner search to locate the source of oneself at an experiential level.

6. No – Man’s land. 
Eventually people reach an unusual place of nothingness, where no thoughts are happening in the mind and nothing seems important. Contemplating, nothing comes up. “I can’t believe it, there’s nothing happening in my mind. I’m sitting here, aware… but I contemplate and nothing comes up. I’m just looking into empty space.” This is not enlightenment. One must stay with the technique and give up trying to see yourself. Just keep trying to directly experience the one who is conscious of the nothing.

7.Phenomena. 
2nd day people begin to experience phenomena such as heat in the body or mild visual distortions. It’s tempting to want alleviate this from occurring or you may think you should stop the process. Just ask ‘Who is feeling the heat. Who is the seer of the distortions. Go only for that. Who are you!

8. Emotions. 
The room can become filled with emotions. Laughter, crying, deep contemplation, apathy.

9. Serenity. 
Profound states of serenity, experiencing a trouble free inner peace “ I  feel such an inner stillness. I just feel at peace with everything. I could stay here forever.”  This is attractive and one tend to want to sit in this and stop contemplating. This is called the ‘cave of satan” It is a state so comfortable that , like a drug, it can lull the contemplator into complacency or, worse, into thinking the goal has been achieved.

10. Crisis and ego death 
3rd day, some fall into despair or acute fear of a new kind. These crises involves a  kind of battle between what the ego wants and how things actually are. For example, the ego may want to make enlightenment happen, but it can’t. Many an ego goes to its dying breath kicking and screaming in despair over this point. This crisis may also be associated with some core existential issue, “If I go a any further, I’ll die, or go crazy, or be annihilated, or be abandoned”.  People are challenged now, Do you really want Truth, or do you want to back off?

11. Enlightenment 
When someone breaks through, he or she will speak from a place so essential that the inner light of the pure individual comes forth into the room s if from another world. They speak with an inner authenticity with both depth and lightness, magically mixed together and based on their direct experience of reality.