un-enlightenment & enlightenment

One of the most common questions that a seeker asks is: ‘How will I know when I am enlightened?’ And whilst this question is in the mind, it indicates that the seeker is still living in the mind, still concerned with the mental understanding of life, with the concept of life, the concept of enlightenment, knowledge, how one defines oneself, knowledge about the world and about oneself. This is the stuff of the mind, and whilst our energy is focused on these mental ideas, including the idea of enlightenment, then we can be sure that we are living in an unenlightened way. And during such period, there is a duality between the way we are living our life, the unenlightened way, and the way of the lucky ones, the enlightened ones, and the enlightened way of life. But it is not matter of understanding. It is not a matter of knowing whether one is enlightened or not.

This duality – between the unenlightened state and the enlightened state – can only really collapse and disappear when we are no longer concerned with mental understandings, when the thoughts in the mind are no longer where we are really living life. For the enlightened ones are living directly, and thoughts, ideas, understandings about life are felt as rather insignificant, secondary. They can be useful at times but they are not of primary importance. They are not the primary reality of life. And at this point, the idea of enlightenment really disappears, and with it, of course, the idea of un-enlightenment disappears.

This duality between un-enlightenment and enlightenment exists only in the mind. It is in fact the generic way of the mind to create such dualities. And so when we are no longer living with the mind and the mental understandings as our primary reality, this distinction disappears, and really we could say there’s no such thing as un-enlightenment or enlightenment. But that, by definition, is the enlightened way of living in the world.

So once this great transformation in our life has come about, we are no longer concerned with whether we are enlightened or unenlightened. We no longer need to know whether we are enlightened or unenlightened. This is perhaps the last duality to disappear, for the disappearance of this duality is indicating the disappearance of the whole dualistic way of thinking, at least as a way of life, as a way of living in the world. So if you are ready, allow it to happen: allow this duality to drop away, and live in the world directly, simply, without such ideas as enlightenment and un-enlightenment.