Advaita Vedanta on Enlightenment
Hi:) The weekend is a great time to deepen and expand your practice, as you have a chance to explore the inner recesses of the mind with greater awareness and freedom. Our normal life is sometimes so filled with activity that there is no space left for us to reside in our vast inner silence and Witnessing Consciousness. So, to inspire you all to further your spiritual progress, let’s point out what needs to be done in order for spiritual enlightenment to happen.Here is a wonderful explanation from the profound Master of Advaita Vedanta and Non-Duality Jean Klein. The excerpt is from his book The Ease of Being and this guidance will certainly help point you straight towards enlightenment and your true Self.
Author: Jean Klein
Book: The Ease of Being
Page 28
Question: Then how does this transformation, this integration happen?
Answer By Jean:
The mind must come to a state of silence, completely empty of fear, longing and all images. This cannot be brought about by suppression, but by observing every feeling and though without qualification, condemnation, judgment, or comparison. If unmotivated alertness is to operate the censor must disappear. There must simply be a quiet looking at what composes the mind. In discovering the facts just as they are, agitation is eliminated, the movement of thoughts becomes slow and we can watch each thought, its cause and content as it occurs. We become aware of every thought in its completeness and in this totality there can be no conflict. Then only alertness remains, only silence in which there is neither observer nor observed. So do not force your mind. Just watch its various movements as you would look at flying birds. In this uncluttered looking all your experiences surface and unfold. For unmotivated seeing not only generates tremendous energy but frees all tension, all the various layers of inhibitions. You see the whole of yourself.
Observing everything with full attention becomes a way of life, a return to your original and natural meditative being.
Advaita View on How to Bring about Enlightenment:
So this weekend make some time to try this for yourself. Try to remain as a simple innocent witness to all that is happening in your mind and life. Surrender to just this watching/listening aspect of yourself. Understand the limitations of what the mind can do and don’t try to force situations. Stop running and chasing after things and instead just look at things just the way they are and understand them quietly. Watch all feelings and thoughts, as best as you can, as they arise and let them run their course. Enlightenment, your true non-dual nature, is only a silent whisper away.
