If someone wrote to me the kind of letter I wrote to the Zen Master after my first big woo woo experience, here is what I would write back:
You had an enlightenment experience. Well, that's wonderful, and it's worth celebrating. You've had a glimpse behind the veil, so you now know that time, space, thingness, and selfhood are illusions, and that everything is connected. You now know that oneness lies behind all seeming separateness. However, it is very easy to get attached to such an experience because when it occurs, it is usually accompanied by an enormous release of endorphins and other brain chemicals that produce a super high. Many people report that their enlightenment experience was the most wonderful experience of their entire life. This is what you need to understand:
An enlightenment experience, no matter how wonderful, is just an experience, so it has a beginning and an end. Although one or two people have had such massive experiences they never came back to "normal," that doesn't happen to most people. An enlightenment experience is like hitting the "clear" button on a calculator. Temporarily all of the brain's circuitry gets reset to zero, and everything "known" gets erased. All of your past ideas collapse, you disappear as a separate entity, and there is only oneness. Oneness feels great, and you're on top of the world, but your old habits of mind soon return. You're used to living in the past and future and thinking about yourself all the time. As these kinds of thoughts return, "your" enlightenment dissipates. "You" try to hold onto oneness, but it slips away despite "your" best efforts. Eventually, you come back to "normal," which means that you go back to thinking about yourself, thinking about the world around you, fantasizing, reflecting, judging, cognizing, etc.
If you want to return to oneness and live in oneness, you have to forget the past and future and attend what is happening now. In the deepest sense you have to leave selfhood behind by focusing so strongly on "what is" (THIS) that "you" disappear into "what is." You have to attend "what is" until you discover that there are not two here. Who you really are IS "what is."
To disappear into oneness you have to interact with the world like a little child, in total innocence. You have to quit eating from the tree of knowledge and return to not-knowing. You have to focus on what is happening in the moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. By continually shifting attention from thoughts to what you can see or hear you will gradually leave the world of the known behind and enter a world of dynamic mystery.
Who you are is the changeless field of all being. The field is aware, intelligent, and infinite. It includes all that IS, seen and unseen. Who you THINK you are, is a figment of imagination, a story, a collection of images, a habit of thought, and an illusion. If attention remains upon what is seen, heard, felt, etc. structures of thought will collapse, and oneness will continue without an imaginary observer.
Your enlightenment experience gave you a temporary glimpse of life without selfhood. The experience was spectacular because you were shaken violently out of a mind-dominated world and thrust into a new and unknown world free of the mind. Now that experience is in the past; it's a memory. The truth, however, has not changed. Who you are is the field within which all worlds appear. Put attention upon what is happening now, and sooner or later you will discover that the oneness you momentarily glimpsed during your enlightenment experience is all there is. Who you think you are will cease to exist, and oneness will continue as it is. Remember, ordinary life lived like a child in an eternal NOW is what your enlightenment experience gave you a momentary glimpse of. Now, take attention away from the memory of that experience, and put it upon what is happening now. Whatever is happening now is the way.
You had an enlightenment experience. Well, that's wonderful, and it's worth celebrating. You've had a glimpse behind the veil, so you now know that time, space, thingness, and selfhood are illusions, and that everything is connected. You now know that oneness lies behind all seeming separateness. However, it is very easy to get attached to such an experience because when it occurs, it is usually accompanied by an enormous release of endorphins and other brain chemicals that produce a super high. Many people report that their enlightenment experience was the most wonderful experience of their entire life. This is what you need to understand:
An enlightenment experience, no matter how wonderful, is just an experience, so it has a beginning and an end. Although one or two people have had such massive experiences they never came back to "normal," that doesn't happen to most people. An enlightenment experience is like hitting the "clear" button on a calculator. Temporarily all of the brain's circuitry gets reset to zero, and everything "known" gets erased. All of your past ideas collapse, you disappear as a separate entity, and there is only oneness. Oneness feels great, and you're on top of the world, but your old habits of mind soon return. You're used to living in the past and future and thinking about yourself all the time. As these kinds of thoughts return, "your" enlightenment dissipates. "You" try to hold onto oneness, but it slips away despite "your" best efforts. Eventually, you come back to "normal," which means that you go back to thinking about yourself, thinking about the world around you, fantasizing, reflecting, judging, cognizing, etc.
If you want to return to oneness and live in oneness, you have to forget the past and future and attend what is happening now. In the deepest sense you have to leave selfhood behind by focusing so strongly on "what is" (THIS) that "you" disappear into "what is." You have to attend "what is" until you discover that there are not two here. Who you really are IS "what is."
To disappear into oneness you have to interact with the world like a little child, in total innocence. You have to quit eating from the tree of knowledge and return to not-knowing. You have to focus on what is happening in the moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. By continually shifting attention from thoughts to what you can see or hear you will gradually leave the world of the known behind and enter a world of dynamic mystery.
Who you are is the changeless field of all being. The field is aware, intelligent, and infinite. It includes all that IS, seen and unseen. Who you THINK you are, is a figment of imagination, a story, a collection of images, a habit of thought, and an illusion. If attention remains upon what is seen, heard, felt, etc. structures of thought will collapse, and oneness will continue without an imaginary observer.
Your enlightenment experience gave you a temporary glimpse of life without selfhood. The experience was spectacular because you were shaken violently out of a mind-dominated world and thrust into a new and unknown world free of the mind. Now that experience is in the past; it's a memory. The truth, however, has not changed. Who you are is the field within which all worlds appear. Put attention upon what is happening now, and sooner or later you will discover that the oneness you momentarily glimpsed during your enlightenment experience is all there is. Who you think you are will cease to exist, and oneness will continue as it is. Remember, ordinary life lived like a child in an eternal NOW is what your enlightenment experience gave you a momentary glimpse of. Now, take attention away from the memory of that experience, and put it upon what is happening now. Whatever is happening now is the way.
