Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hebert, Barbara, "The Journey to Enlightenment" Quest 109:1, pg 10-11

Barbara Hebert
National President

The theme for this issue is Enlightenment, a pertinent topic for our times.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines to enlighten as “to furnish knowledge; give spiritual insight to.” The prefix en- means in or into. Combining it with light, we come up with the definition of leading into the light. 

According to some traditions, the Buddha gained enlightenment overnight. It is unlikely that most of us will reach it in this way, so it makes sense to talk about enlightenment as a journey, a process of increasing awareness and understanding of the reality of the world around us.

Enlightenment implies moving from darkness into the light. Much of humanity seems to be living in darkness, unaware of the Ultimate Reality and the unity of all beings. This state of nonknowing is called avidya. Living in this state, many experience fear and uncertainty. These feelings are then overlaid by anger. At this time in history, much of humanity seems to be experiencing anger, which is evident in divisive behavior and on occasion even erupts into violence. Therefore exploring the process that leads from avidya to enlightenment may provide understanding for us during difficult times.

A child who falls asleep may wake up in the night with the room shrouded in darkness. In this darkness, the child may see shadows and perceive scary things. The child cries out in distress. The parent enters the room and turns on the light. The light allows the child to see clearly and understand that those scary things were simply toys or stuffed animals. 

As we move into the light, we also gain perspective about what we originally perceived as frightening or overwhelming. As Paramahansa Yogananda says: “If you are in a dark room, don’t beat at the darkness with a stick, but rather try to turn on the light.” The example is simple, the statement is simple, and they make the entire process sound simple, but of course it’s not.

When we talk about enlightenment from a spiritual perspective, it is helpful to read the words of the Filipino Theosophist Vic Hao Chin on the website theosophy.world. He says that enlightenment is “the experience of illumination of the consciousness, accompanied by transcendent insights or realization. The experience of enlightenment is universally recognized in all major religious traditions, and in non-religious literature as well.”

A transcendent insight or realization does not mean that we have attained complete enlightenment such as was attained by the Buddha, but it does indicate that we are increasing our awareness and understanding. We are moving into the light.

Chin goes on to say:

 All the spiritual traditions are unanimous regarding the need for preliminary preparations before such a state of enlightenment can be attained. It requires the initial awakening of one’s intuition which leads to what in Christian literature is called the “divine discontent.” Then one goes through a process of search for the wisdom and the Path. When the Path is found, there is a need for purification or purgation of the lower self or personality which has been the subject of conditioning from the past and from society. Only after these are successfully done can the aspirant hope to enter into the gates of illumination and union. 

This journey will likely be somewhat different for each one of us. Clarifying and expanding upon our belief system is one way of turning on the light. This expansion brings about personal transformation. In his article in this issue, Ravi Ravindra writes about this work of moving toward the light, saying: “One common lesson of all the scriptures and teachings of the sages is that if I remain the way I am, I cannot come to the Truth or the Real or God. A radical transformation of the whole of my being is required.” 

Many people begin this transformative process through open-minded inquiry, exploration, and study, which provide a basis for expanding our awareness and understanding. We begin to look beyond what we think we know. This portion of our journey toward enlightenment is an exciting and stimulating time. We can almost feel our minds expand as we strive to grasp amazing new concepts and ideas.

The Voice of the Silence tells us that this portion of our journey encompasses movement through the Second Hall, the Hall of Learning. It is an essential part of our movement toward enlightenment; however, it is only part of the journey—not the end! Voice of the Silence warns us not to spend too much time in the Hall of Learning. “In it thy Soul will find the blossoms of life, but under every flower a serpent coiled . . . stop not the fragrance of its stupefying blossoms to inhale.” 

The Buddha shared the following parable about dependence upon structured ways of learning. He talked to his disciples about using a boat to cross a river. The boat is a metaphor for the learning that we believe will bring us to enlightenment. He reminds us that, like the boat, learning is a tool. It helps us for a portion of our journey, but once we have reached the other side of the river, it is no longer useful. We must leave the boat on the shore: this tool has taken us as far as it can. If we continue to carry it once we reach shore, it becomes an obstacle. It slows us down and becomes a burden as we continue on our journey. 

Learning is essential, but it can only take us so far. We study with an open mind. Through our study, the change begins. Not only do we purposefully begin to change the ways in which we live, think, and interact with others, but we also unconsciously change as our intuitive understanding grows. We begin to grasp the difference between the temporal and the permanent, between the Real and the unreal. Transformation begins to take place as we make these changes. 

What specific changes occur? They are probably different for each one of us and are likely to change through time. Some people may change the way they care for their physical bodies, making conscious decisions about eating, exercise, and so on. Others may realize that their emotions have been in charge for too long, while others may begin to recognize the conditioning that has affected their thought processes. We may realize that we have been acting, feeling, and thinking from a place of conditioning. We may begin to listen to the intuitive aspect of ourselves, relying on the inner voice from within. In other words, we are transforming all of the various aspects of ourselves. 

We are becoming aware that there is no need to seek the light, because we carry the light within us. We are becoming aware that each one of us is rooted in the All, the ground of being. From this perspective, we are never alone, never trapped, never shrouded in darkness. These are all aspects of avidya, the state of nonknowing, which is not a part of the Real.

We must travel from the state of avidya to an understanding and awareness that we are the light. This movement is a journey into ourselves. 

As Rumi said, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. The entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Goldsberry, Clare, "Members’ Forum: Enlightenment: Beyond Knowing" Quest 109:1, pg 12-13

By Clare Goldsberry

There is on the path a state or  of knowing in which enlightenment or cosmic consciousness often occurs. In this state, one moves from knowing everything that one believes to be true to a state of not knowing, or knowing nothing.

Zen master Shunryu Suzuki coined the term “beginner’s mind” for that state in which all possibilities exist and we are freed from the rigid bonds of knowing, which can be an obstacle to enlightenment. This state is beyond knowing in an intellectual sense, so that we suddenly know that we do not know.

In speaking of knowledge, many teachers refer to conventional knowledge: knowing about the world we live in and the objects that can be apprehended by our physical senses. The Hindu philosopher Sri Aurobindo says that this is only “a higher Ignorance,” since it stops short of the knowledge of absolute Reality. Conventional knowledge teaches that objects exist by their form and function. True knowledge—what Buddhists would call ultimate truth—is accessible only by those who have gone beyond the conventional knowledge of knowing about phenomena to the knowledge of how all phenomena truly exist.           

Philosopher Karl Jaspers, commenting on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, said that “knowledge can be deceptive. Knowledge inflates (if it is delusion) but knowledge which reaches to the very limits of knowledge makes for humility.” This is similar to Aurobindo’s teaching that knowledge is inflated ignorance.

The limit of knowledge is knowing that we do not know; going beyond knowledge and knowing to not knowing opens the path to freedom of experiencing any and all possibilities. Knowing makes us responsible because once one “knows,” one is beholden to that knowledge. In religion, it becomes a belief system. One who knows then becomes a slave to this knowledge. One who does not know is the master of Truth.

There’s a story of the African tribal chief who said to the Christian missionary, “Is it true that if I did not know about Jesus, I would not go to hell?”

“Yes, that is true,” the Christian missionary replied.

The chief looked at the missionary and asked, “Then why did you tell me?”

Knowledge is useful until it becomes an obstacle to the seeker. Lao Tzu said, “The farther you go, the less you know.” That is the way of the spiritual path. Zen Buddhist teacher Joan Tollifson said, “openness of non-knowing—the heart of how science works—is the heart of spiritual awakening”; it is “when the grasping mind relaxes” that we can be open to whatever comes.     

The spiritual search is pointless unless we unknow all we think we know about God, about the self, about Brahman, even about reality. As long as we cling to what we believe or know, we are never freed for the unknowing that leads to that higher gnostic experience. In his book about Meister Eckhart, Joel F. Harrington explained that Eckhart’s philosophy about achieving “direct experience of the divine” was not focused on any particular practice. Indeed the “pursuit was doomed until one abandoned all preconceptions about God Himself . . . To know the uncreated Creator directly required first unknowing the human-created God, a process known to theologians as the via negativa, or the negative way.”

Jaspers notes that knowledge can only be experienced in this world—in this “field of knowledge.” But that is not knowledge of being, which Kant says is impossible in this world. Aurobindo refers to this knowledge of being as gnosis. It is that which brings us to gnostic being, enabling us to live and act from the higher Mind.

The lower state of knowing is typically called intellectual knowledge; in Buddhism, it is called “conceptual” or “conditioned” knowledge, because it is the knowledge that we gain of the concepts of the physical universe that we have been conditioned to know since we were infants. Aurobindo calls this lower state of knowing “the Ignorance.” Typically, knowing involves thinking; our thoughts create the things we know and how we know them. But as the Buddhist teacher Christmas Humphreys said, “thought can never know, in the sense of immediate, direct awareness. Thinking must reach the end of thought before the next faculty takes over.”

Alexandra David-Neel, while studying in Tibet with Buddhist monks, learned of the doctrine of “going beyond” based on the Buddhist teaching of the Prajnaparamita. According to David-Neel, Prajnaparamita means something different to the Tibetans and Chinese than it did to the Hindus, from whom it was adopted. Tibetans translate that term as “excellent wisdom” or “highest wisdom.” For the Chinese it is “wisdom which has ‘gone beyond,’” according to the Prajnaparamita mantra:

            O Wisdom which has gone beyond,
            Gone beyond the beyond, to Thee homage.

Enlightenment enables us to see beyond duality in order to have truly gone beyond—beyond pairs of opposites, such as virtues and vices, good and bad. For it is in duality that we experience wrong seeing, delusions of samsara that keep us trapped. Going beyond also involves going beyond striving. David-Neel says that no one virtue, or even the practice of many virtues together, can bring liberation. All practices—particularly striving to be virtuous—are of the ego and therefore negate the goal. Ultimately there is no goal per se. By setting goals for our liberation and enlightenment, we are defining the path, and the path cannot be defined. The path is created as we walk it, step by step.

Knowing often disguises itself as truth, but it can become a trap that keeps the seeker locked into specific ideas about what is true and what is false. Many people who learn about the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path often mistake one of its precepts—“right view”—as meaning there is only one view, and that is the right one! The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that right view is no view. Right view is not belief, nor is it part of a belief system. Right view is key to enlightenment because it is open and spacious, not closed off and exclusive. Right view is seeing beyond the delusion of concepts, ideas, and opinions and moving beyond them to no-view.

The Buddha told the parable of crossing the river in a raft. The raft represents intellectual trainings, belief systems, or moral disciplines that promise to bring the seeker to the other shore— enlightenment. However, the raft is only a vehicle—an instrument or tool of knowledge—to get us to the other shore. Once we have reached that other shore, of liberation and enlightenment, we need to put the raft down and walk on. If we do not, it will become a burden to us and hinder our path. Even enlightenment is only the beginning.

The other shore, writes David-Neel, is “nowhere and everywhere; that which is beyond all our conceptions. Even transcendent wisdom—enlightenment—is a concept, so that to achieve enlightenment means we must drop our concepts of what enlightenment is or how we will experience it.”

The doctrine of nonaction—wuwei in Chinese (Chan) Buddhism—literally means “do nothing” or “nothing to be done.” According to David-Neel, the Tibetans consider nonaction to “be absolutely necessary for the production of the state of liberation” or “the annihilation of false views, ignorance of how things exist.” As long as we are locked into our concept of what enlightenment is and into a belief in doing all the right things, such as performing the proper rituals and saying the exact mantras, we will never experience enlightenment, because these concepts become obstacles to it.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many virtues we practice, classes we attend, or books we read. These practices and studies are preparation on the path to realizing enlightenment, but are not enlightenment in themselves.

The seeker prepares by being open to the possibilities that not knowing presents; looking with wisdom eyes, seeing all life—the entire physical world—differently; looking beyond concepts, opinions, and beliefs. The preparation is not of an exoteric form, but a preparing of the inner self—preparing the mind to see beyond the obstacles of what we think we know. It is a difficult path, because it involves leaving certainty behind. It requires that leap of faith that we must each take as seekers as we go from the delusions of knowing to not knowing.

Clare Goldsberry, a professional freelance writer and author for the past forty years, is a life-long student of religion and spiritual traditions including Christianity, Gnosticism, and philosophy. Her next book, Living Fearlessly, Dying Joyfully, will be published in 2021 by Monkfish.

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor’s Desk" Quest 109:1, pg 2

Full disclosure up front: I know nothing about the topic of this issue.

The theme is Enlightenment, and although I’ve read and heard a good deal about it over the years, I realize it is a subject about which I am entirely ignorant.

In his article in this issue, John Cianciosi quotes the Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm, who says there are nine things that an enlightened being cannot do: “store up possessions, intentionally kill any form of life, steal, perform sexual intercourse, tell a deliberate lie, and act improperly out of desire, out of ill will, out of delusion, or out of fear.”

This settles the matter. I am nowhere near this level, and I have never met anyone who was. Moreover, according to the literature, full enlightenment—if there is such a thing—is a radically different state of consciousness from any we are familiar with.

All these things suggest that what I think I know about enlightenment has little to do with the actuality. Moreover, what I think I may know about enlightenment may be an impediment to realizing it.

I write this a month before the elections, so polls are thick in the atmosphere. Every poll shows a sizable group of people who answer, “Don’t know,” to whatever question is asked.

Once I used to think that these people were ignorant not to have opinions about the most vital topics of our times.

At this point I’m not so sure. I remember too many times over the years when I was upset about some major issue. In the long run, I often learned that my opinions were based on supposed facts that had nothing to do with reality. As a result I have become much more consciously agnostic about many of the great concerns of our times, no matter how obvious the “right” answer may appear to be.

Clare Goldsberry, in her Members’ Forum piece, discusses not knowing. How could not knowing be an approach to enlightenment? After all, avidya—usually translated as ignorance but perhaps better translated as nescience or even obliviousness—is, according to Buddhist teaching, the primordial cause of suffering.

Clearly we are dealing with something different here than ignorance, say, of historical facts or the laws of physics. The classic answer to this problem appears in a story about Socrates, recounted in Plato’s Apology. Someone sent to the oracle at Delphi—then held in the greatest esteem, consulted even on matters of high state—and asked whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The oracle replied that there was not. Socrates was puzzled by this reply: he could not understand what it meant, yet he was convinced that the god could not lie. Finally, he concluded, “None of us happens to know anything beautiful and good, but they think they know, knowing not; but I do not know, and don’t think I do. So by this little bit I might appear to be wiser.” Yet Socrates was so wise that all the philosophers that came before him are lumped together as the pre-Socratics.

On a more homely note, the nineteenth-century American humorist Josh Billings wrote, “I honestly believe it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain’t so” (a quote often attributed to Will Rogers).

Of course there is a more active nescience—not knowing and actively refusing to know. Often it is a matter of knowing “what ain’t so” and refusing to let that be challenged. The difference is that the not knowing of Socrates and Josh Billings admits the possibility of knowing and an openness to it.

Say you come across an unfamiliar word. Your insecurity may lead you to claim that you don’t need to know it and that big words are pretentious. Or you can simply look the word up, and then you know it. Such is the difference between plain ignorance and nescience (a word that to me connotes an active resistance to knowledge).

How does this relate to enlightenment? From what I have already said, it’s clear that I don’t know. But it may go something like this: I look out at the world and assume that my opinion about it is correct. I see the tables, chairs, trees, and flowers and assume that I know what they are. But in reality I see only the past—my past experiences and preconceptions about them.

One way out of this ignorance is to set aside this collection of data in my mind and see the world as it is in its immediacy—what some philosophers have called its “just-so-ness.” At that point the world opens up some of its inscrutable richness.

It would be exaggerating to call this sense of greater richness enlightenment. But it may not be totally wrong to say that it is closer to enlightenment than the whirligig of thoughts, feelings, and preconceptions in which we customarily live.

To conclude with yet another thing I don’t know: is enlightenment permanent, stable, and irrevocable, as certain sacred texts seem to indicate? Or is it just another in an endless series of steps toward greater opening, knowing, and fulfillment?

In short, is there someplace where you stop, or is there always further to go?

Richard Smoley