Dear Francis,
many things happened to me since I wrote you last time. I’m not sure where to begin, there are many things that cannot be really named.
I guess I had the experience of enlightenment, of nothingness. It is as if I look at the world, including me, that comes from nothing. I don’t know how to call it, nothingness is about the closest to a word I can find. But it is not dark and dead, it is alive.
If I now go through some teachings I used to read and follow, I can see how it might be pointing to this, but it has nothing to do with the experience.
It’s like there is now way to express it.
The reason why I write you because I am absolutely confused. I feel as if I am fading away, yet becoming more alive. I’m not sure if I have “attained” enlightenment, because many teachers describe the experience as if full of joy, bliss, peace and I don’t know what. I am a bit more calm than I used to be before, but that’s about it. It feels sort of I got cheated on :) but I guess that joy and bliss is not what’s in it for me.
I have really some concerns about how I can function in this world. This concern doesn’t originate from fear, or anything like that, but I don’t know how to honestly talk to people. If I talk, it’s at most just some nonsense that I don’t really believe in, just a game, an act, nothing more. There is little to talk about, because most of talking people make, is just complaints and judgement and all that. It’s weird.
I don’t know what to do. Every action is equally enjoyable, and equally… unneccessary.
What I am most surprised at, I still have a mind, a chatterbox that is inside me. But there is no belief in anything that it says as being real. It’s sort of a tool, like hands. I can use it if I want, or I can put it aside for some time, but not quite absolutely, sometimes it just comes back. It’s not a big deal though, like a child playing in my head :)
Yours sincerely
Dear Michael,
A glimpse of our true nature (if that is what your experience was) only rarely leaves us established in peace and happiness. It marks only our entry on the path. The support of a teacher established in this equanimity is in most cases necessary to facilitate our establishment. Only the peace and the joy that reign towards the end of this sadhana are the sign of the authenticity of the glimpse.
If you had the choice between absolute peace and happiness on the one hand and enlightenment on the other hand, what would be the smart choice?
Love,
Francis
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