Enlightenment – Transformative Experience or Journey of Self-Discovery?

Confusion about HOW to get enlightened is the result of not knowing WHAT enlightenment truly is. The great master Advaita Vedanta, Shankara, said that enlightenment is gained only through self-knowledge. But is knowledge really enough? Q&A series #21

Some people believe that enlightenment, liberation, or moksha in Sanskrit, is an unwavering feeling or sense of being limitless consciousness, or a feeling of absolute bliss, or a feeling of oneness, oneness with the universe or oneness with God. But there's no such thing as a permanent feeling. They change constantly. Enlightenment is often called a state, but if it is a state of experience, a state that arises in the mind, it too will soon pass away because all mental states are impermanent.

The rishis, the sages of ancient India, said moksha is not the presence of a particular feeling or a state, but it's an absence - the absence of suffering. Moksha is freedom from suffering, the complete and everlasting absence of suffering of any kind, both during this lifetime and after one's physical death.

The ancient rishis discovered that your essential nature, your true self, atma, sat chit ananda, is pure consciousness, unborn, uncreated, boundaryless, limitless. As such, atma, the so-called divinity that dwells within you, is already free from suffering. It's already transcendent, already blissful, already divine. With the words (mahavakya), tat tvam asi, the rishis said you already are that, that which is free from suffering. They didn't say, "You will become that," sometime in the future.

The rishis explained that when you fail to recognize your true self, atma, you wrongly identify (abhimana) yourself with your body (deha) and mind (antahkarana). On the other hand, when you do recognize your true nature as pure consciousness, you'll know that the problems of your body belong to your body and the problems of your mind belong to your mind. You'll know that atma remains utterly unaffected by all that, and you will suffer no more.

A related question that many have asked is, "Does enlightenment take place in an instant or does it take place gradually, due to a process of spiritual growth?" Well, any kind of discovery or recognition, by its very nature, is immediate. For example, when you see your image in a mirror, you recognize yourself immediately.

But unlike your reflection in a mirror, your true self is not clearly evident. Your essential nature seems to be hidden or concealed within you. It's obscured, hidden behind a so-called veil of ignorance (avarana, ajnana, avidya). To remove ignorance, knowledge is required, and to remove the veil of ignorance covering your true nature, self-knowledge required, atma-jnana or atma vidya.

Swami Tadatmananda is a traditionally-trained teacher of Advaita Vedanta, meditation, and Sanskrit. For more information, please see: https://www.arshabodha.org/