Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damndest Thing

Some light spiritual reading. Condensation and quotes from Jed McKenna.

By Jed Mckenna:

…the technique is called Spiritual Autolysis. Autolysis means self-digestion, and spiritual means.. hell I don't really know. Let's say it means that level of self which encompasses the mental, physical and emotional aspects. Put the two words together and you have a process through which you feed yourself, one piece at a time, into the purifying digestive fires.

"May I ask a question?" Arthur asks.

"Yes, Arthur."

"You make Spiritual Autolysis sound rather unpleasant."

"Yes, Arthur, it's an unpleasant process.”

"It doesn't matter where you start. You could start by using Ramana Maharshi's query, 'Who am I?' or 'What is me?', and then just work at it. Just try to say something true and keep at it until you do. Write and rewrite. Make it cleaner and cut out the excess and ego and follow it wherever it leads until you're done."

It's not about feelings or insights. It's not about personal or spiritual evolution. This is about what you know for sure, about what you are sure you know is true, about what you are that is true. With this process you tear away layer after layer of untruth masquerading as truth. Anytime you go back to read something you wrote, even if it was only yesterday, you should be surprised by how far you've come since then. It's actually a painful and vicious process, somewhat akin to self-mutilation. It creates wounds that will never heal and burns bridges that can never be rebuilt and the only reason to do it is because you can no longer stand not to.

The reason for writing it down on paper or on a computer where you can see it is because the brain, unlikely as it may sound, is no place for serious thinking.

My thunderbolt epiphany came in my late twenties, around fifty pages into reading my first book of a distinctly spiritual nature. As all good epiphanies should, this one struck my brain like a bullet of light and redefined my entire life in a single instant. The realization was nothing more or less than this:

Truth exists.

I was absolutely stunned. The lines of my being were redrawn in a flash. I was staggered by this simple statement, by the sheer absurdity of it. After all, how can someone not realize that truth exists? But the truth is, I didn't. My thoughts were so constantly turned towards denying what wasn't that I was effectively blinded to What was. The very act of fighting for liberation had imprisoned me.

In order to oppose the false, I had to dwell in the half-light where falseness thrives. Finally understanding that truth existed was the equivalent of crawling out of a putrid sewer and into sunlight, sunlight the existence of which I should have suspected all along, but never quite did.

But now I was in the sunlight and it was totally mind blowing.

Truth exists and I will not spend another minute of my life flailing blindly around in the filth and miasma of ignorance for any other reason than to find it. The universe isn't vague and ignorant; I am vague and ignorant. Something is true and it doesn't matter what it is, I'm not going to be false anymore. I have not even the slightest trace of the slightest reservation about the fact that I would rather suffer and die figuring out what is true than continue this life as a slave to lies and ignorance.

I almost never read anything I wrote because the mere act of writing it rendered it obsolete in my thinking. I severed all ties; no job, no friends, no family. I had only a few possessions. I did nothing else. I had no other thought. I went for long walks, thinking, pounding away at whichever door I was stuck behind at the moment.

And then one day after a couple of years of this I was suddenly done. Just like that: done. Although I didn't think of it in these terms, I had become enlightened, satoried, awake, truth-realized, Buddha, whatever you want to call it. Getting the hang of this new state, however, would take me another decade.

I've been asked if I'd do it all over again if I had the choice, but its not something I chose in the first place. There was never any decision. I never made any choice. It's not like a career path where you set your sites and go after it. It's more like you're walking along a mountain path that suddenly turns to mud and you find yourself hurtling at breakneck speed into the unknown, and before too long, hurtling at breakneck speed into the unknown becomes your reality.

And then, one day, equally without warning, you're launched into empty space and, before too long, empty space becomes your reality.

That's where I am now. Empty space is my reality. The void. No-self. I abide in non-dual, non-relative awareness. This is the part that can't be explained. I can't frame it in words even for myself. No one can say "I am enlightened" because there is no "I" to it. There is no such thing as an enlightened person. The person writing these words, the person that speaks to the students, isn't the enlightened one. My personality, my ego, what appears to be me, is just an afterimage, a physical apparition based on residual energy patterns. Jed McKenna is like the outfit an invisible man wears so that he can interact with people without freaking them out.

I don't identify with my own statuses, man or a person or a human being. 

I have a very distinct impression of life as a stage drama, and I find it endlessly mystifying that anyone truly identifies with their character. I watch my own life with amused detachment.

I watch myself being a wisdom-guy and I can't believe anyone really falls for it.

Possessing the ability not to see truth, now that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. In fact, I would never believe it was even possible if I hadn't done it myself for thirty years.

Jed McKenna

Thanks For Reading!

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