Recently I read an article where the author compares so-called “enlightenment” to digging through soil in your back yard, finding a light bulb, and turning it on.
The digging symbolizes things people before having some major insight.
The lightbulb symbolizes the insight itself.
Everyone has different soil compositions in their back yard. Some dig deep. Some shallow. Some dig for years. Others for weeks. Others seemingly fall into a hole and find a lightbulb without trying.
However it happens, many people claim to have found a light bulb and turned it on. They are now “enlightened” or “awakened”.
But is everyone talking about the same thing? It’s impossible to say…
“For thousands of years, we have debated the matter of who is really awakened, and what real awakening is, and how you should spot an awakened person, and whether awakening is something that can be done, or whether, instead, it’s an axis of development that extends indefinitely. While some of this has been petty squabbling, there is a legitimate and fascinating question here: is there a single kind of awakening, or are there multiple genres?”
Sasha Chapin & Kati Devaney
“Enlightenment” might be about the nature of reality. It might be about the nature of desire. It might about the nature of the ego or self. It might be about the nature of impermanence. It might be a mystical vision of “deeper truth”. It might be about cessation of thought or cessation of mental phenomena in general.
It might be about ALL of these things, cascading into each other like dominos…
The word “Enlightenment” is like a big umbrella that covers all this (and more).
Another Baby in Bathwater
Like “Spirituality“, can’t people use “Enlightenment” however they want? And can these definitions be meaningful? Yes.
It’s merely that when they do, they have to define what they mean, which can be problematic, as “Enlightenment” often paradoxically refers to something beyond concept.
It becomes a game of “if you know you know”… with no way to prove.
Confounding this further, a naive audience will rightfully feel skeptical that this all nonsense, or gullible that some master can show them the truth, which requires blind devotion and faith. (And often harm and controversy).
To be fair – many folks speak about enlightenment AND thoroughly acknowledge this ambiguity. They work hard to qualify what they mean. This is probably the best sniff test for credibility… when an author readily admits of this problem.
A smart listener will be vigilant, and know they can only ever rely on themselves, in the long-run, for definition and validation.
Emphasis on the Digging
The most powerful part of this metaphor, to me, is the digging. The digging is the life experience, confusion, learning, re-learning, un-learning, prior to lightbulb moments. The light bulb might not be as important as the self exploration that precipitated it.
We CAN talk about digging in relatively clear terms.
We can talk about mediation, we can talk about brain science, we can talk about consciousness, and many related things. We can pose clear rhetorical questions that help us reach our own conclusions.
This digging, or “Self-Investigation”, is intrinsically rewarding, and never ends. Enlightenment of some kind may occur as a consequence of this. We may even feel certain that we know what enlightenment means one day – that it reconciles perfectly with what all the great sages have spoken about. There may be a feeling of finality in this.
But the digging can always continue – our personhood and worldview are always mutating – we are infinite onions of conditioning – always peeling layers away and forming new ones in their place.
Looking for a shovel (or onion peeler)? See our library.
Discussion
This article has been posted to reddit for voting and discussion:
Why the Word “Enlightenment” Sucks
byu/self-investigation inSelfInvestigation