The Revelation of Eternity: Enlightenment
Our religions are driven by a primary underlying philosophical
principle – a metaphysic – which certain individuals who have been
granted the insight have come to know as eternity. Many of our greatest
religious thinkers have understood the implications of eternity and they
attempted – though with differing interpretations – to pass it down
through teachings. These teachings were based upon the meaning of life
as understood in light of being physically mortal, yet psychically eternal.
The great problem in the effectiveness of these teachings is that the state
of consciousness which is necessary to have an understanding of such
concepts is exceedingly rare in individuals and on top of this, it is nearly
impossible for one who has had the insight to properly convey it to
anyone whom has not had the experience themselves. It is so intense
and profound that it renders language entirely irrelevant. All we have is
the means of parable, yet no metaphor could prepare one for the
painful beauty which is the revelation of eternity. However, it is felt as a
moral obligation of will by those who are thus transformed by the insight
to propagate the information in hope of helping others achieve the same
understanding for themselves. It is thus you have religion (and by
religion I mean all thought devoted to the understanding ones own self
and the world at large).
It was precisely this difficulty of communication that led to our
misinterpretation of our oldest religious archetypes, such as the eternal
return and monotheism. The idea of eternal life was entirely misconstrued
and along with it, evil was pigeon-holed from good, which led to a denial of
our inner reciprocity. This denial of evil for the sake of good ultimately
caused an inflation of our desire or willingness to give into temptation. The
life and death of Christ, which acted as an archetype example of universal
eschatology, was entirely hijacked by the ruling classes, which ultimately
distorted the symbolism behind his life irreparably. We demonized tragedy
and evil, when in fact, in Jesus' surviving teachings, he taught his deciples
to not resist; to love your enemy, because he realized that the enemy was
within him, i.e., tragedy and evil are necessary to bring about love.
Our religions – at their core – are honest attempts by predisposed
individuals to address the problem of unconsciousness by bringing
understanding to the world. However, unconsciousness – the lack of
understanding which goes hand in hand with materialism – has managed
to thrive under the guise of inevitable progress, thus thwarting any major
movement of true morality. Nevertheless, this seemingly repugnant state
of affairs we call history is entirely necessary for the calculated
enfoldment of the human drama, as understood by those who have
experienced the revelation of eternity.
"The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms
of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being
directly experienced and realized by the human beings. This Absolute is the
God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last
end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge
of the divine Ground - the knowledge that can come only to those who are
prepared to "die to self" and so make room, as it were for God. Out of any
given generation of man and women very few will achieve the final end of
human existence; but the opportunity for coming to unitive knowledge will,
in one way or another, continually be offered until all sentient beings realize
Who in fact they are." Aldous Huxley, 'The Perennial Philosophy'
"The oneness of the universe, and the oneness of each element of the
universe, repeat themselves to the crack of doom in the creative advance
from creature to creature, each creature including in itself the whole of
history and exemplifying the self-identity of things and their mutual
diversities." Alfred North Whitehead
The revelation of eternity imparts the experience of being enlightened.
Enlightenment is thus to be understood as the affirmative understanding
of the inevitable will of God which is Eternity. Man, as subject, realizes
himself as object; God, the eternal Universe. As the formally mortal self
is equated with the eternal Universe, the distinct understanding that we
live our lives over and over again emerges, effectively dissolving any
fear of death. Love pervades this experience as a profound sense of
liberation which renders the ego irrelevant. Complimentary to this
realized divinity, there is a distinct awareness of the utter necessity of
reciprocity; in fact, all opposites unite into an eternal wholeness that is
beyond good and evil; it is the ineffable All of which you are. The
world is found to be a perfectly crafted illusion; you are merely inside
your own mind, living a life that you ultimately created. It is a totality of
seemingly paradoxical revelations entwined into a timeless moment of
synchronistic perfection.
These experiences are most often the inverse result of extreme stress
upon the human psyche and they change their subjects forever, often
obliging them to devote the rest of their lives to the dissemination of
their newfound knowledge.
Although I am acutely aware that I am merely playing with words here,
there are some metaphors that are helpful in conveying this idea.
I believe Alan Watts may have put it best,
"To the individual thus enlightened it appears as a vivid and overwhelming
certainty that the universe, precisely as it is at this moment, as a whole and
in every one of its parts, is so completely right as to need no explanation or
justification beyond what it simply is. Existence not only ceases to be a
problem; the mind is so wonder-struck at the self-evident and self-
sufficient fitness of things as they are, including what would ordinarily be
thought the very worst, that it cannot find any word strong enough to
express the perfection and beauty of the experience. Its clarity sometimes
gives the sensation that the world has become transparent or luminous, and
its simplicity the sensation that it is pervaded and ordered by a supreme
intelligence. At the same time it is usual for the individual to feel that the
whole world has become his own body, and that what-ever he is has not
only become, but always has been, what everything else is. It is not that he
loses his identity to the point of feeling that he actually looks out through all
other eyes, becoming literally omniscient, but rather that his individual
consciousness and existence is a point of view temporarily adopted by
something immeasurably greater than himself."
"Spiritual awakening is the difficult process whereby the increasing
realization that everything is as wrong as it can be flips suddenly into the
realization that everything is as right as it can be. Or better, everything is as
It as it can be." 'This is It'
Rick Strassman also does the experience great justice with his words in
DMT, The Spirit Molecule:
"The three pillars of self, time, and space all undergo profound
transfiguration in a mystical experience. There no longer is any separation
between the self and what is not the self. Personal identity and all of
existence become one and the same. In fact, there is no "personal" identity
because we understand at the most basic level the underlying unity and
interdependence of all existence. Past, present, and future merge together
into a timeless moment, the now of eternity. Time stops, inasmuch as it no
longer "passes." There is existence, but it is not dependent upon time. Now
and then, before and after, all combine into this exact point. On the relative
level, short periods of time encompass enormous amounts of experience"
"There is a searing sense of the sacred and the holy. We contact an
unchanging, unborn, undying, and uncreated reality. It is a personal
encounter with the "Big Bang," God, Cosmic Consciousness, the source of
all being. Whatever we call it, we know we have met the fundamental
bedrock and fountainhead of existence, one that emanates love, wisdom,
and power on an unimaginable scale."
Richard Bucke, author of the groundbreaking work on enlightenment,
Cosmic Consciousness, had a classic mystical experience one night
after reading and discussing poetry and philosophy with two friends. I
quote it for its striking relevance:
"All at once, without warning of any kid, I found myself wrapped in a
flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense
conflagration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that
the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense
of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed
by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I
did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed
of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became
conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would
have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I
saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without
any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that
the foundation principle of the world, of all worlds, is what we call love,
and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain.
The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone; but the memory of it and
the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of
a century which has since elapsed."
Relatively recently, Friedrich Nietzsche recognized the experience as
the revelation of the eternal recurrence, which he understood to be the
greatest moral primer conceivable and with good reason. If we are to
live out our same lives in repetition for eternity, then it is felt as an
obligation of will to make sure that each moment is filled with meaning
and understanding; not regret and unconsciousness. Regret is the
ultimate antithesis of enlightenment. Thus, the revelation of eternity is
truly 'the Greatest Weight'; its sheer gravity upon the psyche cause a
drastic revaluation of ideals, which if integrated may liberate you, or if
denied, may drag you down like a stone.
"Zarathustra is a dancer – [which is] how he who has the hardest, most
terrible insight into reality, who has thought the 'most abysmal thought',
nevertheless finds in that no objection to existence, nor even to its eternal
recurrence – but rather one more reason for being himself the eternal Yes
to all things. . . that is the concept of Dioynsus" Nietzsche
"You superior humans, what do you think? Am I a soothsayer? A dreamer?
Drunkard? A dream interpreter? A midnight-bell? A drop of dew? A haze
and fragrance of eternity? Do you not hear it? Do you not smell it? Just
now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday -- Pain is also a
joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun -- be gone! or you will learn:
a wise man is also a fool. Did you ever say Yes to a single joy? Oh, my
friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained
together, entwined, in love -- if you ever wanted one time a second time, if
you ever said 'You please me, happiness! Quick! Moment!' then you
wanted it all back! -- All anew, all eternally, all chained together, entwined,
in love, oh then you loved the world -- you eternal ones, love it eternally
and for all time: and even to woe you say: Be gone, but come back! For all
joy wants -- Eternity!" Nietzsche