|
The Process
Nick's teaching is very simple and easy to
understand. It may help to know there is also an order for progression which
most, if not all people are likely to find they go through as they continue on
the path to Self-Realisation or Enlightenment. It goes as follows:
Understanding - Insight - Knowledge - Experience -
Being It
Each step is likely to have a period of weeks,
months, or often many years before the realisation deepens to the next level.
1) Understanding
Taking the main point as an example, of there
being only 'One' here: this requires only a certain amount of intelligence and,
according to how clever the person is and how much reading they have done, they
can convince others less clever that they have a good level of Self-Awareness.
Of course it is not true. It requires no self-knowledge at all to understand
much of what is said about the path to realising that all that exists is within
'one'.
2) Insight
Usually following some enquiry into the truth and
a time of looking within one's self, a person can have an insight. This comes
like a flash and can be very powerful, even giving the seeker the impression of
really being 'home'. Like a shard of sunlight briefly glistening through the
clouds before being obscured again, an insight is indeed a glimpse into the
truth, but it is only a glimpse. It is gone as quickly as it occurred and,
amongst the surrounding ignorance or darkness, it can feel like heaven itself.
The insight can be wonderful, or it can be terrifying, but it is always a taste
of what is possible. It is not uncommon after such an experience for the person
to announce to the world they are now Enlightened, and proceed to spend much
time describing their insight as it occurred, perhaps for many years to come.
3) Knowledge
The insight passes but leaves an impression of the
truth. As the person continues to live their life, facing the circumstances
provided every day to test them and encourage them to go deeper, each time
facing more of their self, the insight settles into a knowledge. This can take
some years, if it ever happens, but at this point one can say 'I KNOW this'. It
is no longer just an understanding, a belief, or even the regurgitating of an
insight they had some time ago. Now it is a knowledge accessible at any moment.
At this time it is common, particularly in men, to claim some accolade, not
least of all Enlightenment itself. They often 'run around' telling the world
they are Enlightened, trying to teach others, to help others, to become famous
or at least to be recognised for their apparent accomplishment. It may be here
that the idea came come from, that a person wouldn't say they were Enlightened
if they truly were. The person with just the knowledge of 'being the only one
here' still has enough separation from the truth that they feel the need to 'be
somebody' here. However, with this amount of knowledge it is very easy to
convince one's self and others that one is living the truth and is THE Living
Truth, without really knowing what that means.
4) Experience
After the knowledge comes the experience. First
the truth was understood, then glimpsed as an intuitive insight, then known
without a doubt, and now actually experienced. This is where is becomes 'real'.
It is still separate as if it were not it could not be experienced, but the
truth is now closer than it has ever been before.
Many years and many flashes of insight and a
deepening of knowledge later, and perhaps following numerous strange sensations
and apparent experiences, one can have a big one of actually being everything
here; that everything is within their own being. They have had glimpses of this
previously but this is stronger and more profound than anything they have had
previously, each one of which had given the impression of being there. This is
still just another glimpse into what lies beyond, but this time it is a glimpse
into the experience of actually being the essence of the knowledge they have
carried for so long. Beyond any insight-of-information, this is a real
experience. This is most powerful and here a person is even more likely to
announce to themselves at least, if not all their friends and family and anyone
else they come across 'This is it. I am home. I am Enlightened!!!'
But be careful. You are not there yet. Like
fireworks in the daytime, it can barely be seen if you are really there already
and are living 'in the light'. If you are having an experience of this nature,
the mere fact that you are experiencing it means you are separate from it; hence
the word ex-perience. You are feeling it, seeing it or touching it, but that
means you are not it. Be careful in yourself not to allow the mind to take
control and claim to be what it is not. There are many teachers who are what
have been called 'phoney masters' and don't even know it (though I suspect
secretly they do. They know there's still a sense of separation within them,
despite their fancy words and claims to the contrary).
5) Being It
The rarest state of all. In this, one is beyond
all insights, all understandings, even all experiences, in the sense of becoming
the truth. Here the person IS The Living Truth. The last experience of this
nature passed, perhaps very many years ago, and 'I' have given up
asking if I am nearly there yet. I have carried the knowledge and lived it in
every experience for so long. I 'know' this space 'I am' is all that is here and
the last experience was of becoming it, but that was then and has long since
faded. Here and now there is no experience to speak of. I do not talk of an
insight I had or of some knowledge I carry. All that I am is experienced here
and now, each moment. Now I am indeed Enlightened, but if I state this, it is
with no idea of any accolade of self-achievement. If I teach, I do so because it
suits me to do so and not to get anything beyond satisfying the need to do it. I
am aware I am responsible for all that happens, but more than that, 'I AM' all
that happens. This cannot be understood by any mind until it has been
experienced, and then gone beyond into the being of it, but I am indeed awake in
my own dream. Before I had only known it was a dream and I thought knowing it
meant I was awake. Now I am awake and live that knowledge as the dream
continues. I hear others claiming to be Enlightened all around me having had
insights or experiences, either recently or are still clinging to ones they had
a lifetime ago. They don't want to hear they are not Enlightened as so many
others are also falsely claiming it too, so they support each other in their
pretence. It is a little like the blind leading the blind, but in a world of
blind people, who's to know, or indeed care, who's blind or who isn't?
And what's 'my' role now? I just get on with
enjoying the dream I have created. I am responsible for all those claiming to be
Enlightened too, so I can't really complain. I offer to teach others who want to
know, warning of the pitfalls and false achievements, but even these are part of
the game. And what is it I teach? I teach you that this is your dream, your
creation, which I too am a part of as is everything you experience and have ever
experienced. You can enjoy it or live it however you wish. When it is time to
'wake up' and become the dream itself, it will happen whether you are looking
for it or not, whether you even want it or not. Until then you cannot fail as
whatever you do is part of the experience of being separate; a separate entity
within your own being. Enjoy the journey if you can. Live it as you will.
by Nick Roach
|