How would you respond if someone told you that they just became enlightened?

“The moment you think you’re enlightened, you’re not.”

Was he able to explain to you what he learned?

I would immediately and incredulously raise an eyebrow. This is my default reaction to things that are unbelievable.

Then, I would smile and nod and back away slowly. Maybe not literally, but I would listen politely and then cease to be in contact with him. I’d certainly be available if a crisis arose, but I figure at that point, there’s no reasoning or logical discussion to be had.

The minute you think you’ve got things figured out, means you don’t have a clue.

@SavoirFaire : Yeah, I learned that after going through a similar period of hubris in my adolescence.

@glacial: He tried to, but it came out very jumbled. It was mostly about the oneness of existence and the need for humans to evolve, but he created this mathematical system to contain his knowledge. It makes sense to him but I don’t see how it could to anyone else. It involves the correspondence of letters, numbers, and different stages of evolution. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and I’m used to considering pretty far-out ideas.

@cookieman: I wasn’t scared of him, but I was tempted to ask if he has a family history of schizophrenia, but I thought that would be rude, and I was just intrigued to hear him talk.

@Adirondackwannabe: A very important thing to learn growing up, in my opinion.

I’d laugh right in their face & point at them as I walked away giggling.

’‘Chop wood, carry water.’’

Who am I to reject another’s belief or personal experience, whether I accept it or not. So I would simply say, “Good for you.” I would not however, indulge his or her proselytizing.

Along the lines of what @glacial said, I would ask him to give a specific example of how his knowledge would change how someone does things. When it comes to specifics, all the various forms of enlightenment seem to run into trouble.

When I hear “spontaneous mystical experiences”, my first reaction is to think “mental illness”. Harsh, yes, but that’s my honest (private) response.

And he specifically said that he wanted to “amass followers”? I think that would be where I would start my questioning. He shouldn’t be expressing his plans in those kinds of terms unless he’s trying to create a religion for personal gain, L Ron Hubbard- or Joseph Smith-style. That’s not enlightenment, that’s a large-scale con.

@glacial: Yeah, that’s what really began to concern me. He said he wants to change the world by becoming a teacher, learning how to teach his system to people, and gaining followers. Who knows, maybe he wants to start a new religion…

Depending on his age, it could be the onset of schizophrenia.

Same way as if someone told me they had just been saved; “Oh, how nice for you”.

This is, as you say, the problem with mystical experiences that aren’t subjected to the spiritual equivalent of “peer revue”.

This kind of thing is not at all unheard of. Even outside of any disciplined meditative tradition, people stumble upon insights into the Emptiness that transcends self-and-other. This isn’t something that one “learns” from being a Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist; being human is qualification enough.

The rub is that these insights, as transformative and affirming as they may be, open a person up to dangers that they typically can’t see in the afterglow of the insight. The impression of someone in this state is that the ego has been extinguished, and that this all-pervading Emptiness is one’s new reality. In fact, though, the ego will soon reemerge and co-opt even this experience (this is when one begins to think of oneself as “enlightened”), but one will be unable to see this happening. And the Emptiness will become its own form of blindness.

Established traditions know and warn against these dangers, and have mechanisms in place to counteract them, including checking and interventions by experienced practitioners who know this landscape. They will do what’s necessary to keep the person grounded and keep them from clinging to the experience.

A classic example of this was the Japanese Zen master Hakuin. He once wrote in a letter to a friend about one of his first mystical experiences and its aftermath:

“I chanced to hear the sound of the temple bell and I was suddenly transformed. It was as if a sheet of ice had been smashed or a jade tower had fallen with a crash. Suddenly I returned to my senses. I felt then that I had achieved the status of Yen-t’ou [a famous master]... All my former doubts vanished as though ice had melted away. In a loud voice I called: “Wonderful, wonderful. There is no cycle of birth and death through which one must pass. There is no enlightenment one must seek. The seventeen hundred koans handed down from the past have not the slightest value whatsoever.” My pride soared up like a majestic mountain, my arrogance surged forward like the tide. Smugly I thought to myself: “In the past two or three hundred years no one could have accomplished such a marvelous breakthrough as this.”

Shouldering my glorious enlightenment, I set out at once for Shinano. Calling on Master Shoju, I told of my experience and presented him with a verse. The Master, holding my verse up in his left hand, said to me: “This verse is what you have learned from study. Now show me what your intuition has to say,” and he held out his right hand.

I replied: “If there were something intuitive that I could show you, I’d vomit it out,” and I made a gagging sound.

The Master said: “How do you understand Chao-chou’s Mu? [His teacher is testing his insight here with a famous koan]”

I replied: “What sort of place does Mu have that one can attach arms and legs to it?” [His answer shows that he is now stuck in Emptiness]

The Master twisted my nose with his fingers and said: “Here’s someplace to attach arms and legs.” I was nonplussed and the Master gave a hearty laugh. “You poor hole-dwelling devil!” he cried. I paid him no attention and he continued: “Do you think somehow that you have sufficient understanding?”

I answered: “What do you think is missing?”

Then the Master began to discuss the koan that tells of Nan-ch’uan’s death [Implying that Hakuin still needs needs to keep going in his exploration]. I clapped my hands over my ears and started out of the room. The Master called after me, “Hey, monk!” and when I turned to him he added: “You poor hole-dwelling devil!” From then on, almost every time he saw me, the Master called me a “poor hole-dwelling devil.”

Had Hakuin not had the benefit of someone to flush him out of his “hole” and get him back on track, I imagine that he would have ended up very much like your friend.

I think this happens in every religion. As a life long Christian I have seen it a lot in my own faith and if I’m honest I can look back on a time I felt the same way. As I matured I realized that I was just seeing with new eyes things that had been revealed for generations and that I was just scratching the surface and many before me had taken what I was just discovering to deeper levels.
I think your correct in chalking it up to immaturity although people going to such extremes with an immature understanding can be dangerous. If they think they already have all the knowledge and fail to humble themselves and continue growing they often become judgmental and condescending, even militant.
Look at the current Christian Fundamentalist Movement in the US as an example.
If you base your faith on some NEW revelation and discount the revelations and insights of those who’ve gone before you then you loose a lot of wisdom and end up looking stupid at best and being dangerous at worst.

Are you sure that he has been enlightened? The only enlightenment he has has occurred in the wallet.

Maybe he has become enlightened maybe not.
“Enligthenment” really just means becoming deeply aware that “you” as ego defines it, does not exist. Sharing ones experiences/philosophies with like minded others is one thing, but to insist that your experience is somehow more important than anothers and to insist on creating a new identity as a spiritual guru and insist on others following your teachings is just more ego.
Ego is still asserting it’s need for others to agree with the new story of self. A story that still wishes to express being unique and separate from all the other lowly, unenlightend nthat now need my help to become enlightened. lol

True enlightenment means dropping ALL self identification with ego, the “little me.”
To go about insisting others agree with the new ego story of ” I am enlightened” is just more ego.

I’d say, “That’s wonderful! Good for you!” and smile and shake their hand.

I’d be happy for him and have a long, deep conversation about it. If it was crazy, I’d tell my friend so.

The right thing to do is to respect his so called enlighten view point.
I would ask him as many well places questions trying to understand how he reached his point of enlightenment.
Sometimes it’s can be a good thing but it can turn out to be a horrible thing.
If it improves him a person than I would say support your friend with caution, but if it’s a bad thing try to show him the right way.
There’s not much what can be said about things like that, one thing that can tell whether or not it’s good or bad is time that will tell.
Good luck with your friend.

@thorninmud : Thank you very much for that response. The idea that “being human is enough” was a much-needed reminder for me. This situation hits close to home for me, because I similarly had mystical experiences outside of a tradition or dedicated practice when I was an adolescent. And I certainly clung to the experience for a while, and struggled with what ‘enlightenment’ actually means…Eventually found my way back into a practice that makes sense to me. The ego sure has lots of tricks, even (especially?) when you think it’s been vanquished! Do you think that I should try to talk with this guy about the pitfalls you mentioned, in light of my own experiences, or is that something that he can only learn for himself?

@Judi: Thank you for your response. I sensed the possibility of this guy becoming condescending and militant. He was talking about how the world is wrong and he is uniquely positioned to teach these insights. I certainly can’t disagree that the world is all sorts of messed up, but I think it’s dangerous that he thinks that only his formulation of the truth is the right way…

@reijinni: I don’t think he paid anyone for these insights. He’s just been thinking a lot, and reading New Agey stuff and watching videos on youtube…

@Coloma: I tried to talk about ego with him. But it’s difficult because we don’t really have the same sort of lexicon or spiritual backgrounds. I asked him if he thought that he was just contained in this little person he calls himself, and if he thought that that little separated bit was more important than the rest of Reality. And he said that he had definitely moved beyond that point… which is why he has a message for the world.

@Rarebear: Cool. Would you want to have a further discussion, or just leave it at that?

@KNOWITALL: Thanks. I definitely was happy to hear this from him, and interested to hear his thoughts. He said he’s happier than he’s ever been. I just got concerned when some of the other stuff came out…it became clear to me that his ‘system’ only makes sense to him, and is an attempt to encapsulate The Truth in a formula that he can just teach to other people, and then they’ll be enlightened too… Which doesn’t really work.

@antimatter: You’re right; there’s no saying whether it’s a “good thing” or a “bad thing.” He’s trying to live a more authentic life right now, rather than living out the path in life that he felt “supposed” to follow, and which was causing him to suffer, so it sounds like a good thing initially. And I definitely felt enlightened by that ASCII spam Winnie the Pooh… That’s pretty impressive.

Only somebody with an extreme amount of hubris would make such a statement.

Pfft.

@bookish1 “Do you think that I should try to talk with this guy about the pitfalls you mentioned, in light of my own experiences, or is that something that he can only learn for himself?”

I doubt there’s much you could do at this point. First awakening experiences are a lot like first loves—friends and parents may clearly see the flaws in the object of the infatuation, but just try telling that to the lovestruck kid.

To this guy, this experience of Emptiness (assuming it’s genuine) is probably the realest experience he’s ever had. He’ll be unshakeable in his conviction, and that much is as it should be. But he doesn’t know that he has to let this beautiful experience go. In trying to keep it—own it—he’ll turn it into some special thing (that ‘thing’ is probably what he’s hoping to package up in concepts and hand out to people).

Why should he believe you when you tell him that he has to get rid of this beautiful ‘thing’ that has just fallen into his lap? If he were working with someone whose experience he trusted, that person might have been in a position to reach him, but now he may just have to discover some time down the road that this is like catching a beautiful golden trout, and putting it in your pocket to carry around forever. It’s not long before it dies and starts to stink.

Thank you for putting it so beautifully and clearly, @thorninmud.

I would say something like “I’m happy to hear that you’ve had such a wonderful experience.”

Wait, no I wouldn’t. A friend did tell me that once. What I said was “What was it like?”

He tried to describe the feeling he’d had and then faltered, saying he couldn’t really explain it. He insisted that it was authentic, and I had no grounds for believing or disbelieving him, but I did respect his conviction enough not to want to challenge it.

If he’d gone on to tell me that he was planning to start teaching and recruit disciples, that would have been a red flag to me. I would have thought he was at best foolish and at worst a charlatan looking to exploit people. Had he gone through with it, that would have been the end of our friendship.

As it was, he did no such thing but rather simply lamented from time to time that he’d never been able to repeat the experience that had affected him so deeply.

@bookish1 No, I’d probably not discuss it more unless s/he wanted to discuss it. I just try to generally be respectful to people. I think an answer like what @ucme wrote, if he’s serious, is the height of rudeness.

I’d tell them I’m an elemental wizard.

Fortunately, @Rarebear, @ucme is seldom serious.

It would mean about as much as saying he had just painted the inside of his mind red.

I’d congratulate the fellow and ask what was it like and what does it mean to him and what’s in his heap of insight for the rest of humanity. That should all be at least entertaining.

In all the various lore I’ve seen about enlightened beings they all had a tremendous charisma and an uncanny knack for communicating their wisdom.

Your friend may have had some tremendous insight, a spritual awakening, or maybe some kind of brain trauma that has adjusted his point of view.
If he’s actually enlightened people will flock to him and understand him.

The description of him sounds more to me like someone hatching a plan for a new religion. “Amassing followers” especially just sounds like a crock. An enlightened being has no need for followers. And as @glacial and other have pointed out his behaviour is far from unrecedented, e.g. L. Ron Hubbard etc.

I wouldn’t doubt that your acquaintance has experienced significant spiritual development, but I think his goal of “converting” people is an indication his spiritual journey is not yet complete.

Zen practitioners of old would continually seek “masters” to confirm each stage of spiritual development; they didn’t bequeath enlightenment upon themselves.

This is undoubtedly a necessary stage your acquaintance must experience in his ongoing spiritual development. I would simply wish him well, or as the Eckists say:

Barak bashad!
(May the blessings be!)

@Rarebear Yeah, @CWOTUS is very perceptive…yes siree!
I do like the phrase height of rudeness though, puts me in mind of the mile high club.

I agree with @thorninmud
When ego cracks open and awakenings happen, it is, very much, like a seductive, whirlwind romance.
I too was once “guilty” during a phase of profound awakenings of trying to “explain” my experiences to others that began to tilt and lean and drift off into nothingness while I carried on. lol

@Coloma: Yeah, what he wrote really put it in perspective for me… Because my first love and my first mystical experience happened around the same time in my development…

For me, it would become important to get a particular answer out of him. I would want to know what methods he could use to falsify his understanding of things. I would tell my friend: Based on the way human brains work, if you cannot produce a method for falsifying your ideas then it is of no value and it will not be adopted globally except by people who have no idea whether or not what your ideas were true or false.

Ignorant followers are not honest followers but desperate followers with nothing better to do.

@ninjacolin: What do you mean by falsifying his understanding? Do you mean reducing it into a code, like language or mathematics?

If a friend told me only that he had been enlightened, I’d be interested and ask about the experience. If it was all positive, I’d be happy for him.

If he told me he wanted to teach others and amass followers, I’d be wary. I’d question more, maybe about how he defines “followers” and how he envisions all of this playing out. Depending on the answers, I may chalk it up to immaturity and being overly enthusiastic or a desire to be rich and famous, or I may begin to sense he is mentally ill.

If he then showed me his ‘code’ (his method of teaching others) and it made absolutely no sense, I’d be very concerned about his mental health. I think I would tell him so.

@augustlan : Thank you. I was pretty worried when I realized that his code sounded like it was made up by someone either on drugs or having hallucinations from organic causes…

Yeah, the whole schematization aspect of this is disturbing. He’s taken a wrong turn somewhere in there.

@thorninmud : Well, I suspect it might be because he’s in grad school for science… He might not feel that his understanding of something is ‘real’ unless he can schematize it in a chart to be studied… I tend to be overreliant on words in the same way, because I come from a humanities background.

Isn’t is amazing when someone thinks that he has something that another may want
( even is he does not) that others want it? An Epithany?

Means that he finally understood something , that was unknown to him before..thats all.

Maturity, understnading, moments come thoughout life.
Maybe he feels elated and wants others to feel the same?
Does not mean to go out and “teach”?
That would be ego talking.

lol, @Inspired_2write.. maybe that is the best response: “I’m sorry but, whatever enlightenment you just received, everyone already has it.”

@Inspired_2write I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people (who seriously practice some form of spirituality) don’t go through this stage. I know there was a period where I wanted to run out and “enlighten” everyone I encountered. Thankfully, I suppressed this urge, but I discovered the truth of something I previously only understood intellectually:

“When the teacher is ready, the student appears.”

I found I didn’t have to seek students. People who needed me to assist them with something would seemingly gravitate toward me. More importantly, people that offered something I needed to learn would gravitate toward me also.

In short, the teacher-student role is interchangeable. The person practicing spirituality is usually perceptive to which role he serves in any given moment…

…provided he doesn’t allow ego to cloud that perception.

A lone traveller on the spiritual path easily succumbs to self delusion. In this respect, the old adage, ”it takes one to know one” is a great truth. Fellowship, or someone walking the same spiritual path, serves a valuable function in “gently advising” the seeker to “choose once again” when they’ve seemingly strayed from the “straight and narrow path”.

I wouldn’t be overly concerned though. Your associate will learn whatever he needs to learn (or not) in his own good time.

@bookish1 said: “What do you mean by falsifying his understanding? Do you mean reducing it into a code, like language or mathematics?”

He should be able to tell you what would (in theory) prove his theory wrong. If he can’t do that, oddly enough, he won’t get a very large following. He might make it as far as becoming small-dangerous-cult sized and nothing more. You should really tell him that. After all, he wants to study how to teach and if he can’t teach falsification for his own theory then he won’t get ahead.

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