enlightenment

For this article I asked ChatGPT to give me different interpretations of what's often called "spiritual enlightenment". ChatGPT gave me a random list. Here they are:

1. Enlightenment as Liberation from Suffering
   Source: Classical Buddhism
   A state beyond craving and aversion, in which the ego-self has dissolved. Enlightenment means the end of dukkha (suffering), not through transcendence but through a deep seeing of impermanence and emptiness.
2. Enlightenment as Unity with the Absolute
   Source: Advaita Vedānta
   The realization that Atman (the inner self) is identical to Brahman (the ultimate reality). Enlightenment is not an attainment but the removal of ignorance ( avidyā) about this ever-present truth.
3. Enlightenment as Radical Non-Duality
   Source: Contemporary nonduality (e.g., Tony Parsons, Miranda Warren)
   There is no person to become enlightened. Enlightenment is not a state, but the always-already absence of separation. Seeking is part of the dream of individuality; there is no awakening from it because there was never anyone asleep.
4. Enlightenment as Presence and Acceptance
   Source: Eckhart Tolle, John Astin
   A shift into fully inhabiting the Now, letting go of resistance to what is. Enlightenment is not an end point, but a mode of being aligned with the flow of life and the immediacy of awareness.
5. Enlightenment as Emptiness (Śūnyatā)
   Source: Mahāyāna Buddhism (e.g., Nāgārjuna)
   All phenomena, including the self and enlightenment, are empty of inherent existence. Realization is not of something, but the direct insight into the interdependence and groundlessness of all things.
6. Enlightenment as the Natural State
   Source: Dzogchen and Zen
   What is sought is already here. Enlightenment is recognizing the ever-present, uncontrived awareness beneath all thought and striving. It is not achieved but revealed when effort ceases.
7. Enlightenment as Deconditioning
   Source: J. Krishnamurti
   Freedom from the known. Enlightenment is the ending of psychological time, memory, and belief systems. It occurs when the mind sees itself clearly and is no longer a slave to conditioning.
8. Enlightenment as Lucid Dreaming the World
   Source: Carlos Castaneda (Don Juan Matus lineage)
   The world is a construct sustained by the mind's tonal. Enlightenment involves "stopping the world," breaking perceptual routines, and shifting to the nagual — the unknowable, energetic essence of being. Rather than waking up from the dream, one becomes a lucid participant within it.
9. Enlightenment as Ecstatic Awareness and Celebration
   Source: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)
   A flowering of consciousness, combining meditation and total immersion in life's joys. Enlightenment is neither renunciation nor asceticism, but Zorba the Buddha — dancing and silence, love and aloneness. One becomes a witness, rooted in awareness but fully alive.
10. Enlightenment as Transformation of Identity
    Source: Western mysticism (e.g., Meister Eckhart, Plotinus)
    The shift from a human self to divine presence. The soul transcends itself and becomes one with God or the One. Enlightenment is union, in which the boundaries of individuality dissolve into a greater intelligence or light.
11. Enlightenment as Collapse of Belief Structures
    Source: Robert Saltzman, UG Krishnamurti
    Enlightenment is not an achievement but the collapse of the entire edifice of belief, meaning, and spiritual striving. According to UG Krishnamurti, there is no such thing as enlightenment — only the body functioning without the illusion of a separate mind. It is not blissful or desirable, just factual and raw.
12. Enlightenment as Inhabiting Paradox
    Source: Taoism
    The enlightened one does not grasp, does not know, does not strive. Enlightenment is aligning with the Tao — the Way — which cannot be defined or approached directly. It is a subtle yielding, a dancing with opposites, and a return to naturalness and unknowing.
13. Enlightenment as Seeing with No Head
    Source: Douglas Harding (The Headless Way)
    Enlightenment is the recognition that "I have no head." That is, in direct experience, there is no face looking out — only openness, awareness, and the world arising. It is a literal and radical shift in perception that reveals the absence of a separate self without requiring any spiritual belief or attainment.
14. Enlightenment as Ending the Search
    Source: Miranda Warren, Joan Tollifson, Shiv Sengupta
    Enlightenment is the end of the imagined journey. There is no arrival, no final state, no attainment. It is the seeing through of the illusion that there is anything wrong, anything missing, or anyone separate to be fixed or fulfilled.

Well, take your pick! So many "paths", so many ways these paths can resonate, or not, with your own story and background.

Here is my story (in a nutshell). Just an example...
After reading the works of Carlos Castaneda (early 80's), and some mindblowing experiments with cannabis, I started to believe there must be another way of experiencing myself and the world. Other then my 'normal' way of experiencing. I longed for this wholly other way and it set me on a search. I really wanted to know. I was sure that I needed someone who could teach me, someone who was 'there' already and I thought I had found a "master" in the form of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. This path, called "neo-sannyas", I travelled for more than 10 years.

In January 1990 Rajneesh (then called "Osho") died and I, and many other sannyasins, became interested in the "Satsang"-scene of Advaita- and Neo-advaita teachers.

And during those satsang gatherings it happened a few times that I felt that I "got it". Bliss and laughter. But of course nothing lasts. On to the next one and the next video and the next book, believing that maybe this time I would really get it and it would last and I would be "done", fully enlightened...
And also this phase passed...

And now?
I just started the airconditioner and I am listening to the sound of it. Outside it is getting very hot again. A little bird is sitting on the edge of the pool. I should water the plants and clean up all the dead leaves from the Acacia and the false pepper tree, laying around on the terrace. And bake a cake for tomorrow's friends coming over.

I hate mosquitoes.

Clever, no?, to end this article with present experience, like I'm really over it. But, yes, most of the time I am. At least the desperation is gone. I still don't know what enlightenment or awakening is. I have only the words of others trying to describe what their experience is. But since I cannot really know what their experience is, I have no clue and it's no use trying. I can only keep on noticing what's happening in this, my life, giving up all hope and false beliefs. And it's okay and that's the end of it.

“You get what you get when you get it”

Robert Saltzman