The Goalless Goal
A certain amount of fine discrimination needs to be applied to the idea of goals in this game of self-annihilation because, let's face it, what ego in their right mind would want to pursue it? Most of the religious and new-agey spiritual self-improvement claptrap in the marketplace plays the ego enhancement game. They know their market would evaporate otherwise. So THIS game is not only for a very peculiar kind of character, it is also solely about what is TRUE. That's the only thing that interests me and should be the only thing that interests any authentic 'seeker'. That's at the very heart of it! This focus puts all religious mumblings about self-control and ethical behaviour out to pasture. That's because this very peculiar desire begins to colour everything in your life. Behaviour cannot but be changed and priorities altered. Yes, chaotic social circumstances are clearly a deterrent to waking up. So social withdrawal and avoidance of behaviour, people and circumstances that heighten ego drama is a necessary requirement on the path to truth. This is not based on any moral impositions passed down from on high but pure conscious choice.
So let's bravely (read naively) go down the 'defining-the-goal' rabbit hole. Enlightenment is about as bad a term as God for me. Let's take a stab anyway at what enlightenment actually is from some sane sources:
Enlightenment is the ability to perceive and experience things as they are without anything added, subtracted, or projected by the ego and its distorted sense of self and other. Enlightenment is the experience of reality minus the confusion and identification of the ego. It is non-dual in nature and there is no separation between subject and object, or self and other.
So a person is enlightened when ...
... the limiting systems of identification and habitual patterns of the ego have been permanently relaxed and transcended. It is for this reason that enlightenment might also be called “liberation.” A person may have hundreds of enlightenment experiences (nondual experiences), but unless that person is … embodying that truth in every moment and is successfully able to take full responsibility for him or herself without attachment to any belief or identity system, then that person is not enlightened.
Quotes from - What Is Enlightenment? by Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.
As an aside, it may be fairly useful on the 'path' to use the above definition as a tool to disqualify individuals claiming to be enlightened from unduly influencing you. Like the the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal ... avoid, avoid, avoid!
Alternatives to the generic catchall term 'enlightenment' do exist. Jeffery Martin defines this state as 'Persistent Non-symbolic Experience' and Jed McKenna calls it 'Abiding Non-dual Awareness'. For Gary Webber it is a state primarily characterised by absence of self-referential thought. Interestingly Jed loosely defines two stages that bear further reflection - waking up in the dream i.e. realising your are dreaming and becoming lucid; and waking up from the dream. Maybe these pointers will come up in another post.
So what are the dominant flavours of the the 'thing'?
- Quietening of the mind and thoughts, more specifically self-referential thoughts.
- Shifting sense of what constitutes 'inner' or 'outer'.
- Deepening well being.
- Greater degrees of autonomy - paradoxical because at the same time ego boundaries are dissolving.
- Diminishing sense of agency.
- Greater appreciation that life is perfect as it is and is enfolding just as it should.
Thought does not get 'you' there. 'You' are a product of thought. Only effective practices have the potential to work their magic. They are said to be working when the above vectors of shifting experience, spontaneously begin to unfold in the right direction - away from a separate sense of self that needs constant protection, towards the non-dual truth, that is unfolding in the moment undivided by ego.