PSA: The is no enlightenment
No hay banda!
Nobody becomes enlightened. Ever. There is no enlightenment because there is no person, i.e. no subject. Separation is an illusion. That’s the heart of the matter.
‘Wait, what?’ I see you objecting. ‘You have been writing about enlightenment a lot here.’ Yes, indeed, I even wrote a post about an instant ‘awakening’ method. The issue is that language, any language, is inherently limited when addressing the unknown. We operate within the realm of duality, making it challenging to articulate such events.
In other words, what's commonly called awakening or enlightenment serves merely as an indicator. Following the suggested steps might offer a glimpse into what dropping the 'I' entails. However, this doesn't guarantee a genuine non-dual event, which is not only elusive but unattainable for an individual. You, as a person, will never truly understand nonduality—it reveals itself only in your absence.
Also, there's no need to seek enlightenment, as we're already in that state—separation is but an illusion. Like Neo, we are all the one.1 All that exists is already flawless; it simply is what it is.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. That’s the paradox.
In this integrated view, form is not an obstruction to understanding emptiness, nor is emptiness a negation of form. Rather, they mutually rely on each other. This non-dual perspective challenges conventional wisdom, which compartmentalises the world into discrete categories. Subject and object dissolve in the unconditional absolute.
Yeah, I know, it’s complicated. We appear to understand it. Sometimes, we even seem to get it. But those are just that: appearances.
Remember the words of Bondar at the infamous Club Silencio scene in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001):
No hay banda! There is no band. Il n'est pas de orquestra! This is all a tape-recording. No hay banda! And yet, we hear a band. If we want to hear a clarinet, listen. It's all a tape. It is an illusion.
Just another movie reference, of course. In this case, as you probably know, it’s from The Matrix (1999).