nature of the Lifewave enlightenment

what is the nature of the Lifewave enlightenment?

When I was in Lifewave in the 1980s there weren't any accounts of people's enlightenment. They talked about it in general terms as if it was the same as Shankara's view of enlightenment. The merging of Atman with Brahman, the realization that Atman and Brahman have never actually been separate, or union with God.

This is the same sort of idea that is found in the Radhasoami and Santmat traditions in India, and with DLM I guess. The philosophy of Lifewave derived more from the teachings of the Theosophical society and from Alice Bailey. However, they all seem to agree on much the same idea of what enlightenment is.

Recently though someone did give an account of their enlightenment experience on an internet forum. Someone called iamthat or Malcolm went through Second Initiation in Lifewave, then after it ceased he went through enlightenment on his own. In my previous post I quoted his account of Second Initiation.

When I read his account I was surprised though. Instead of writing that he merged with Brahman he wrote that everything seemed to be part of him. I will give a fuller quotation at the end of this post but this is the important bit: "I was everywhere. I was the walls, the carpet, the furniture, the space between it all. There was one Being pervading everything, and I was that one Being".

I thought 'Is that it? Is that all?' I didn't think it would be like that. I remembered that somebody else had written a similar account, but I couldn't remember who it was so it took me a while to track down the book. Suzanne Segal in book Collision with the Infinite wrote this:-

"In the midst of a particularly eventful week, I was driving north to meet some friends when I suddenly became aware that I was driving through myself. For years there had been no self at all, yet here on this road, everything was myself, and I was driving through me to arrive at where I already was. In essence, I was going nowhere because I was everywhere already. The infinite emptiness I knew myself to be was now apparent as the infinite substance of everything I saw."

At first I thought that he must have copied from her, especially when you consider this paragraph from iamthat's account:-

"Travelling in a car was also interesting, especially as a passenger. My body was still, and I was still, but there would be all this scenery moving within the stillness. And I could see that I was already at the end of the road, but my body had to move through me to get to where I already was."

Then I realized that quite a few people have had this experience. Ken Wilber, for example, calls it 'One Taste'. Below is a quotation from his book Grace and Grit:-

"That's right. The soul, as I am using the term, is a sort of halfway house, halfway between the personal ego-mind and the impersonal or transpersonal Spirit. The soul is the Witness as it shines forth in you and nobody else. The soul is the home of the Witness in that sense. Once you are established on the soul level, then you are established as the Witness, as the real Self. Once you push through the soul level, then the Witness itself collapses into everything witnessed, or you become one with everything you are aware of. You don't witness the clouds, you are the clouds. That's Spirit."

I found something else on a forum. G Tyler Wright gave his account on Quora.

"After some time in the thought-free state, my awareness expanded. I became my entire surroundings!

I was the bed, I was the closet, I was the door, I was the air. I was everything! I felt like I was awake for the first time in my life! I thought, How could I ever have mistaken myself to be that little body and that little mind?"

What all these accounts share is that they perceived that everything they saw was part of them. Everything they turned their attention towards did not seem to be separate from them. This isn't just a thought or a feeling, it is their perception. It seems to me that this can be better explained by brain functioning than by Hindu philosophy.

Most people's brains work on the basis of Subject and Object. You are the Subject, and something you observe is the Object. They are perceived to be different. This is called the Subject/Object dichotomy. The dichotomy can be overcome, in which case everything seems to be part of you.

The problem though is that everything is not part of you. There is no evidence apart from your altered perception that everything is part of you. If you look at someone and perceive that they are part of you, then you would be able to be aware of their thoughts just as you are aware of your own thoughts. That doesn't happen though.

You might say that enlightenment doesn't necessarily involve telepathy, but in the absence of any independent evidence that it is true we have to say that it is false. There are no psychic powers, you can lie to them (as I did) and they can't tell.

Someone can do this and they think that everything is part of them, or they are part of everything, or they and everything are one. They are at one with the universe. Then they start thinking they must have attained unity with God, or they have merged with Brahman or that they have always been Brahman but only now do they see their true identity. If they have done it all by themselves without a guru then they start thinking they must be the Khalki Avatar or the Maitreya Buddha. This is what happened to John Yarr.

It doesn't make people compassionate, or emotionally stable or less greedy. It could be it does the opposite. It doesn’t free you from the cycle of birth and rebirth because reincarnation isn't true. Neither is any form of life after death.

What's more there are two ways that someone can overcome the Subject/Object dichotomy. You can end up with all Subject and no Object. Or you can end up with all Object and no Subject (no Self). The first is Hindu enlightenment, the second is Buddhist enlightenment. The situation is complicated because some forms of Buddhism such as Tibetan Buddhism may have more in common with Hinduism than early Buddhism.

Some people will say that both forms of enlightenment are the same. When you are everything you are nothing. You are not everything or nothing though. The two forms are different. When I believed in reincarnation I thought that Buddhist enlightenment truly frees you from the cycle of birth and rebirth and Hindu enlightenment does not. Now I don't care what people do, I'm not interested in either path.

The Inner Light and Sound is not a spiritual energy and does not require initiation to experience it. Second Initiation does not take you a higher level of reality. Enlightenment does not help you see reality, free you from rebirth or make you a better person.

When I was told that enlightenment is beyond the mind, that we can never understand it with the mind, I used to accept that. We cannot understand it, only experience it. That made sense to me, because I believed that there were higher levels of reality, beyond the mind. I believed in the occult theory of different planes.

However, the reality of enlightenment seems to be very much to do with this material level of reality. That is what surprised me when I read accounts of enlightenment such as Suzanne Segal's. It seems obvious that it is to do with the way that the brain processes sensory information. That being so, we can understand what it is. There is nothing ineffable about it.

I have edited my original post. I used to think that John Yarr could have been influenced by nondualist teachers, perhaps Krishnamurti. I now no longer think this could be true.

Below is the quote from iamthat about Lifewave enlightenment:-

"It felt as if the entire range of sound was flowing through my spine, from the deepest sound at the base of my spine, to the finest sound at my throat. My head was empty, beyond all sound, and the energy continued to flow. The light was golden-white and brilliant, and I gazed upon it, every part of me striving to surrender. I had no thought except to lose myself in that light, when suddenly the light dissolved. There was just emptiness. The flow of energy which had been so strong suddenly ceased. Everything was still and peaceful. I sat there for a while, enjoying the stillness, but wondering what had happened to all that energy. Eventually I came out of meditation and turned on the light, as the room was now dark.

I was everywhere. I was the walls, the carpet, the furniture, the space between it all. There was one Being pervading everything, and I was that one Being. My body was just another physical object sitting in this one Being. Nothing limited me, nothing interrupted me, I was complete Being. I went downstairs to make a cup of tea, and I was not moving; instead my body was moving in the stillness that was me.

I woke up the next morning, and I was still everywhere. After some more meditation, I went for a walk outside. I was the pavement and the houses and the trees and the sky and the clouds. I was the cars as they drove through the one Being that was me. I was everyone I saw – we were all physical bodies expressing this one Being. There was nothing in this world except me, and I existed without limits.

Travelling in a car was also interesting, especially as a passenger. My body was still, and I was still, but there would be all this scenery moving within the stillness. And I could see that I was already at the end of the road, but my body had to move through me to get to where I already was.
And this has been my daily reality since December 1986. It never changes, it never goes away. The mind is still present, with all its limitations. Emotions are still present, with all their highs and lows. My personality is still there, with all its strengths and weaknesses. But behind it all, unchanging, always present, there is limitless Being. It is hard not to take it for granted; I can spend hours absorbed in daily trivia, and then I pause and gaze around me, and I see myself everywhere. For me, this limitless Being is the only true reality of life."