The Apparent Value of Enlightenment

ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS LIMITS

Jack Bragen

You may wonder, what could give an unenlightened student of life, such as I, the authority to comment on what enlightenment will and won't do for you? Admittedly, I can't claim to have achieved enlightenment. Yet, based on my studies, I have a pretty good idea of what it is and isn't. Also, I have the maturity many people get when past age 40, and this is its own category of attainment. And since a part of me appears to be transcendent, and this seems to be an increasingly large portion of me, a part of me is always "logged in" to a "higher" mental or spiritual perspective. Together, I believe the above things make me qualified to comment on enlightenment.
While being enlightened won't get you a loaf of bread, it will make you unattached to bread so that during those times when there is no bread, you will not create suffering over it. Although you may be unattached to this bread, you still need to eat, and you need to take the necessary actions that are required to obtain your food. This could range from taking a trip into your kitchen and opening up a pantry or a refrigerator, up to the level of maintaining employment to fund your bread, and driving to the grocery store to buy it. Or if your circumstances dictate it, in order to get your food, you might need to hike for miles on a barren wasteland, brave searing heat, and stand in line for three days at the place where the food is being distributed. In this last scenario of living in impoverished conditions, enlightenment will help you the most, since, while you will physically feel the pain and discomfort of harsh external conditions, this won't affect your peaceful mental state.
Enlightenment could make a person totally happy at nearly all times. When I saw on television the Dalai Lama speaking about things that are not good, I detected incredible sadness. Yet he expressed this as a form of joy, something that might be beyond the comprehension of many viewers. Even the very worst events in life have good aspects, and can be perceived as good. And this appears to be a part of the lesson.
I remember seeing a Karate demonstration in which the Karate instructor said he was helped by this method of self-defense so that now he could "fear no man." Self-defense is fine, but does it truly address your fear? I think not truly. In order to truly be fearless, I believe it is necessary to become enlightened.
Enlightenment won't make your body immune to an attack by a bear, but you won't spend your time uselessly worrying about whether or not a bear will show up.
Not only will enlightenment create fearlessness, it will also allow you to make friends with those who you thought were your enemies. To an enlightened person, everyone is an acceptable person, and no one is shunned on an interpersonal level. If someone misbehaves, they might be asked to leave a temple of meditation, but they will not be expected to feel shame about it.
Our bodies are responsible for our being able to perceive the physical world through the ordinary five senses, and are responsible for our storage of memories, and for the programming in our brains that gives us a personality. Our bodies allow us to interact with the physical universe, and to comment on it to ourselves, and to put down an anchor that gives our consciousness a point of reference. Enlightenment is partly an event that happens to our bodies when we have practiced meditation enough.
Enlightenment doesn't make our bodies immortal. It doesn't change the reality that, in time, our bodies must pass.
Enlightenment changes our attitudes concerning this reality. For someone who is enlightened, the passing away of the body is neither a source of fear nor apprehension.
When enlightened, the perspective of consciousness has changed. The perspective is no longer from within the individual ego capable of suffering through a mere insult or an ingrown toenail. The perspective of an enlightened person has risen beyond the limitations of the body, and thus the fate of the body becomes almost inconsequential.
While the memory and the train of thought of an individual are likely to stop at death, it is thought that consciousness does not stop. From an enlightened perspective, it may make no difference whether the body continues or not.
I have commented on what I believe enlightenment is and is not. For me, my future may not include becoming enlightened, since at least for now, I have chosen another path. Yet the existence of enlightenment is good to know about, and there is a part of me still that would like to go there.
I don't know if enlightenment would make things better for me, or if instead I am better off playing in the sandbox a while longer. I know that for now, no one is throwing sand in my eyes, so I will stay here.