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Can someone who was previously mentally ill become enlightened through meditation or other methods? Are there any examples of this happening?

7/30/2024

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Mental illness is a large topic. Some pundits, such as R.D. Laing, see mental illness as a sane adaptation to an insane world. But if you have been around the mentally ill who exhibit the inner torment that most of us hide, you will recognize that they are being run by a maladaptation that disconnects them to the reality and behavioral norms we have agreed upon.

Enlightenment is precisely not being run by the smaller mind, which is subject to all kinds of injuries, chemical imbalances, and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Enlightenment is alignment with a higher, more transcendent, organizing Intelligence that is far beyond the capacity of the human brain and its hard wired propensities.

To contact this higher Intelligence, we must clear the static of the obsessive human mind. We can use it but not let it use us. Meditation has shown through the centuries that it is a viable path to observing our disturbing thoughts and rise above them like a balloon. Then we can get into that alpha brain wave state that clears out the dust balls of memory and fears about the future. Scientists have studied the brain waves of consistently meditating monks and have found beneficial changes in the structure of the brain itself.

But the first step, regardless of meditation or any other method, is the burning desire for enlightenment. The burning desire to rise above the chattering mind and its desperate need to survive at all costs is a must. If a previously mentally ill person needs, with all their being, to find inner peace and live an orderly, joyful life, it’s of primary importance to make the effort.

Enlightenment isn’t for everybody. It is not democratic. If it happened for everyone, this planet would not be in the state it’s in, with crimes against humanity and malignant disruption of the environment. Yet everyone is capable of it too, if they deeply desire it with a sincere longing that is like a passionate love affair. The Universe will find a way to bring them the answers they are looking for.

Extremely self-absorbed people who have to deal with personality disorders such as Narcissism often do not have the insight into their behavior and thinking patterns that cause so much grief to them and all around them. But enlightenment is open to everyone who shows the slightest bit of passionate effort. It has to come from a sense of responsibility for our lives. We don’t let the insane mind put us in a place where others need to care for us or put us away and structure our days. However, if there are structural and chemical diseases involved, the prognosis for enlightenment is that it won’t happen this time around.
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Not everyone is equipped to climb Mt. Everest. Not everyone is capable of being an international chess master, regardless of the amount of training. Enlightenment is like that too. You have to be ready for it. It is not attainable through magic formulas or wishful thinking, or a step-by-step process. You have to know what it is to be drawn to it. Unfortunately, mental illness, because of its centeredness on the little me and its fearful, disorganized mind, presents a large roadblock to enlightenment in this lifetime.


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What is enlightenment? Is it just a myth or can it be achieved by meditating deeply?

6/27/2023

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Enlightenment is not living in a fireworks display of ecstasy and spectacular mystical experiences. It is freedom from the constant onrush of fearful thoughts and feelings that disturb our peace and make our lives miserable. It is being in tune with the underlying energy and harmony of the Universe and it is directly experienced through the soul, heart, and gut—-not the mind.

Our need to survive has caused us to evolve into anxious, fearful creatures. The happy, unwary human contemplating the sunset was quickly consumed by the sabertooth tiger. The paranoid, wary human, who was startled by the rustling in the bushes and was constantly on the lookout for possible predators, lived another day. And so, through time, our minds enabled us to rise to the top of the food chain. Our nervousness and planning for all possible dangerous outcomes allowed us to dominate the planet but also not be happy while doing it.

Our minds, though brilliant problem-solvers and repositories of knowledge, create an enormous amount of distress and resultant physical ailments. Part of the problem is that the mind either abides in the past, thinking over hurts, bad experiences, and times of emotional turmoil. Or it rushes into the future, generating cascades of fear about what might or might not happen. Only the Soul, the inner connection to the perfect harmony of universal Source Energy is the gateway to the underlying peace of the eternal Now.

Enlightenment is finding our path to our Soul and abiding in it regardless of the changing circumstances of our lives. It is the direct experience of the eternal Now.

Many people think that enlightenment is some sort of mystical trance that allows us to be numb to all the difficulties of life. And that for the enlightened person, everything cooperates to create perfect physical comfort. They think that only a few people with spotless karma can reach it. Or that they need to take some mind-altering drug to get there. Or that they need to meditate for many hours a day in excruciating positions to achieve it. All this comes from a mistaken idea that enlightenment is “out there” and we have to go through the paces to “get there.”

It’s not “out there.” It is within—but few people can sit quietly enough to find it. As Pascal said, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." We need a constant onrush of companionship, input from social media, the news, whatever. Anything but be alone with ourselves. We can’t abide it. We can’t endure it. Yet being alone within ourselves is the gateway to inner peace, or enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not the result of a recipe for the “perfect life” with all the physical comforts taken care of for the duration. It is a context in which we experience our lives—no matter what comes our way. And it is our capacity to live in and appreciate the present moment—instead of thinking it is somewhere else—just not here and now.

It is simple but not easy.

Not easy, because the mind is automatic, repetitive, and thinks it’s helping us with its constant stream of “what ifs” from the moment we wake up. It justifies itself, wants to prove it's right all the time, and is looking out for “what’s wrong with this picture?”. It can be brilliant, but it does not know the way to happiness because it can’t live in the Now. Only the Soul abides in that eternal Now state. So enlightenment is finding our path to the Soul and then staying there. That is my definition of meditation, however we get there—mantras, music, being in nature, mandalas—it is the solitary contemplation of the Infinite.

It doesn’t come through any major activities or accumulation of knowledge. It comes first through a recognition of the human time-bound mental obsessions. Then it comes from finding that pathway to your inner heart, where all is still, at peace, and wise. The way I do this is to sit quietly, pay attention to my breath, open my palms upward on my lap, and say, “I am open and receptive to all vibrational levels of eternal joy and harmony.” I watch my thoughts as they cavort around but I realize that I am not my thoughts. They are just being generated by the automatic mind. They are not me.

Enlightenment does not mean that life is solved once and for all. Or that the mind won’t continue with its acrobatics. These activities are hard-wired into our minds and bodies. It also doesn’t mean that we have turned into perfect saints. We will still feel anger and all the unpleasant emotions—but we notice that these upsets will diminish as we practice abiding in inner peace.

Earthquakes, fires, and illness will still happen. The death of loved ones, cruelty, and war will still happen on this planet. This is the endless activity of physical existence and no amount of enlightenment will stop a tsunami. But if we are caught up in the inevitable, we can view it from the standpoint of the Eternal Soul and therefore not live and die in agony and terror. We understand instead, the eternal aspect of us, which is not separate from the unchanging and immortal Energy of the Universe, which has no beginning or ending.
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Finally, enlightenment is being in touch with eternity. We don’t fear physical death. We don’t fear the end of this collection of memories and conditioning that we call our personality. It is a state of emotional freedom and it has nothing to do with being a devotee of a particular set of religious beliefs. It is the way out of suffering that all the great beings with spiritual insight have discovered. They have pointed the way but we must find our own path.
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What are some of the pitfalls that people often fall into while pursuing enlightenment?

12/23/2022

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One of the greatest pitfalls in pursuing enlightenment is in the word “pursuing” itself. For in pursuing, we are always in the act of trying to get there. Enlightened existence is being acutely present in the here and now. It is not about something in the future that we need to strive for but may never achieve.
Many people, if we think of enlightenment at all, see it as an end state. We’ve finally arrived after so much time of practice. It is something that once achieved, is done permanently and we’ve reached at the end; the destination. And if we practice certain methods, we will be enlightened too.

In India I saw sadhus who stood on one leg for the majority of their lives, or stood with one arm permanently raised to hasten their enlightenment. I witnessed all kinds of self-punishing practices that were supposedly the ticket to getting off the wheel of death and rebirth. I saw all manner of deprivations, including the naked nagas, up in the sub-zero temperatures of the Himalayas. One one level it is admirable to show sincerity and deep desire to be free. Yet, on another level, it is very body-centered and unnecessary for attaining the deep peace of really living in the present moment.

People also see enlightenment as a state in which all our problems are permanently solved and we will never feel pain, fear, or suffering again. And so we will sit in the lotus position for twelve hours a day, chanting, thinking that this state will bring us into emotional. freedom. The more difficult the positions and practices, supposedly the better. It sometimes becomes a situation of spiritual one-upmanship. “I sat and chanted for 18 hours straight.” “Really? Well, I did it for 20 hours!”

All this self-immolation and punishment centers on the idea that we can bribe the Universe through certain acts and we will finally feel safe. That’s not what enlightenment is. Enlightenment cannot be defined in one sentence but it is about being conscious, in the present moment of the beauty and grandeur of the Universal energy at the core of everything that is physical and non-physical. Enlightenment is about living in the Now, and taming the wild monkey mind that anxiously hurls into the future or depressingly focuses on past hurts and failures.

Therefore, people can carry on with their entertainments according to the cultures in which they were indoctrinated—this is holy, this isn’t, this will lead to enlightenment, this won’t—but it has nothing to do being in a state of Now-ness no matter what we are doing or not doing. If we think that doing something now is going to bring us enlightenment in the future, we are missing the point altogether. We chastise ourselves for not meditating enough or properly and feel like failures because “everyone else seems to be able to do it.”

Pursuing enlightenment has become a tourist industry, with people going to far-flung regions to take ayahuasca or visit remote temples to make sacrifices. That may make people feel they are doing something to achieve enlightenment, but usually it wears off and they are back to their anxieties and self-doubts, self-comparisons, and hoping one day they will “arrive.” Enlightenment is not a state at which you arrive and it’s all free sailing from then on.

It is a constantly evolving deepening that we cannot influence through trade-offs, public display of spirituality, or wishful thinking. While we are in the physical, we will all feel pain and suffering. Enlightenment is not about pain-free euphoria. People have been trying for that for centuries and it has worked its way into major opioid epidemics. Being in a drugged-out trance in hopes of escaping the ups and downs of life is not enlightenment, though it masquerades as such.
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No, pain is still there, no matter how enlightened any human is. But it hinges on how we view pain. How we hold it in our consciousness that makes the difference between enlightenment and mere suppression. Suppression is like holding our hands over a child’s mouth so she won’t cry—instead of alleviating her pain. Enlightenment is holding the pain in a state of presence, understanding that “this too shall pass,” It is also understanding that no one in the physical form is exempt from suffering, therefore, not taking pain personally—as if we are singled out to be picked on because of something we did or didn’t do.
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Can you explain the concept of "mindfulness" as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh?

11/13/2022

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The moment we awake from sleep, our minds begin their whirlwind of thoughts about the future: I need to do this and that, I need to meet or avoid certain people, I’m hungry, my leg hurts, maybe I should see a doctor. But the last doctor I saw didn’t help. Now what should I do? It took so long to get my last appointment with that doctor. No we are going back into the past, remembering the unpleasant. Then we switch to the future, fearing what will happen if we don’t get it taken care of. We fear it will only get worse.

This is just one example of how our minds run away with us, as we toggle from future to past and past to future. Meanwhile, we are not experiencing the fullness of our present moment, which is all we really have. The past is gone. The present hasn’t happened yet. All we truly have is the now. And if we don’t allow ourselves to experience and pay attention to the now, in all its peace and completeness, we will be dragged around by our minds into a state of anxiety, fear, regret, despair, and unease.

And this is just the start of the day. Instead of waking up and looking at the new dawn, feeling the joy of being alive, feeling appreciation for life and love, being fascinated with how perfect it all is, we need to fix things. We need to get on with the next project, we are bored, restless, or reluctant even to wake up as we face the drudgery and difficulties ahead.

Thich Nhat Hanh steers us away from this unhappy way of living. He says:

“If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”

We are not really living when we are rushing off to the next thing and seeing the present moment as an encumbrance that we need to get through somehow. The present moment becomes something we must survive so we can get to the next thing that we must survive. It is a pointless and completely miserable way to live: Let’s get on with it so we can rush to the next thing we need to get on with. Instead, Thich Nhat Hanh says:

“When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.”
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Now we are at one with our body and its movement, each step, the earth, and the freedom of present moment awareness. We are not dragged down by the sorrows of the past or the fears about the future. We are mindfully walking, one step at a time, and being happy with that one step. Focussing our attention on that one step. In that mindful step is the key to our freedom from the churning of the mind. There is no place to go. We have already arrived.
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What are the signs that someone has become enlightened in Buddhism? Have there ever been any cases of people disappearing after becoming enlightened?

10/23/2022

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In Buddhism, there are “Seven Factors of Awakening” that show enlightenment:
  • Mindfulness: To maintain awareness of reality, in particular the teachings of Buddha. Reality in this sense means staying in the Here and Now. This is in contrast to our minds fearfully and restlessly running from the past to the future and creating and inner and outer atmosphere of fear and stress.

  • Investigation into the nature of reality. This means looking within and finding our connection to Cosmic Consciousness, the underlying organizing intelligence of the Universe. It does not take the objects of our physical perception as being the true reality. It means living a life of contemplation into what is behind the illusion, instead of taking things at face value.

  • Energy. This means determination and effort to move beyond the endless stream of activities and thoughts that we take as daily life. It takes discipline to practice spirituality and inner peace. Without this fire within, we cannot make a connection to what lies beyond the cycle of birth, reproduction, decay, and death. We must love our inner beings much more than we love our capricious minds.

  • Joy. Enlightened ones are happy because they are not the victims of their chattering monkey minds. Enlightened beings trust that Universal Harmony is the Law of the Universe and therefore do not life fretful lives. This is deep, inner joy—not just the superficial happiness that comes when our cravings are satisfied. That happiness goes away when we are deprived of its objects. Joy stays as the foundation of their being.

  • Relaxation or tranquility of both body and mind. We can feel when someone is in inner turmoil. They show it in countless ways, from nervous tics to having meltdowns and tantrums. The enlightened ones accept What Is and don’t fight it. They solve problems naturally, without feeling they need to control everything and everyone around them.

  • Concentration—a calm, one-pointed state of mind, that fits into the above “relaxation and tranquility.” This is usually done through meditation. Yet we don’t need to sit endlessly in the lotus position to attain this one-pointedness. It happen all day long as we stay mindful in our tasks and activities, or just sit and contemplate the glory of What Is.
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  • Equanimity: In Buddhism it means to accept things as they are without craving or aversion. We can spend our whole lives reacting to things. I hate this. I love this. All based on our conditioning, experiences, and opinions. Cravings drive us into a endless path of dissatisfaction. For once the craving is satisfied, another one comes up. Or we just want more and more of what we think will make us happy. Aversions cause us to live a life of disgust with others and moral self-righteousness.

As for people disappearing after they have become enlightened, even the Buddha hung around in the flesh after he attained enlightenment. Disappearing is a romantic and fairy tale view of enlightenment. When people asked the Buddha, “What do we do after we become enlightened?” He asked, “What are you doing now?” They said, “We’re chopping wood and carrying water.” Buddha said, “Chop wood and carry water!”

Enlightenment isn’t a state of fireworks, peak experiences, and mind-blowing sensations. It is a simple approach to daily life that many people may not even be able to notice. But as we are chopping wood and carrying water or going about our daily tasks, we hold them in a different state of consciousness—as something precious, miraculous, and in the NOW.
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Other than intent, are there differences between 'shower thoughts' and thoughts you get while meditating?

10/1/2021

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Thoughts I get while meditating are like bubbles rising into the horizon. I don’t get pulled into them or give them any importance. They are automatically generated by my thinking machine (ego mind) and have mostly to do with survival, the past, or the future.

They can be funny and they can be a nuisance, like a buzzing mosquito, but they are completely irrelevant to the mediations process. Meditation takes us into deeper layers of consciousness than mere thought.

Shower thoughts are about planning, getting things done, gettin clean, something someone said, a song you like, all kinds of random things, and they can be tied to intention or not. The ego-mind cannot be still in the present moment, so it seeks to distract itself with all kinds of thoughts, some of which are actually useful and problem-solving but others are just mental clutter.

The whole point of meditation is to go beyond this metal noise and get to a place of quiet peace. Therefore, thoughts during meditation are useless.

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Do we have a monkey mind?

7/20/2020

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The term “monkey mind” is an old buddhist description of how our ego minds jump from topic to topic from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. You might say, “We don’t have a monkey mind, it has us.” In other words it is so pervasive, repetitive, and non-stop that unless we are meditating or asleep, it has us. It runs us and causes our emotions to go up and down all day long and sometimes into our dreams.

Even it we “have” a monkey mind, it doesn’t mean we actually are this monkey mind. It is just a tool we can use to accomplish our goals. But if we let it run our lives with its restless chatter, then it does indeed, have us. It needs to be disciplined and put in its place. It is not who we are, for we are much more than this conglomeration of neural transmitters. It is merely an instrument in this body that helps us navigate through the physical world.
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The monkey mind is responsible for all the unrest, neurosis, violence, and upset in the world of human interactions. It keeps us awake at night and causes us to seek substances to subdue it. We are addicted to the monkey mind and its antics and then seek out other forms of addiction to quell it. And so, if we do not acknowledge this monkey mind and begin to tame it, it will, indeed, have us. And until we realize we are The Eternal Soul, we will experience its rambunctious behavior.
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Why have concentration, discipline, harmony, and clarity of mind not been as big of a thing in Western philosophy as it has been in Eastern?

3/29/2020

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Western Philosophy, with some exceptions, is a temple to the rational mind. Reasoning and figuring out why things are the way they are, are the main focus. For example, the Philosopher Kant, formulated reasons for why we need to behave altruistically towards others. Even Descartes, with his, “I think, therefore I am,” emphasizes the rational mind. He does not say: “I feel therefore I am,” or “I witness, therefore I am.”
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Eastern philosophy is more concerned with going within to find who we are as an Eternal reflection of cosmic consciousness. To do this, we must bypass the rational mind and forget about the “why’s” of things. They are the way they are and no matter how bright we are, we will never get to the bottom of it all—but Who and What is it that wants to understand?

To find out who we are, behind the labels, masks, and conditioning, we must not be distracted by the constant stream of thoughts that swirl through the mind. It takes discipline to rise above this whirlpool. It takes training to recognize the tricks of the mind. This is what Eastern philosophy aims to do. And it offers pointers to how to move away from the collector’s search for never-ending knowledge.

In general, Western philosophy is about knowing. Eastern philosophy is about finding our unity with an underlying structure of reality that never dies and never changes. It presumes we can never fully know, but we can still unite in peace with All That Is, because, at base, this is who we really are anyway. All knowledge passes away, but the Soul, in its union with the Universe, is eternal.

We can collect as much knowledge as we want, but it does not bring peace or comfort. But once we go within, with a truly quiet mind, all the harmony of the Universe is revealed.
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Can a person be spiritually prideful and/or arrogant?

3/22/2020

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It’s called “spiritual one-upmanship: “I have studied more scripture or meditated more than you have. I know more than you do spiritually. I meditated for 48 hours straight sitting in the lotus position—can you do that?” These are just a few attitudes of the spiritually prideful and arrogant people who think that spirituality is a contest to see who is better and who wins.

This is nothing more than the ego mind, the petty lower mind, trying once again to prove that it is right and everyone else is wrong. It sees spirituality as an acquisitive activity: “I will have the most books on the Upanishads,” “I will make the most pilgrimages and see the most gurus,” “I am purer than all these creatures around me.”
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Arrogant and prideful people on the spiritual path see others as not evolved. They listen closely to catch people making unspiritual statements and confirm to themselves that they will win the prize while everyone else will be left in the dust. Everyone is on their own unique level of spiritual understanding. But the spiritually arrogant person doesn't allow for this. Therefore, they are missing the highest expression of spirituality, which is Love.
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Is the animal I'm seeing when I'm meditating my spirit animal?

1/12/2020

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It could be. Our spirit guides find many pathways to communicate with us. Sometimes our waking consciousness is too filled with barricades that do not allow the world of the spirit in. This is why many people are visited by their guides and spirit animals before they go to sleep, in the middle of the night, or early morning. Their skeptical and self-doubting minds are at rest and they are open and receptive to messages from beyond.

We are more sensitive to the world of the spirit when we are not so consumed with all the things we need to get done and all the sensory input from the noisy world around us. Meditation offers that moment of inner silence. And into that peaceful vacuum can come your spirit animals to pay you a visit. Sometimes you may just feel their presence. Not everyone is visual in they way they perceive them.
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This is especially true for beloved animals that have crossed over yet are still protecting spirits for their human companions. They may appear only as sounds, a feeling of their presence, or even their scent. They are pure spirit but appear in the form that is the most appropriate.
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    As a spiritual guide, healer, and lecturer, I have had the privilege to touch the lives of people who long to understand their higher selves. Please leave questions and comments for me. Hope to see you often here!

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