Enlightenment is “freedom from the known”.
What is “freedom?”
What is “known?”
Freedom is non-attachment to what is experienced both within and without the body, mind and spirit.
“Known” is everything that is a manifestation of the self.
What is “known” does not only refer to what we are aware of at the conscious level.
What is “known” refers to the seeds that create who we are, our thoughts, emotions, personalities and ego.
“Freedom from the known” then means freedom from the self.
This is Enlightenment.
Pure awareness which is cultivated through objective observation creates freedom.
It is the polar opposite of what many people spend their whole lives doing – becoming attached to their perception of reality.
Stretching, expanding and transforming the consciousness is the practice of revealing the “known.”
It is the exposing of the seeds that have created who we are.
Connecting the practice of “knowing” with the practice of “freedom” brings us the practice of Enlightenment.
“Freedom from the known”.
This is the reason why it is not enough to have bare awareness.
Nor is it enough to have shallow objectivity.
Bare awareness would be like a factory foreman overseeing only 1% of his staff.
Meanwhile the other 99% is doing all manner of things.
Shallow objectivity is like freeing only one hair when the whole body is in chains.
It is a beginning, but the focus must continue and push through to freeing the entire being.
Enlightenment is in a sense very counter-instinctual.
The primal self does not want to embrace pain and it seeks to run towards pleasure.
In doing so it prevents itself from seeing the third door – the path of freedom.
The primal self will do whatever it needs to do in order to avoid pain and find pleasure.
It will create excuses, thoughts and emotions.
It will create the most genius justifications in order to continue in its usual fashion.
It is only through the realization that the greatest and deepest pain, that of separation from the true self, cannot truly be avoided that leads to the search for another way.
This is the third door – the way of “freedom from the known.”
This is the way to true Happiness – and this is Enlightenment.
