How Does the Unit's Behaviour Change After Enlightenment?

It is very simple, and more perfect than you can possibly imagine.

I only just realised this afternoon how simple it really is. There is no 'doer'. There is no 'effort'. You do not 'try to change' anything.

Hold an unskilled pattern in the light of Truth and just ask: Is it real? Is it true? To whom is it helpful? or whatever questions you think will reveal the root of this pattern. (I know some people recommend Byron Katie's 'The Work' for a system of doing this, but questions like the above will suffice.)

Let's use an example: 

Suppose that I think the woman next door, who has several children by several fathers; and claims benefits from the State; and smokes and drinks; and lets her kids run round the streets causing trouble, is a bad person.

• Is it real? No. It's an opinion.
• Is it true? No. There is no free will. She is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing. She has always done exactly what she was supposed to do. She has no choice. She is acting from the highest spiritual understanding which she possesses.
• To whom is it helpful? Well, the ego obviously. The ego loves to compare and label and feel better than other people. It wants to be special.

Since there is no separate self, or ego, then if any action appears 'selfish' it is immediately seen to be false, because we know that separate 'self' does not actually exist. Just this one simple realization starts the Body/Mind Unit on the road to dealing with many unskilful patterns.

Once the pattern is seen for what it is, it naturally dissolves, because the New Data (created by Truth) is presented to the Body/Mind Unit which is incapable of acting against its own beliefs. That's just how it works. 

Think about it: how difficult is it to do something you don't believe in? 

You feel stupid hanging up your stockings by the fireplace in December once you know there's no Santa Claus, don't you? You don't keep looking up the chimney to make sure he's not real, do you?

Just get this: Once the Body/Mind no longer believes the pattern is True, the pattern dissolves.

It really is that simple. There is no doer. There is no effort to change. It just reprograms itself. That's its job.

Clearing, Post Enlightenment,  is just the process of noticing these patterns and shining the bright light of Truth upon them.

It really is that beautifully Simple.

There is No Enlightenment in Religions

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.

When goodness is lost, there is morality.

When morality is lost, there is ritual.

Ritual is a husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.

– – Tao Te Ching, chapter 38

The aim of the Tao, as with all other true methods, is to enlighten the reader. You are supposed to read it and wake up. We have modern books that can achieve the same thing, through direct pointing, but that same teaching is contained within the original manuscript of the Tao.

Look at the warning which I copied from the Tao Te Ching above and you can see that process has taken place to create almost every religion in the world.

(I say almost because i) I don't know every religion in the world and ii) I am fairly sure there will be some that never had an enlightened beginning)

When people cease to try to be Awakened by the teachings they then decide to be 'good'. It makes sense to them, because the enlightened Masters were 'good'.

Eventually this practising of goodness turns into a code of morality. People are now expected to follow this code of morality if they are to be considered good and to be following the 'way' of the Masters.

The final stage is when the rituals arise around the original teachings and Masters. They take over from the morality and from the 'goodness' and from the Awakening which started it all. People then form a Religion.

The concept of a Taoist religion would horrify the author of the Tao Te Ching. 

The author was Awakened and, to other enlightened beings, his teachings make complete sense. I find great beauty in his teachings and, since becoming Liberated/Awakened/Enlightened/Annihilated, understand them completely and get so much more out of them than I ever could have previously.

I now spend this life embodying the Tao in this unit, moment by moment. I have no desire to follow any religion because, from the enlightened viewpoint, all religions are empty and pointless.

If you want to use the Tao Te Ching for anything, use it to wake up!

Everything you need to know and apply is contained within it. If you cannot understand it, that is simply because you are not looking at it the right way. It is a book about the One Thing that is going on written by someone who was abiding in it. Find someone who is Awake and ask them about it.

It is not about a religion. It was never about a religion. It was always about finding out who you really are.

Who Cares About One-ness?

So at its most basic level, what exactly is Enlightenment?

You will find that a lot of teachers of enlightenment insist on it encompassing more than the basic experience. There are plenty who insist that unless one has a huge, immediate awakening to the oneness of everything then one is not enlightened. Fortunately, that is an opinion.

Opinions are the realm of the ego. It could also be considered to be a belief and once again that is the realm of the ego. So, if these highly enlightened teachers are holding opinions and beliefs about what constitutes full enlightenment, should we care?

As far as I can see, the origins of the ideas of enlightenment date back thousands of years and the one with which most people are familiar is that of the Buddha (who Did Not Want to start a religion!).

Buddha gave a teaching called The Four Noble Truths which, when taken on their own, teach us that suffering is caused by attachment to (desire for) things of the world and that freedom from suffering is achieved by no longer being attached to those things. (Yes, I am deliberately simplifying it.)

So, if someone becomes free from egoic suffering, they must be Enlightened.

I don't see any mention in there of coming to realise that everything in the universe is just one thing, or "not two" as the main adherents of these views name it (Advaita).

(Eventually, every Enlightened Being will come to realise that everything is just one thing because everything is arising within Aware, therefore everything is Aware, but don't worry about that if it means nothing to you right now. Really. Don't! Let it come on it's own.)

In order to be enlightened you simply have to cease suffering. 

Suffering is caused by attachment to external things by the ego ("little me"). By coming to the realisation that the ego does not exist and is simply a series of thought patterns that arise and fall within the mind, one breaks free of its desires. 

Once one realises that one is actually not the ego, not the body, not the mind, not the personality and so forth, then all that is left is the Awakeness, the Aware. It doesn't matter if you are experiencing this as 'The Witness', 'The Vastness' or 'The One-ness'.

At that moment, suffering through attachments and desires ceases. One is 'Enlightened'.

The part of the mind that worries about understanding One-ness, Advaita, Non-Duality is the ego. The ego will latch onto those ideas and try to make you suffer by questioning whether you really are enlightened. This is just another way for the ego to try to regain control.

You do not need to understand it, because only the "little me", the ego, needs to understand things. 

You Are Awakeness. 

Awakeness knows its own true nature and does not think about it, because it exists before thought.

If you know who you are, Awakeness, but you don't know what you are – everything is fine, just relax and enjoy the Freedom from Suffering.