Andrew Cohen - N° 13 - LAST TEACHINGS - Dec. 24 _ Feb. 25

If the Buddhist enlightenment was such a big deal, it would be it would be like winning the gold medal at the Olympics, right? Big big deal, baby. A big attainment. But a lot of people who start meditating wonder why they don't get enlightened after five minutes. How many people have you heard of like the Buddha or like Ram Maharshi? like like Ramachrishna Vananda how many people of that caliber exist? Very very few. So we're talking about climbing Mount Everest here of consciousness. So you can say well respectfully it would be more appropriate to say you know I've just started practicing the dharma. I'm already feeling so much better. It's still intermittent but it proves to me that it's real and I can imagine based on my limited experience that if I pursue this liberation would actually be possible. So think about this is like trying to win the Olympic gold medal. That's what we're talking about. Everybody plays down the enormity of what we're speaking about here. This is the biggest human attainment level of consciousness that's possible. And very few people succeed. Very few people succeed. Like you heard me say, it's easy to wake up. A lot of people have wake up experiences, but they all fall back to sleep. Some people have spiritual experiences where they wake up, but they all fall back to sleep. They all fall back to sleep. They all fall back to sleep. Very few people still wake up and stay awake for days, weeks, months, years, decades, lifetimes. So if you think about this as as the greatest human aspiration that there is, which takes a huge commitment, it'll help you a lot. So what I want you to do is just practice no relationship. No techniques. There's meditation with with seed. Meditation without seed. This is meditation without seed. So you want to concentrate on the nature of consciousness itself from the very beginning. Consciousness is the space that exists between thoughts. How much space is there between one thought and another? How much space exists between two thoughts? So the space the space that exists between thoughts is infinite. That space is where you'll find your own subjective experience of consciousness. Consciousness is the ground of your experience in every moment. It's timeless, formless, beginningless and endless, eternal. So concentrate on the infinite nature of the space which is the nature of your own subjective experience of consciousness right now. So how how do you do that? by paying attention to your experience, but having no relationship with the good thought, no relationship with any object, no relationship. So, let's say, let's say you're playing a video game and the thoughts are floating around. You don't grab it. You don't touch. You let them float around, but you have no relationship with anything. No relationship is freedom. So, you can see the thoughts, but have no relationship with them. in in no relationship is is zero right relationship is is two any relationship involves two right so in this meditation this is a meditation direct on the nature of non-duality by focusing on your own subjective experience on the nature of your own consciousness right now be fearless just see you see Everything, focus on nothing. It's a little tricky. See everything, focus on nothing. See everything, focus on nothing. Would you be very awake to do this? You see it all. Don't focus on anything. Don't focus on any object. See everything, but don't focus on anything. And continue to let go of the mind. So you you just have to pay attention to your experience. Let go of thoughts. Pay attention. Let go. And when your mind becomes very narrow means you're starting to focus on an object and pull back and let go of it. Even if you have to do it again and again, do it again and again until until it becomes natural. It'll begin to happen by itself if you know how to do this. It becomes a natural state, a natural feeling of freedom. And the natural feeling of freedom feels very good. It feels very light. Feels very open. So don't judge yourself and don't judge your experience. Don't say this is good. This is bad. Now I'm doing it right. Now I'm doing it wrong. Don't do any of that. No self judgment. Just do the best you can. That's the secret. If you want to get enlightened, you have to go beyond your mind. Very simple. Enlightenment is not an experience. All experiences have beginnings and endings. Does the truth have a beginning and an ending? So, anything that has a beginning and ending is not liberation, is not God consciousness. So, experiences or feelings, intuitions come and go. They're not the thing itself. So in your meditation you experience absolute reality which is in this infinite space but without beginning and end and you realize this is the nature of the absolute. This is the nature of God. This is my own true nature. This is the nature of Ram Maharashi and Abupa and everybody else. This is the truth. I am everywhere and nowhere. I am the sum totality of everything that exists and everything that does not exist. Is there anything more you need to know? Therefore, you've been the whole truth has been revealed to you in your meditation. You thank God at the end for being so gracious, so kind, so loving, so compassionate to bestow to bestow this vision upon you. And then you get up from your meditation. You reenter the world of time, space, body, mind, and form. Relate to all of it, realizing that you're all of it and none of it. So, you don't need to you don't need to have an experience of being all of it. You know it. And if you know it, then you don't doubt it. If you don't doubt it, you don't need to have any more experience. which would mean you ma you're free from experience. Now most people aren't they're not free from experience. So if they have a little experience they say oh I know I know when the experience goes away they they start crying. So they're not free. So at the beginning freedom is an experience but finally it becomes freedom from experience is what freedom is all about. Freedom from experience is I I have seen the truth. I've known the truth. I know the truth is I am the truth. I have no doubt. I'm free. That's not a feeling. It's a knowing. So with that knowing, you get up from your meditation seat and you reenter the world as a a dharma warrior. You don't need anything except your knowing. You don't need to feel any any particular way. You're free from duality. That's the whole point. Very few people succeed at this. Remember non-duality means not to right? So if I need to have a particular experience that's duality. If I don't need anything that's the ground of being. It's grounded reality. The ground of the totality of reality. So if you know that you're free. It's not a mental knowing. It's not a mental knowing. It's from the heart. So if you're serious, this is what my guru taught me. You have to go beyond anything and everything. You have to go beyond anything and everything, beyond experience and see what happens then. So once again at the beginning at the beginning but when we begin our sadna we want to have spiritual feelings of peace joy bliss lightness of being ecstasy it's very nor very natural very normal very appropriate but when we become more mature we realize that's not the point I want to be free I don't want to be attached to any particular experience experiences come and go my true nature my true self, my authentic self doesn't come and doesn't go. There's no birth. It's beyond birth and death. No, that's freedom, right? This is Vantan 5minute lesson. [Music] So, what I'm sharing with you, my guru taught me in 10 minutes, and that was 30 years ago, 35 years ago, that the 10-minute lesson is still vibrating today. So like I was explaining yesterday, enlightenment is alive. It's a living vibration. It's not information. It's the knowledge of consciousness direct. It's a direct knowledge of consciousness.