What is enlightenment?

Asked to define enlightenment and self-realisation, Sadhguru said such states cannot be understood through description alone. He argued that progress lies in breaking present limitations rather than imagining ultimate freedom.

In Short

• Experience limits understanding of unknown things
• Breaking limitations leads to gradual enlightenment
• Perception is illusory, modern neuroscience supports this

At any point in time, if we try to describe something which is not yet in your experience, even something as simple as how an eatable tastes, you are not going to get it. It does not matter if I use all my skills of articulation, you will still not get what a simple eatable is. So, if we talk about anything that is not yet in your experience, it will only lead to wild hallucinations or your own conclusion of what it could be.

Let me put it this way: do you recognise the limitations in which you are functioning right now? If you break that limitation, that is one step towards enlightenment. Once you break that limitation, you realise you are in a different set of limitations. If you break those, that is one more step towards enlightenment. Let us go this way. Right now, whatever limitations you see in your life, let us see how to break that. Don’t worry about enlightenment.

If you want to fly, you do not think about the sky. Your business is how to cut the ropes which are binding you down. If you want freedom, do not hallucinate about freedom. How to break the shackles that are holding you down should be your concern. If you sit here shackled and keep dreaming about freedom – something that you have not experienced – it is not going to happen. You break the shackles; that is one level of freedom. Maybe you will realise the next level of shackles, then we will see. Till then, the present shackles which hold you are the reality. Let us break that.

If we just think, “What is the Ultimate Realisation?”, you will come to your own conclusion, which is of no consequence. All I can say about it is that at this moment, how I am within myself, I will not exchange this for anything in the world. Even if you give me the whole world, I will not make a deal, because it is far bigger than that. And every human being is capable of experiencing this. When it comes to outside realities, we are all differently capable. When it comes to inner realities, all of us are equally capable. It is just that we never paid attention to that because we think everything that is worthwhile is outside. But there is no outside in your experience.

Everything that is happening is happening only inside, but it gives you a false dimension, as if it is outside. Today, particularly in the last few years, neuroscience has taken huge leaps. It is now disproving almost everything that you believed as reality. For example, “Seeing is believing”, isn't it? Today, modern neuroscience is telling you, “Seeing is not believing.” The eye is not a simple camera; it is not taking in what is there. You are taking information in at different levels, and it goes into your eye and breaks up into twenty-four different formats. You are actually seeing the picture that you are seeing in twenty-four different points in your brain. You are seeing the colour in one place, form in another place, texture in another place, light in another place.

This whole image that you are seeing right now is not real. That is not the way it is. A long time ago, we told you, “It is all maya.” When we said “it is maya,” we did not mean that it does not exist; it just meant it is not the way you think it is. It is not the way you perceive it through the five sense organs. The way you are seeing it is illusory. If your perception is enhanced in such a way that you are able to see life in a far bigger way than you are seeing it right now, we can say that is one step.

So, do not think of something which is not yet, because you cannot think of something which is not yet. All your thoughts come from what is right now in your head. It is only a projection from the past experience of life. That is no good. That will not transport you into the other dimensions of life; it only cripples you by giving you imagination and a false sense of knowing.

People describe heaven in every culture. If you look at the heavens that they are concocting, obviously they have a lot of unfulfilled desires. They want to go there and do whatever they could not do here. “In heaven, rivers flow with wine.” The guy did not get to drink enough, so there the rivers are flowing with wine – he can drown in it. So, your idea of heaven is actually very childish. No sensible man would want to go there. Only somebody who is perverted and suppressed would like to go to that heaven.

If you try to project into a dimension which is not in your experience, this is all that can happen. So, do not think about enlightenment. Think of the limitations in which you are living and how to go beyond that. That will be a sensible way to progress.

- Ends
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life.