Spiritual Enlightenment

Jed says he doesn't socialize because he doesn't have anything in common with others. I think he's wrong about this, but that's just coming from my ego (as will most everything else I say in this review.)

I have a lot in common with him. For one, like him, I am enlightened. For two, I did it on my own without a formal teacher. For three, I like reading books on the subject because it gives me good ways to explain it. It's why I read his book. (For four, I'm fond of Emerson's essays. For five, I use a pseudonym. Did you think I was named "St. Fu"?)

My favorite part was his example of depression. Like him, I always thought depression was a form of truth but never thought of formulating it exactly as he did. Much of the rest was pretty obvious to me, and as he said, when you're enlightened, it all seems simple like that.

None the less, he's mistaken about some things. You can be enlightened and mistaken about some things. He would likely add that if you're not enlightened, you're mistaken about everything. It's a good line but like all lines, especially the good ones, easy to misunderstand.


His technique, spiritual autolysis, is the CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) of spiritual teachings and has both the strengths and weaknesses of that kind of approach. He wants you to reject your false thoughts and your fear of no-self just gets in the way. If you're a skydiver, someone who sees fear but just "does a swan dive," this might seem the fastest, most to the point, "path" but we're not all skydivers. For someone who asserts he has nothing in common with others, he teaches as if others will all respond as he did and if they don't, they're just not willing to face the truth, not that there's anything wrong with that.

In the rationalist culture in which we live, this technique looks a lot like common sense. Indeed, much of what Jed says is common sense and it doesn't require enlightenment for one to agree. For example, the futility of striving and achievement, or feeling there's anything to accomplish. But he enjoys a nice video game, and I can see how someone might think the game of achievement and accomplishment is a nice way to pass the time.

He rejects other spiritual teachings as not evidence-based: where are their successes, he asks? He himself claims one or two a year. This is CBT's argument which gets it the backing of "science."
But rationality is ultimately about duality and has to be thrown out with the ego. Only, and here's where I differ with Jed, it doesn't. Nor does the ego need to be killed and desire extinguished. What does need to happen is they need to be treated as dream phenomena. Jed says he uses his discarded ego as a vehicle for traveling around the dream world and he uses rationality too, presenting arguments. When he says things are they way they're supposed to be, it's a dualistic statement for it presumes there's such a thing as things not being the way they're supposed to be with which he is making a distinction. (I'm not saying he doesn't know this. I doubt he'd have much problem with any of my criticisms.)

I find a lot to like in other spiritual teachings. Though, like Jed, I steer toward the zen and the advaita, different people need to hear different things and even if some people get lost in that stuff and never find their way out, who's to say waking up would be a better fate for them?

If enlightened people have can eat your eyeballs and don't need to be compassionate, why aren't there more eyeball eaters in the spiritual literature? You can argue that it's because most of it is written by the unenlightened, but even the possibly tiny percentage written by the enlightened lacks serious eyeball eating. I don't believe it's because they just weren't hungry.

Yes, Jed makes a much needed point that copying the ways of masters is no way to wake up. The rules of morality are a dualistic phenomenon and the enlightened are not bound to follow them, but once you are enlightened, there's not much reason to violate them any more than to obey them and they usually make a kind of sense. There is a great zen story in which a master kills a cat (because no one could say a true word) but causing harm is primarily done for some dualistic "advantage." Without a self, I feel mainly compassion for those trapped in ignorance. I'd been there not that long ago. And yes, they are like characters in a play. (The plot of Journey to Ixtlan consists of Carlos trying to find another being but only encountering zombies. I liked that part better than the "path with heart.")

Waking someone up is not doing them any favors so I mostly don't teach. I hope Julie is doing OK (not because I need to be a good person; there are no rules.) One last criticism: Jed says that once you're awake, there's no going back. This was not my experience. I had to awaken several times before it "took." I just couldn't believe what I had discovered--it was the damnedest thing!