InPresence 0047: The Psychology of Enlightenment

InPresence host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). For many years he served as president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people were supported and encouraged in developing inner intuitive abilities.

Here he compares Hindu and Buddhist ideals of enlightenment with the Freudian notion that mystical states represent a regression to an infantile state. He points to the work of Abraham Maslow and the important role of "peak experiences" in the self-actualization process. He also provides examples of individuals who claimed to have achieved states of enlightenment instantaneously. Noting that many supposed gurus have "feet of clay", he suggests that we can be enlightened in some areas of our life and not in others.

(Recorded on March 27, 2018)

To download an edited English transcript of InPresence 0047, go to

[KazimirArdekanian]

Dr. Mishlove, In your interview with UG (in the old Thinking Allowed), UG said that, an enlightened man would not know that he is enlightened. 
I listened to those two interviews many times. To me, that statement of UG stands.

[cagedgreed]

I'd like to be enlightened by about 30 pounds, I'm sure I'll feel better when I get there. Actually, I had one of those groovy moments standing in a tai chi chuan pose. It was nothing short of an amazing and ephemeral glimpse, and it worried me afterward that I could be completely wrong and only THOUGHT that I had one of those moments. Low self-esteem, beaten into me at an early age, made me doubt the gift I had received. Your InPresence series is helping immensely.

[alienprotocols]

Just such a delight ... hearing your wise & REFRESHING perspective... in a very "enlightened" way, you seem to truly RADIATE love & curiosity! Kudos! Well done my friend!!!

[aesthesiak]

Spiral Dynamics .. it would be interesting to have an expert on this one time. Love your show :)

[semichiganandy]

That 'phone call' sounds like some telemarketers that I've hung up on. I know I'm not enlightened but I also know that I wouldn't be able to tell who is and who isn't. There are people we meet who are worth listening to, so I listen. And there are people who claim to be 'enlightened' or insightful or whatever. And those people I politely escape from. I'm skeptical of anybody who feels that they have to tell me how smart they are. Their brilliance should be evident without being advertised.

[auggied]

As you noted, scholars have debated the meaning of enlightenment for a very long time. However, scholars, like religious leaders and New Age proponents, do not know any better than the average person, and this is because this so-called state of enlightenment is beyond the intellect, which makes scholarly opinions inconsequential.

There are many misconceptions of this so-called state of enlightenment, and they overcomplicate what is very simple. There is a process of sorts, that leads to a realization that the ego mind is a belief created by the accretion of thought. But realization of the Self is not a process; it is an awakening to what is already present. Thought and the mind are creations out of consciousness. This is not a matter of intellectualism, but rather something that anyone can observe in him/herself. And now even physicists and neuroscientists are finding that the ego mind is merely recognizing that which has already happened. Thus, there is really no doer or thinker, because all arises spontaneously out of consciousness. This is a scary Truth that the ego mind does not want to face, because it undermines its reason for existence and the identities to which it clings.

We can look at “life” or existence as that which is permanent versus that which is temporary. It is the permanence that is real, and it is this permanence that acts as the backdrop, so to speak, of all existence. The Vedas have referred to this permanence as “The Absolute;” that which exists prior to consciousness and anything that can be known, measured, cognized, sensed, etc. Temporary are the mind, body, all forms, expressions, and even consciousness. Beyond this is the permanent space that has no description, boundaries, borders, characteristics, etc. When permanence is known then the ego and all expression becomes known to be temporal and relatively meaningless.

The permanent, Absolute state, is unity, and as such it is prior to ideas, words, or dualism, making it impossible to explain in words, because language requires dualism. And as long as there is this physical body through which consciousness is experienced, there is dualism that fragments the unity into pieces that the mind can experience. Because we are habituated into seeing the world in fragments, we misbelieve that this is the reality of things and we buy into all the suffering and cycle of pain and pleasure to which we think we are heir. Freedom from this belief system has been referred to as enlightenment.

Still, there is really no such thing as becoming enlightened or becoming free from bondage. This is another major misconception, especially among intellectuals and New Age thinkers. The Self, the permanence or Absolute, always exists. The mind is just an imposition upon it until the mind is realized not to exist at all except as a belief. The Absolute is not to be obtained or attained, because it is here now, not somewhere “out there” or something to be cultivated, and therefore there is nothing to be enlightened. And regarding bondage, the ego mind is a construct; it does not actually exist except as a belief, so there is actually no bondage except as an idea. To wake up to what is real only takes realization, not mystic powers, not the power to transcend death, not an explosive experience, certainly not the power of the mind, not yogic powers, not kundalini, etc.

Most of what we have heard of enlightenment is from people who have no idea what it is; they are looking in from the outside and using their own imperfect minds to judge what they think they know to be true about another individual. They create all sorts of stories and myths. They create parameters and measurements based on their own limited judgments and opinions. They claim that enlightenment comes from a touch or gaze of a guru. They may see the process a person has gone through and then mistakenly claim that all of the outward actions must be replicated or gone through to achieve some sort of mystic state. In the end, each person must wake up to the Truth in order to see the ego mind for what it is, and to discern between the permanent and that which is temporal.

The ego mind is a mirage, and like a mirage, just because you see there is really no oasis shining off the floor of the hot desert sand, it does not mean that the mirage disappears. The mirage remains. The only thing that really has taken place is the knowledge of the mirage itself and that it is not reality; and this is where the freedom comes from.

[bettyeldridge]

Different people seem to comment every day. The topics always make me want to comment. So... The idea of enlightenment seems to require separation from the mass mind, imo any way, the word 'individual' is what fits. When I read Contact by Carl Sagan in 1985, it was just a boring book that introduced the word 'palimpsest' to me. What really happened was enlightening described in detail.

There are clues that becoming aware of and becoming connected to and interacting with an Other Intelligence is what creates a human (He-you-'man') from a man. Some of mine were sprinkled in various books that sometimes I would never have chosen myself:

John Barrow wrote in Pi in the Sky: "A mystery lurks beneath the magic carpet of science, something that scientists have not been telling, something too shocking to mention except in rather esoterically refined circles; that at the root of the success of twentieth century science there lies a deeply 'religious belief'--a belief in an unseen and perfect transcendental world that controls us in an unexplained way, yet upon which we seem to exert no influence whatsoever. What this world is, where it is and what it is to us is what this book is I wrote to him, asking what 'scientists have not been telling...' and other questions I had in reading this paragraph. He answered and recommended his next book.

Richard Tarnas makes a remark in his Cosmos and Psyche: ”Accompanying the more profound occurrences of synchronicity was a dawning intuition -- that the individual was herself or himself not only embedded in a larger ground of meaning and purpose but (is) also in some sense, a focus of it."

"Eternal truth needs a human language that alters with the spirit of the times." C. G. Jung

"The goal of myth and religion must here be sought outside of themselves in a fundamentally different sphere." Ernst Cassirer, Mythic Consciousness

There's a 'function of mind' that Freud described somewhat, it was mentioned by Patrick Mullahy, in Oedipus, Myth and Complex pp 508 “.... among the psychic functions there is something which should be differentiated (an amount of affect, a sum of excitation), something having all the attributes of a quantity—although we possess no means of measuring it—a something which is capable of increase, displacement and discharge and which extends itself over the memory traces of an idea like an electric charge over the surface of the body…for the present it is justified by it’s utility in correcting and explaining diverse psychical conditions. Collected papers, Vol I, p.75" ( I think this is the transcendental function being described very well.)

Why Psychoanalysis Is Not a Health Care Profession, Marvin Hayman, Ph. D.: "Another discussion of the relationship between medicine and psychoanalysis appeared in Szasz's (1964) book The Myth of Mental Illness. Szasz took the position that "mental illness is a myth" and that in actual practice we "deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living" (p. 308). Further, he argued that the so-called symptom is not a product of a disease process, but rather, is a form of protolanguage, a system of representational signs or picture language, rebus-like in its form and message. From this view, psychoanalysis is not the treatment of disease, but the semiotical analysis of verbal behavior (associations) and bodily language (e.g., hysterical symptoms)."

Re-view and consider this very deeply: "...

"the so-called symptom is not a product of a disease process, but rather, is a form of protolanguage, a system of representational signs or picture language, rebus-like in its form and message..."
An example of 'representational signs or picture language rebus-like in form" is
E = mc2, which decodes as: equals to see me

One of my favorites is:
Plato, Education of the Philosopher Kings, Sophia Project

"I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which when by other pursuits (is) lost and dimmed, is (however) by these (the study of arithmetic/geometry) purified and illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen (....'is more worthy of development than all the bodily senses' is another translation from a different author. )

These were helpful to me, but there was a process going on all the time over 8 event filled decades. I was always influenced very gratefully by Thinking Allowed and Jeffery Mishlove and the people he interviewed. its probably going on in every body . Jung recognized that but so have people who don't dream or have visions but who have to some degree recognized the hidden 'world' that seeks to be recognized, There are so many questions about what freedom really is and why its so difficult to understand why people differ so much about reality.

Jean Piaget: "The philosopher is usually interested in a central idea that evolves over a long period of time, which may never be successfully completed and formulated into words, one that may appear to be mysterious and beyond scientific validation."

That was the 'central idea' as I think of what streams so steadily through 'time'.

[cced]

Tai Chi and other graceful movements of a sacred nature, as well as meditative walking can lead one to experience enlightenment in the sense of feeling perfectly lightened in your bodily movements, in balance with gravity, emotionally and spiritually, full of gratitude and grace. Love of life, all of life and everything alive and ever alive still alive, one with the source of love and life

[Susan_F]

I suspect we all experience moments of enlightenment, however fleeting they may be.

[johnpaul]

From THE VIA NEGATIVA/THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH: "The more enlightened I become, the less enlightened I want to be."

[marthaadf]

Jeffrey Mishlove: Developing these thoughts: I think we should think about this subject with actual knowledge: we live in a mind network to express our thoughts, feelings, etc. Very sensitive people, even enlightenment also live in this network, which means that is a possibility that they couldn't be perfect because of the network influence.

[AnthrYrslf]

Emotional, I get real emotional to tears sometimes. I don't exactly know what enlightenment supposed to be. Working with law of compensation? definitely seems so for myself

[stevestanil]

"enlightenment" is to have and keep your mind open.

[aphysique]

Enlighment is a matter of interpretation!

[adamkaplancs]

Hi Jeffrey! Although Guatama Buddha may have been off by some millenia, I interpret his lament along less-sexist lines.

If he had been teaching only men, masturbation would be less frequent/common, and sexual/spiritual energy would not be dispersed (blown-out at Swadhisthana in the form of physical semen). With less of this "loss-of-vitality" going on, the meditations would be more powerful. (As you have suggested in other videos, and as TM EEG studies seem to demonstrate, the group meditation rapport is a shared phenomena.)

Disclaimer: I am not pushing "every sperm is sacred" on anybody. I subscribe to the fairly common notion that sexual release can be a distraction and/or detraction from so-called high states, and have tested this hypothesis in my own research lab so to speak. Especially in the context of a meditation retreat, but also in other circumstances, I have witnessed first hand that sex can bring one down.

To your point, if only women had learned to meditate, the Buddha's lament would likely be equally well-solved. Fortunately, meditation is the birth-right of all.

[aphysique]

One must go through some type of Ego death of some sort, Then & only then one might have what one could or would call an, Enlightening experience! Ego death, so to speak is EYE 👁️ Opening!!

[mattd]

What is the inner illumination that cannot be surpassed? Sounds like a very rude question to ask which I guess is why Diogenes used to hold a light to people's faces in the market and say that he was looking for one honest man. Are we all living mockeries of the enlightened life where our inner light is hidden from the world or snuffed out to not draw attention to ourselves? Diogenes might argue that if a guru was caught mismanaging their accounts or sleeping with their followers then their only unenlightened flaw would be having to hide their activities instead of doing them in middle of the town square. If they were really enlightened then they wouldn't care.

[jhnndrs]

Buddha provides the Eightfold path, that basically is 8 different areas that you should strive to be enlightened in.

[tomtillman]

You cannot define enlightenment as some certain state. You can advance, though. People who are deemed to be "enlightened" could be said to have advanced to a set of attributes that may include a high level of ethics, knowledge, and abilities.
Nothing wrong with that. But Perfect? I don't think so. Blindly trusting the Enlightened, the One who has the ultimate answers, can mean you are in a cult, but you don't know it, of course.
Listen to the enlightened. Learn from them.
But beware those who claim or imply that they One Without a Second.

[LaughingStock]

Enlightenment - greatest and longest living buzzword ever!