Can Enlightened Beings Have Faults?

There is a certain assumption -- one which I myself carried for a long time -- that somehow awakened people have ideal personalities. They only get angry when it is justified and useful. They know exactly when and how to say "yes" and "no." They are always happy, if not blissful. They are never judgemental. And they never show any indication of ego, or of wanting to be liked, noticed, or admired. They don't judge, and when they are judged by others, they never get upset.

Does this sound like your ideal enlightened being? I know it long sounded like mine. If any of my teachers displayed any "faults," I was quite upset. Is s/he really completely enlightened? Why is s/he showing signs of ego? Could I really believe in someone who was, in effect, still human?

Sometimes students are encouraged to believe that all their faults will be eliminated when they step into the Truth of their Being. But often, the idealism doesn't come from the teachers but from aspirants themselves. In fact, the word "aspirant" says it all: I will become something better -- oh, much, much better! -- than I am now! Everyone will love me, and most important, I will love myself.

Maybe for some people, it works that way. If so, I'd love to hear from them. For me the process has been quite different, and not something that I could have anticipated:

What changed, basically, was my belief in what we call the "world." This "world" is really composed of and created by thought. That world includes, especially, one's ego. And as that ego and its world become more and more transparent or unreal -- there is less and less reason to argue with it or want to change it.

Why would I expend energy to change something that is not real in the first place?

Now, it may well turn out that not believing anymore in the entity called "me," causes a diminution of what are seen by most as the faults of the ego. When we know we are not our ego, we don't need to defend it as much. But if that doesn't happen -- if, that is, an awake human being still displays the personality traits -- including the negative ones -- that s/he has always displayed, it really doesn't mean anything. The important thing is knowing what Truth really is. Becoming a better or more admirable person, if it happens, is only a by-product.

What is Love?

In her very important memoir, Anita Moorjani, who awoke to Truth during a Near Death Experience, writes: "Each of us, at our core, already is pure and unconditional love. However, when we express it here in the physical realm, we filter it through the mind, and it then expresses itself as human emotion."

This sounds right. But what is it, exactly, that happens when we filter unconditional love through the mind?

First, it enters the domain of duality. In other words, I experience that I love you, and you love me, or I hope you do anyway. In the absolute realm, we aren't separate, so love just is, but once we experience separation, it appears that love resides in each of us (or doesn't) and needs, therefore, to be transmitted to the other and "received."

The element of time also enters in -- this one is tricky. In the infinite realm, love just is. But once we have time, love is also subject to its passage. I love you today, and you love me, but will you love me tomorrow? And once we declare our love, the other person expects that that is how we will feel from then on out. But actually, it may only be what we felt in the moment. And we may feel we are betraying the other if we cannot find the love in us that we used to feel for him or her.

Yet, when I watch carefully what happens, it's more like I feel love in one moment, and the next moment I don't -- not because of any change in the relationship necessarily but just because feelings are transient. Just as thoughts move from one to another at breakneck speed, so do emotions, which are a mixture of thought and bodily sensations.

Thus, it is impossible that we will continue to have the same feeling we felt a few moments ago because every moment is completely new. But it's hard to accept this. We need stability in our self-image, and our self-image is composed in large part of beliefs about how we feel about people and things. So we need to bridge the gap between the discrete feelings of love that arise over time by telling ourselves a story:  I love you not just at this moment, but into the foreseeable future. We believe it; the other believes it. But it's all a house of cards.

Can we experience another kind of love, then -- the infinite, unconditional kind? For me, that happens when my ideas about myself and the other take a break. Then the love that we both are reveals itself. Then it's not a matter of giving or getting but being what we truly are. And this experience too passes as thoughts come back in. But once we know it, we know it doesn't change, even if our minds do.

A Western Philosopher"s Take on Nonduality

"The world is filled and filled with the absolute--to see this is to be free."  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin