Levels of Spiritual Awakening: From Materialism to Witnessing the Great Dao

Spiritual awakening progresses through stages: mind, beingness, and finally, witnessing pure consciousness.

### Levels of Spiritual Awakening: A Journey to No-Knowingness
* 🧘 **Level 1: Mind is Buddha:**  The initial awakening involves withdrawing from the material world and recognizing the mind as the source of both pleasure and pain.  This is a shift from external pursuits to internal stillness.
* 👶 **Level 2: Not Mind, Not Buddha:**  After quieting the mind, one transcends the identification with the mind itself, realizing that there's a deeper reality beyond it.  This stage involves moving beyond illusions of material or natural worlds.
* 🧘‍♂️ **Level 3: Not Beingness:** This stage involves recognizing that even the sense of self or "beingness" is not the ultimate reality; it too is a transient state. It’s a further detachment from the perceived self.
* 👁️ **Level 4: The Great Dao (Witnessing):**  The final stage is pure witnessing, a state of non-judgmental observation where there is no longer a need for striving or seeking. This is a state of acceptance and effortless existence.  "I am what I am."
* 🤯 **The Fourth State (Turiya):** This is the state beyond the waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states. It is the state of pure consciousness, the witness that observes all other states.
* 🕉️ **No-Knowingness:** The ultimate goal is "no-knowingness," a state of being beyond conceptual understanding, where there's nothing to remember or forget.  This is the state of enlightened beings.
* ✨ **Following Your Path:**  The speaker emphasizes the importance of following one's own unique path, referencing the Bhagavad Gita's advice: "it is better to follow your own path imperfectly than to follow another's path perfectly".
* 🙏 **Detachment as Liberation:**  The speaker concludes by highlighting that detachment, achieved through witnessing, liberates one from the suffering caused by identifying with the body and ego.

All right, so somebody asked me to make a video about the levels of spiritual awakening, and this is the perfect way to explain it.

All right, all right. So this is like a Zen haiku, I guess you could call it a Zen poem,

uh, explaining the levels of awakening to reality. Uh, I use the term "spirituality," but I don't even like using that anymore,

because it's a whole bunch of nonsense that surrounds spirituality. In reality, what you would want to be true

about spirituality is you awakening to reality. Spirituality is not about nonsense; it's about the truth. If—if because if spirituality is

anything but the truth, that means anything could be spiritual, and technically, I guess it kind of is,

because the illusion is the illusion, so no matter what you do, it kind of has no consequences; it has

no bearing on, you know, what happens in the grand scheme of things. So, in reality, everything could be spirituality, but the main important part

is for you to awaken from suffering. But how do you stop suffering? You acknowledge and accept reality for what it

is. Sometimes people use coping mechanisms to accept reality. If that helps you, fine, but there are groups of people that religious

coping mechanisms don't help; metaphysical coping mechanisms don't help. So you have to give them the

reality, and only the truth-seekers can accept the reality, the truth for what it is, and that's how you get peace, because

acceptance—it's—it's a phrase in psychology called cognitive dissonance; that's when the outside

reality is not congruent with your mental thoughts and ideologies, so you reject the truth because you want to hold on so tight to

what you believe is right, but that causes confusion, pain, anger, frustration, and delusion, which is not going to help you at all. That's

Why? Why is it funny to see society and a bunch of people in society deluded with poisonous ideas that they just hold on to?

The truth is right in front of their eyes, but they can't see it because it doesn't agree with what they've been

lied to and conditioned to believe. All right, so let's get into it. Okay, so this is a Zen teacher, Matsu,

talking to his student. So the student goes to Matsu, "What is the spirituality? What is the

knowledge that everyone seeks?" And Matsu says that the mind is Buddha. He said, "But why do you say that

the mind is Buddha?" He said, "To stop a baby from crying." He said, "When a crying stops, what

then? Then I would say, 'not mind, not Buddha.'" And then he said, "Well, what would you say to a man that's unattached to

neither of these things?" I would say, 'not being.' Then he said, "Well, what do you say to a man that's free and unattached from

all things?" He said, "I wouldn't say anything. I would just let him experience the Great Dao." Okay, so let me break it

down. So the first thing he says is, "What is the spirituality? What is the spiritual knowledge that we all seek?" He

said, "The mind is Buddha." This is the first level of awakening. The first level of awakening is to retract from the outside world and

realize that your mind is everything. Mind is Buddha. Most people, out of ignorance, because people don't learn, people don't

inquire, they look at the Buddha as a person. His real name was Siddhartha Gautama. He was a Buddha, not the

Buddha. Buddha just means the awakened one. So anybody could be a Buddha. I remember when

Osho, um, was talking about how, uh, when he called his Zorba the Buddha, that the Buddhist monks and certain

Sex was angry at him because he combined Zorba, a materialistic, dancing fool, a drunkard, with Buddha, like they looked at

it as if he was disrespecting the Buddha. But it's so funny that a lot of monks and other priests, religious, whatever,

they shave their heads, they meditate for hours at a time, they might starve themselves, and they still don't

understand themselves; they still don't understand reality. Buddha just means the awakened one. Krishna was a Buddha, Jesus was a

Buddha; anybody who understands reality could be called a Buddha. I was talking to my friend

recently, and I said, "Yo, you remember when I told you I was going to be a monk?" And he was like, "Bro, you're just

talking." And then I showed them a book of a monk that I got, and they were like,

"Bro, you want to be a monk? You've got to shave your head." And I'm like, "It's so

funny, all the stereotypes." I actually found another lady; she was uh, living in a Buddhist

hermitage, and I was actually looking to go live in their hermitage. I'm like, "Damn,

I'll go do that." But they asked for a whole bunch of money—not saying that that's wrong—but

I'm like, "All right, don't need to do that." And then they said it's a requirement that you shave your head.

Why? This is to me, this is how you know they don't know anything. Any—you don't—spirituality is not about the outside;

it's always about within. So why do I have to cut my hair to join your sect or your

group? They don't—they're—they don't know anything. Oh, oh, well, when you shave your head, it makes the energy...

Nonsense! If you go within and silence your mind, everything will be revealed to you. You don't have to shave your head,

you don't have to starve yourself, you really don't even have to be celibate, even though I'll get into

that deeper on why I suggest you do remain celibate in the beginning. Okay, so Buddha just means

Awakening. Why do you say that the mind is Buddha? The first level of Awakening: you're leaving the outside world of

materialism. I'm chasing money, I'm chasing wealth, I'm chasing cars, I'm chasing women, I'm chasing

status. That's the outside world. Then you realize, 'I don't get pleasure there; I get pain there.' Small

pleasures, a lot of pain. Then I realize, 'Wait, I'm the one causing pleasure and pain. It's my mind, it's my concepts and

beliefs that's causing me pleasure and pain.' Now I now I leave the material world. The mind is Buddha. I still the

mind. That's what it means. To stop the baby from crying—the ego, the mind is the baby, that's the baby, the

ego—'Oh my God, I'm not as rich as I'm supposed to be. Oh my God, girls don't

like me. Oh my God, society sucks!' The baby is crying, so to stop the baby from crying,

mind is Buddha; you still the mind. Now you're here, you're in your mind, and it's almost similar to people

when you know they leave the material world and they go to a forest. You know, that's levels of

spiritual Awakening. 'Oh, I'm leaving materialism now. I'm extra naturey. Oh, I love the trees, the birds.' It's still

illusion. You just left one illusion for another illusion. You left the material, artificial illusion for the natural illusion of trees and birds.

So these are things and instruments that help nourish us, no doubt, but it's still a part of illusion; that's how deep you are

in illusion. That you think by going to the forest you escape the illusion, just because the cities, the country towns,

are consumed by TV, materialism, cars—because that's so crazy. When you leave the artificial illusion, you go to the

natural illusion, then you think you're safe. You're still not safe. Mind this: Buddha. We stop a baby from crying now,

we still the mind. So he said, "Well, what would you tell a... why do you say that the mind is"

Buddha to stop a baby from crying? So when the crying stops, what then? Once my mind is

stilled," he said, "Then I would tell him, 'Not mind, not Buddha.'"

The M was Buddha. I thought I had it in the Dao. I'm gonna get into that. It said the master creates confusion in

those that think that they know. They think that they know. Remember, the mind is false. Anything you're thinking is

wrong. Okay? Not mind, not Buddha. What does that mean? We left materialism. We went from the false cities, the society, the [___]. We left

the [___] alone. Now we're in the forest with nature, but this is still the P—this

is still the primary illusion. This is just the... the natural illusion. We left the artificial illusion; now we're in a

natural illusion, but now we have to even retreat further back from that, from the mind. We still the mind. So not mind, not

Buddha, because there's something above the mind, and that's beingness. Everybody's meditating to get

a glimpse of beingness. And I actually feel bad for, like, monks and stuff that, like, spend years and years and years meditating and

They still didn't find themselves. It's sad because it's almost like, if you didn't find yourself, I don't know how much

longer you're going to go. I would have given up after a while. Wow, thank God for me

it didn't take so long. I believe he said it took him three years or six years; either three or six years, or seven

years after meeting his teacher. That's a long time. Three years. Luckily for me, I guess I'm just spiritually inclined,

that it...it happened fast for me. But everybody's meditating to touch beingness, the self, and to break it down into scientific

terms, beingness is just the energy we're living in. Matter, physical matter is our bodies, but it's being propelled by

energy. Everything is energy and matter. Energy is on the inside; matter is what you see outside. Beingness. So we leave the mind to get to

being this, which some teachers call the self, the Atman, Spirit, God, Ishta, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. It has many different

names that the...that the mind gives it. It has no name. That's why my...that's why Lao Tzu said, for lack of a better word,

I just call it the Dao. And like I said, I'm going to get into breaking down the Dao. Okay, so now we're in

beingness. I'm the self; I'm Brahman; I'm God. So he said, 'Well, what would you say

to a man that's not attached to either of these things?' Then I would say, 'Not beingness.' Damn, I thought I was God; I thought I was

Brahman; I thought I was the self. And now he's saying, 'Not beingness.' You're not beingness; neither am I not the

beingness.' How? Because, once again, we have to retreat back into awareness. I'm aware of being this. I was aware when

I was in the gross body of materialism. Then I stepped back and became aware of the mind. The mind is

Buddha, then not mind, not Buddha. Oh wait, I'm not the brain, the mind, beingness here's

beingness, but there's always something witnessing you, you peeling back layers of consciousness. Now I'm witnessing

beingness. I'm witnessing; I witnessed myself when I thought I was the gross body and the... the I don't know what you would call

this. Oh, uh, Yonis and the Yoni system; it's the same way. This is the Buddhist

system. Remember, all the paths lead to the One Source; they just have different ways to explain it. Matsu says, not mine,

not Buddha. To stop the 'me' from crying, uh, Yan says the gross body. We start at the gross body, believing we are the

gross body: I'm this person, I'm this human. Then we find ourselves realizing, wait, I'm not the body

because I'm in control of the body; I'm aware of the body, and there's something going on in

here that's above body consciousness. Because if I was the body, then when I lose certain limbs,

The levels of Spiritual awakening, and how we can rise to the highest state of Consciousness

Madhusudhana

Speaker dislikes the term 'spirituality' due to associated nonsense.

True spirituality is awakening to reality, not nonsense.

The main goal of spirituality is awakening from suffering.

Stopping suffering requires acknowledging and accepting reality.

Cognitive dissonance, the conflict between reality and beliefs, causes suffering.

Levels of Spiritual Awakening: A Zen Master's Explanation

Level 1: Mind is Buddha; realizing the mind is everything.

Leaving the material world and its illusions.

Understanding that the mind creates pleasure and pain.

Level 2: 'Not mind, not Buddha'; transcending the mind's limitations.

Progressing Through Levels of Consciousness

Level 3: Beingness (Self, Atman, God, etc.); experiencing the underlying energy.

Level 4: 'Not beingness'; transcending even beingness through awareness.

The fourth state (Turiya) is the witness, present in all states of consciousness.

The Highest State: Witnessing and No-Knowingness

The Great Dao: pure witnessing and acceptance.

The goal is no-knowingness; beyond thinking and remembering.

Avatars represent the highest spiritual state; detached and witnessing.

Using spirituality to achieve personal dreams.

It's better to follow your own path imperfectly than another's perfectly.

The universe creates uniqueness; everyone has a unique path.