Enlightenment is not what you think it is - From Mindfulness to Actual Enlightenment
The following is a transcript from one of Bentinho's spontaneous talks:
Recognizing the First 3 Principles of Existence in Everything
"The first three foundational principles of Creation—sourced from the Infinite One—are free will (pure awareness), unconditional love, and light (or appearance/presence-energy/manifestation).
These three principles are the complete ingredients for all of creation—just as out of the three primary colors you can make every color you desire. So every single experience you will ever have, and that Creation will ever have, is already rested in infinite, intelligent freedom, is already unconditionally loved, and is already unconditional made out of light.
That is why it is safe to let things BE. That is the whole idea behind acceptance, letting things be, or resting as your true unconditional nature: to recognize what lies beyond your stories and definitions of what appears in your life and to see the nature, the essence, and the three foundational principles that constitute everything in Creation.
This includes your trauma, this includes the things you don’t desire, this includes your emotions, this includes your dreams, this includes your relationships. All of these are actually made up of unconditional freedom, love and light. If you can learn to recognize the essence of an experience, rather than the story applied to the experience, you are in a naturally enlightened state. Your Consciousness is enlightened, filled with light and has an Awareness of truth, because it is aware of the nature of reality, the principles which no appearance can escape, or consciousness, can escape.
So, when you let go of the assumption of “you” and rest in the spacious lightness of the here and the now—freedom, love and light—then you can relax into a truer way of seeing instead of contrived and distorted seeing.
You can now start to feel everything becoming included in the freedom, the love, and the light that you are recognizing. Separation starts to disappear, or at least to diminish. Edges start to soften. The heart starts to open. The mind starts to become quiet, clear, and transparent. Intuition starts to govern your actions and motivations, and now you are becoming a more non-physically-oriented being, a less physically-derived and focused creature; less mind-based, more higher mind-based, or more consciousness-based. Then it becomes easier and easier to let things be as they are; because you're training yourself to recognize the freedom, love and light they consist of.
Everything is already in a state of "let-be". Everything is already allowed as it is. Everything is already inseparable from all of creation. Everything is already one with the Infinite One who enabled it into existence through the principles of freedom, love and light. Everything is already perfect, already realized, already accomplished, already achieved, already okay, already abundant. Everything is already absolutely, timelessly free.
Do you get that? There is not a single aspect of your creation that is not completely rested in these first three primordial constitutions of this singularity that we also call the One Infinite Creation.
The True Nature of Acceptance and Empowerment
When you are going through a negative emotional experience, appreciate that the appearance itself is made up out of love, freedom, and light. This is a very beautiful realization to cultivate. To be able to rest with whatever arises, to let it be, is a very beautiful way to instantly make peace with what-is.
Then, from an empowerment point of view, you can start choosing to focus on what-is-yet-to-come, on what is in alignment with what (from your point of view) is your “future,” but actually is your Higher Self continuously down-pouring unto you the next-level waves of your expression of the Infinite—all totally in alignment with the first three principles of Creation. There is nothing about the idea of future empowerment that contradicts freedom, love, and light. In fact, it is an aspect or expression of these three principles; it is the means by which Creation performs its mission to express infinite unity in as many ways as it possibly can… which is what you are doing by simply being you.
Everything you ever experienced is swimming in freedom, swimming in love, swimming in light. It doesn’t first have to look like peace before it is peace. It doesn’t first have to look like enlightenment before it is enlightened. It doesn’t first have to look awake before it is awake. The messiest of experiences are as much suffused with freedom, love, and light as the clearest, most pristine state of mind. There is no difference in the amount of freedom, love, and light that a messy experience contains versus a clear experience.
Now, that is the irreversible shift that is so much more all-inclusive than we thought.
We thought there was a distinction: “This is what enlightenment looks like; this is definitely what it does not look like.” -- This kind of thinking makes your journey harder and harder as you become more and more as you would assume an enlightened person to be! So, when you go a little off-track, you are very much prone to judge that as “What went wrong? Where did I lose my enlightenment? Am I just full of sh*t? Was I full of sh*t even when I was enlightened?” No, enlightenment is so much more all-inclusive than that. You see, your most messed-up experience is as much rested in freedom, love, light, perfection, and recognition of oneness, as the clearest human relational experience you’ve ever had. The only difference is in the eye of the one judging—which you do not have to limit yourself to any more.
Never Judge Yourself Again
You see, to stop judging right from wrong, to stop judging enlightenment from un-enlightenment, to stop judging highest from lowest is to become more than just your “bubble of self.” It is to become transparent to the nature of what already is. So, if you want, from this day onwards, you never ever have to judge yourself again. Just see all and any experience as being an emanation of--and perfectly rested in--freedom, unconditional love, and infinite light.
It is that easy. This perspective will deepen, and it will expand. Yes, there is a journey into this, but it’s a journey into something that is already here. And I am not talking about your circumstances. I often feel that spiritual teachers miss-equate the freedom of recognizing the true nature of what is with “just be present with what is, circumstantially.” But there is a great, great difference. I say recognize the nature of all that is, and hardly ever focus on what-is, circumstantially.
The instruction in certain mindfulness settings is to be mindful of what is here and now. That is circumstance-focused and does not actually recognize the deeper levels of what the circumstance--whether a present one or a remembered or imagined one--is made out of. Mindfulness too often becomes just a human being focusing on its stuck circumstance, created out of past beliefs. There is no benefit in that, except insofar as it focuses your attention a little bit more on the sense of being here and now. That is its only benefit. Eighty percent of it, if not more, is wasted time and consciousness, that could instead be spent doing something far more liberating: realizing the nature of each appearance, experience and circumstance. Seeing beyond the surface, and learning to see the One Infinite Being in everything, whether that "everything" is a present circumstance, or a thought you have about your future; it does not matter. All is equally the One Infinite Being, and so EVERY appearance can serve double duty: it can either be labeled, or it can be recognized for what it is: The One Infinite Creator's Freedom, Love and Light.
So again, just to make myself extra clear: what I’m saying is recognize the nature of what-is, but don’t be overly focused on the state or condition of what-is. It doesn’t matter whether this phone is over here or over there. It doesn’t matter what kind of thoughts I am having. It doesn’t matter what is happening physically right now. What is happening does not need to be focused on. The underlying, true nature of what is happening should be recognized, can be emphasized, can be reflected, and can be experienced. This is what actually "enlightens" your Awareness more rapidly than practically any other practice out there.
“It can all be summed up in this instruction: “Relax all thoughts for 2-5 seconds, and recognize that everything that appears in your consciousness is the freedom, love and light of the One Infinite Creator.””
What enlightens your Awareness is not to be aware of the space and the distance between your foot and my foot, and not to walk very silently and feel every single sensation in your feet, or smell the flowers. All that nonsense does hardly anything substantial for your enlightenment compared to the other practice suggested above. Maybe just a tiny bit—it can be an entrance way, but if your mindfulness of circumstance doesn't also very quickly lead you into the deep recognition that the flower is made out of absolute infinite freedom, love, and light, then you are misusing your time. Sort of wasting it to be honest.
Don't Waste Your Consciousness—Stop Trying to “Be Present”
Many people waste their time. Much of spirituality wastes our time. So make it productive; make your time here productive. If you need to practice enlightenment, then do it swiftly, do it directly, and do it efficiently. Go straight to the heart of it, which is to recognize that whatever appearance comes up, it is made out of freedom, love, and light, and it is an expression of the Infinite One beyond all form. The One is the All and the All is the One.
In recognizing the oneness that is shared equally among and as all appearances (experiences) is where you will find greater and greater enlightenment with what already is, the way it already is, the way you cannot escape it. It is inescapable; the nature that you are recognizing is inescapable. So when you are perceiving what-is, deepen your consciousness of its nature, of its essence. Don’t focus on the circumstantial level of it. Don’t focus on the physical level of it. Focus on its infinity within.
In fact, when it comes to circumstances, you want to be focused in future-Presence--not the presENT, which ends, which is stuck. Don’t be presENT, never be presENT! You are stuck in the present; the present is stuck. You want to be in PresENCE... future-PresENCE. Do you feel the difference? Future-Presence is endless. It is an infinite continuum that contains everything that can ever be. What you are working with is your alignment to your true desire; that is the future aspect. But this is all happening in PresENCE, not in the presENT. Ultimately, the true aim of mindfulness or any similar practice--the true aim of enlightenment of any kind--is to be in PresENCE. (Try seeing or intuiting Presence as Omnipresence.)
So it’s not to be present; it’s to be in recognition of presence/awareness all the time, whether you are thinking about the future, about the past, or about the now. You see, from the viewpoint of Presence-Awareness, the present is just another thought, just as the future or the past are merely other thoughts—all made up out of freedom, love-presence, and light.
Give yourself the freedom to not have to “be present,” and simply be in recognition of the presence of freedom, love, and light, which is continuous—not stuck in your circumstances of this moment. This Presence is equally there when you are daydreaming; although, to a mindfulness practitioner, you might seem completely off course. In many ways, an awareness that is aware of the love/light/freedom presence in a daydream/imagination, is resting its consciousness in a more enlightened vibration than the typical mindfulness practitioner who is being aware of the shape of a flower, or the sensation of its footsteps. This is because the consciousness who is recognizing Presence in its imaginative state, is in much closer vibrational resonance to the level of what I would simply term the Higher Self, whereas the physically-focused state of consciousness or "being present", is the same as being focused on a reflection of your past level of vibration; which is what the present circumstance is, a reflection of past thinking.
So, start becoming aware, intuitively, that each appearance in your life is infused and energized by Infinite Freedom, Infinite Love, and Infinite Light, and see how this expands your world in honor of the One Infinite Creator who enables all of creation by creating the 3 primary distortions. Awareness (or freedom), Unconditional (formless) Love, Light-presence (energy)."
- Bentinho Massaro