Enlightenment is dead

The knowledge that ends all knowledge is the knowledge that there is no knowledge that can end all knowledge.

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Enlightenment is not the end of suffering; it is the cause of suffering. For suffering to end enlightenment must die.

So I say to you not that 'God is dead' but enlightenment is dead.

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Suffering is duality. For suffering to end, all duality must be exposed and thus, ended. Even the notion of duality and its dualistic antagonist nonduality must be destroyed. And so must 'enlightenment' and 'ignorance'.

What is duality? When it comes to the totality of life, there is no duality, there is only the totality. The totality is infinite and complete and perfect. It is ever-changing yet never diminished or augmented. It is flux yet at the same time permanence. All that can be conclusively said about it is that it is THIS, and THIS IS.

Duality is an aspect of the totality, i.e. a detail of THIS, that sets itself in opposition to the totality.

For example. the ocean as a totality is complete, perfect and totally one. However, a single wave discerned on its own gives rise to the illusion of dualistic opposition or conflict with the rest of the totality by virtue of its discernment.

In human experience, there is the totality of the present moment which is eternal. This timeless state creates the illusion of flux through the trick of memory.

Within the totality of this are a plethora of potential dualities. These come into being through discernment.

A field of grass is one totality, unified and complete. A blade of grass, however, when discerned in the totality, acquires a false independence from the whole automatically assuming a position of isolation/separation/antagonism with regards to the totality.

In human experience, the totality of THIS is collapsed into dualities through the discerning function of thought.

In sleep where thought is no more, there is no sense of separation, time, change, or any other dualities because in sleep all discernment ends. Only thought is capable of discerning.

Thought commonly discerns the physical body as an unchanging fragment in the totality, which it discerns as in constant flux.

This temporal split between an outer world constantly changing and a static inner world collapses the totality of experience into two opposing elements: subject (the body) and object (the rest of the totality 'outside' the body).

This is the fundamental duality of human experience and is the cause of all suffering.

However, this crude duality is relatively easy to dislodge through another form of discernment: awareness meditation.

Through meditation, self-inquiry and other practices, it is possible to destroy the duality of body VS world by exposing its fundamental falseness.

Typically, identification is broken with the body and the subject/object split assumes a more subtle form: awareness vs objective experience.

The notion of awareness as subject, however, is nothing more than a notion, or a concept, typically manifesting as the thought 'I am'.

Whereas before the subject was 'I am the body', now it is simply 'I am'.

This is, however, another duality. The awareness becomes the antagonist of its 'object': experience. Typically at this stage the spiritual search begins in earnest.

This search will only come to and when all dualities left in the totality are destroyed through a reverse form of discernment: negation.

Here are some dualities typical of the spiritual search:

Sense of limitation/separation VS oneness, the ideal of the search.

This duality is capable of hauning the seeker for the rest of their life unless exposed and revealed as falsehood.

Normally this notion arises out of identification with awareness as being a localised centre in the totality of experience.

The idea of the centre is impossible to shake, at times.

Often self-inquiries are performed endlessly and fruitlessly:
'Who am I?' = the mind returns to a centre.
'Who experiences the centre?' = another centre
And so on...ad infinitum

In fact the very practice of self-inquiry encourages the association with a centre of the totality. Duality is not exposed but actually progressively reinforced.

The basic problematic duality is the very notion of awareness/subject VS object.

While this duality remains, while there is belief in a subject, suffering will not end. If there is a subject, there can never be union and duality will always prevail.

How to dislodge duality for once and all?

By understanding, through attendance to the totality of experience (not discernment of a part or centre), that the notion of subject is just an aspect of the totality.

In this understanding all duality is destroyed.

Awareness of duality as simply an aspect of the nondual totality actually brings an end to all duality and therefore, suffering.

Duality is only feasible through discernment. Attention to the whole, the nondual totality, brings it to a swift end.

In that discovery is peace and oneness. It is not bliss or ecstasy but a simple recognition that this is. Other dualities may arise from time to time. To return to the peace of nondual realisation which is the end of discernment and subject/object antagonism one must simply see the duality for what it is: opposing aspects seemingly in antagonism but actually totally equal and united in the totality of experience.

Examples of other dualities:

'The peace isn't permanent, I don't get it. I must be doing something wrong'

Examine this fleeting thought carefully. At its heart is a duality. Somewhere there is an antagonism. In this case it is the idea of 'permanent peace'. This naturaly clashes with the reality, which is ever-changing, producing conflict and therefore suffering.

This duality, like all others, is just two aspects at odd in the same unified totality: idea of permanent peace VS a totality in constant flux.

In all cases, there is only ever the totality. It may appear dualistic, but even that interpretation, the apparent duality and its conflict = these are all parts of the same totality.

There is only this and only this is. This is never not this. Every passing moment is this, no matter what form it takes. This is flux.

As you are this then you, like this, are everchanging yet eternal. You Are This. This Is You. And This Is.

The subject is the object: so there is neither subject nor object, just this.

Even ignorance of this is still this, for this is flux: eternal flux = the nature of the cosmos.

There is nowhere to go.
There is nothing to do.
There is no-one to be.
There is only this.
AND THIS IS.

Even the idea that all dualities need to be exposed is just another duality.

But such are the mind's games that it needs to be given something to play with.

The ego is a child playing with crayons. It draws something then, disgusted, throws it away and draws something else. Disgusted at every turn it draws and draws until its crayons are blunted, its colours faded. It then draws desperately, ugly pictures that make it despair. Then the crayons finish and there are no more drawings.

When the witnesser is witnessed the split between subject and object collapses until the witness is reborn through mental habits.

It is only necessary therefore to stay as the witness.

The witness is free.

Free enough to accept death.

For the witness has nothing to lose.

For the witness is THIS.