My Story

Chapter 5: Finding Enlightenment

Shortly after the vision of the jet plane experience something happened. It was about January 1, 1988. I can only remember writing in my journal, "It is all so perfect; the wind blows and the trees sway." Something had happened in my meditations. At the time it was so subtle that I barely noticed anything, yet I noticed that everything had changed. It is hard to describe this, for the above line seems so contradictory yet accurate at the same time.

Perfection had entered my consciousness. I was aware of the sense of completeness, wholeness and fullness. There was a sense of absoluteness and eternalness. I had entered the Kingdom of Heaven for the first time. I was one with God. I realized or experienced that my Real Self was infinite and eternal. I saw the illusionary nature of the limited or individual self. I was awake again.

I instantly understood why Jesus would say, "My Father and I are one." I was one with the Father, too.

Up until that moment I had been plagued with a constant fear, dread or doubt. All of the sudden one morning I was free from that fear, dread or doubt. I was free completely.

Everything was over. I was done. I had found Heaven.

I had experienced perfect, unconditional love for the first time. No conditions, no limits, no object, no lover and loved, no separation, no beginning and no end. It was PERFECT! Period.

On the beautiful winter day the peace that was experienced (I did not experience it because the I was gone) was very profound. It created a sense in me that all was good, that life was perfect, that creation was without mistake and that everything would work out. The root of all my fears was eliminated. All negativity was gone. I could rest in peace.

That did not mean that I was completely peaceful, for my ways of thinking were still based on false assumptions. At it turned out it would take me years to purify my mind (if I can say that I have fully purified my mind) of all the false assumptions or ways of thinking. I had much turmoil the first few years after my enlightenment, but deep in my heart I was at peace with the process. I did not fear the future. I was actually enjoying the process.

I realized that I was an illusion. My self is an illusion, my being is an illusion. My body was real enough as were my thoughts, but "I" that is the one owning the body or thoughts was not real. Since I was not real then I realized that nothing matters. All is vanity, all is meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Life is just a big drama, a bad movie that is being played out in my cosmic mind. Since nothing matters then it does not matter what does happen. I could just sit back and appreciate this beautiful, perfect cosmic movie. The appreciation, joy and love of the movie became the only purpose that life had. I could understand why Paul would write that love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).

With the experience of no self I had no center, datum or reference point to hold to or view the world exclusively from. I could look at the world from ANYBODY'S eyes. BUT, I had to look from somebody's eyes to see the world. And whoever's eyes I did look through would be colored with their conditioned perceptions.

Therefore, I became very interested in what made up or motivated the human instrument. I became interested in the datum from which we all make our value judgement. Most importantly, what was the SAMENESS of all human beings, yea, of all life forms.

If our conditioning makes our values then we can be reconditioned to change our values. If we can be reconditioned to change our values then what conditioning would produce what values for the highest quality life experience?

I found something but how did I do it and can I not only maintain it or regain it when I loose it, but can help others find it?

Awakening is the experience of a reality beyond death. In order to do that I have to die. Yep, I died. That is, after all, what meditation is all about, approaching death or perfect stillness. The closer I would get to perfect stillness or death the more clarity I had. Death or perfect stillness gave me perfect clarity that enabled me to see the perfect truth that set me perfectly free to enjoy and love all that life has to offer.

I do not know how long I was dead, I was not there to keep track of the time. It could have been only a few seconds or it could have been a couple of days. During this time I was not keeping track of time at all. I had no interactions with people or society so there was no need for time. The only way I kept track of time was when I ran out of food, which meant it was time to go to the store. If I was dead I did not need to eat so my food would last longer.

Who is to say that one can not resurrect? I realized that it is not an everyday experience so why would you believe me. Don't! Go die yourself and then you will know what I am talking about.

This 'death' was not a near-death experience. for in a near death experience the person is still there to experience something. "I" did not have a near-death experience. The "I" or self was not there.

Graduation was beyond death. Graduation was without thought of the death

experience. There was no drama or trauma that is associated with death in our minds. This is what happens when we have ceased to be. The dew drop merging back with the ocean. Where does the dew drop begin and the ocean end after they have merged together?

"If you die before you die then when you die you will not die." Or so the saying goes. I thought, "Die now and avoid the rush." Get death over with now so that you do not have to carry that fear with you the rest of your life.

After graduation there is no fear of death. I have died already (and arisen.) I have ascended beyond death. How can there be fear of death for the reality beyond death is perfect, unconditional love? How can there be fear of life or death if there is no life after death, if there is no hell or reincarnation to worry about?

I can not die. I am eternal. I have always been and will always be. Jim Freedom can and will die, but that is ok, I will be tired of him anyway.

Another way of looking at this is to say that I died and resurrected. I can see how the Biblical story would imply this can happen. One can die, as my profound moment was death, and then 'resurrect' back into this life. since I was not there I do not know how long it was that I was died. It could have been three days or more. Hey, I might have been dead longer than Jesus. Who knows?

What a perfect world this is when death is no longer a part of the life experience. There is only life and moving on from life. There is only graduation from life. No death. Life becomes perfect. Life becomes Heaven on Earth. Life becomes Nirvana. Life become the Garden of Eden. Life becomes Paradise.

After graduation there can be no real fear. After graduation there can be no real loss. Jim Freedom can experience fear and loss, but he is just part of the experience of life. "I" do not experience fear and loss for I have nothing to fear or loose.

When I forget and think in am Jim Freedom then I can and do experience fear and loss. I want to experience fear, loss and death. That is part of the whole life experience. I want to forget sometimes that I am not Jim Freedom, that I am eternal and perfect. I want to go into that darkness, despair and eternal hell. The deeper the valley the higher the mountain and the greater the view. For the deeper in go into the darkness the greater the appreciation will be when I come out and go back to the peaks of heaven. The more appreciation I have the richer the life experience and the more fully I am able to experience the perfection that life offers.

How perfect...

I probably could say that I still have the desire to confront my fear of death. I have dealt with it intellectually and in several minor situations in life, like climbing mountains.

I can understand Jesus' desire to confront death.

Today, I feel I have what they had. I feel I have both a profound peace with the world and the courage to be honest about what I see in the world. I recognize that I am out of practice with being honest with the world, but that is because I have still been working on understanding why humanity or our cultures discourage us from finding a profound peace and from being honest.

What I see that Siddhartha and Jesus had was that they had over come the worlds judgements and opinions. They were not afraid of the words the people of the world offered them. They were not afraid of rejection. Most importantly, they were not afraid of themselves or their reactions to words, judgements and opinions.

They also had to courage to look deep into themselves and see their sameness with all beings. They had to courage to look at the roots fear and other mental disease and where it comes from. And they questioned the authority of those that propagated the ideas that create fear.

There are probably very few people out there who are interested in seeking Perfection, Enlightenment, Nirvana, Self-Realization, union with God, the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. I was not even one of them. I was not seeking anything but peace from the questions. I was seeking an end of the pain of my doubts and fears. As I got into my suffering I saw that others had the same thing. So I became motivated to find an end to this pain, not just for myself but for all the people out there who suffered with the pain of doubts and fears. In the result I got enlightened. I became one with God. I experience Self Realization. I became a Christ. I became a Buddha. Whatever you want to call it, I found what I was looking for to PERFECTION.

I was not seeking enlightenment. I was not seeking the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Nirvana, or the Garden of Eden. I was not seeking perfection. I was seeking to get free from my sense of entrapment in negativity. In my seeking I liberated myself from the delusions that caused my negativity. I had to let go of all of the things I thought I knew, I had to become innocent like a child again to enter that Kingdom of Heaven. In so doing I found that Kingdom of God, that Nirvana, that Eden, that Perfection that others had talked about. I got rid of the roots of all of my negativity. It does not mean that all my negativity is gone. It just means that I have seen through the delusions that caused my negativity. I now recognize that I want the negativity sometimes, but now I am not trapped in it. I can let it go at any time, because I know that it is not real.

I wanted the perfect truth that would set me perfectly free to enjoy and love all that life offered. Getting free is what it is about. Getting free from your negativity that causes your suffering and misery. Getting free from your sinful nature. Sin is anything that produces negativity and does not allow you to love what life offers.

I did not want world peace. I wanted peace with the world. I realized that the immature person wants world peace. They want the world outside of them to be calm and peaceful so that they can be calm and peaceful. Since they give their power away to the world then they only way they think they can be free to find peace is if the world has peace.

The mature person realizes that peace starts from within. That they must take their power back and find peace WITH the world. That means taking responsibility for their reaction to what the world offers.

I had done that. At least temporarily I had found peace with the world.

I now realize that many mystics throughout the ages have experience what Siddhartha, Jesus and I have experienced.

I was a Buddha, a Christ, Self Realized, Enlightened, at One with God, Liberated, Heaven, Nirvana, Eden, Sat-Chit-Ananda (truth, consciousness, bliss). These are all terms that point at the same things. They are all from different language and different cultures but they all want us to see that there is something very good out there if we are open to it.

(Or My Experience of No Tension)

I had seen something but I did not know what it was. I had not conceptualized it yet, but it changed my whole world. Nothing outside of me had changed but everything had changed. I saw the whole world differently. What I had seen was that "I" was just tension. I wrote the paragraphs below to try and describe it.

Tension, that is all I am. When there is no tension then there is no me, no I. The "I" was just tension in an infinite ocean of stillness. Like a wave on the ocean I appear to move across its vastness. Created by the winds of motion, with no purpose or meaning, but always a direction. Moving, always moving until the day come that I meet the beach. Does a wave go off to wave heaven or hell after it hits the beach? Does a wave really move, or does it just appear to be moving? It is like a motion picture that is made up of many different still pictures.

What is a wave? Is a wave water traveling across the top of the ocean? Then why does the cork not travel with it? If a wave is not water moving then is it energy? Can the energy be separated from the water and there still be a wave? If a wave is energy then where does the energy go when the wave hits the beach? Is energy an entity?

If, for a moment, there was no motion, what would there be? Just stillness? How would you know there was stillness if you did not have anything to compare with? You would have to move to compare. Just the absence of motion. No limits, no negativity, no pain, no me, nothing.

After that moment, there is no wave heaven or wave hell. After that moment of stillness there is no fear of the beach. After that moment there is no fear of life, of motion. After that moment there is unconditional appreciation, gratefulness, joy and love. After that moment, you are free to chop wood and carry water. After that moment, you are free to be ordinary in an extra-ordinary way.

Tension is negativity. Negativity is tension. When there is no tension there is no negativity. All that remains is Perfection. We are just drops of tension in an otherwise perfectly serene lake. Stillness will come eventually when its time is right. Perfection is the destiny of everyone.

Tension is our resistance to reality. Fear is tension. We have a fear of losing our fear. When we lose fear we lose tension we lose ourselves. Do not worry, fear will come back and so will you. Nevertheless, it would be nice to be free from fear and tension just for a moment...

I remember the actual experience. Infinite perfection. Then I was aware of the thought of "I" or self. I was aware of the tension, the limit, the pain of self awareness. "I" was back and the infinite perfection was gone. But I carried something with me. I carried a knowingness with me that all was ok, that all was better than ok, that life had no meaning or purpose other than to enjoy and love it.

There is no loss, no death, no suffering, no misery and no pain except in the relative. It is all an illusion. I am just an illusion. I am just a ripple of tension in an infinite ocean of perfection.

The beginning and end returns. The separation returns. The sense of fear and loss returns. Life happens again. I was Jim Freedom again. I was limited again. I was grasping to hold onto what I had experienced. I wanted to cling to my experience. I wanted to grasp it intellectually, conceptually. I got stupid again.

I realized that my body was real, at least real in a relative way. But I realized that the individual self and soul are not real, at least not in a permanent way. The real self, who I really am, is infinite and eternal. I have always been and always will be. The "I" is associated with this piece of meat called Jim Freedom to experience life right now. The pain is real, at least to the body, but the drama of life is only as real as the drama on the silver screen at the movie. Life is as real as I wanted to make it. And that drama that is life is rich if I make it real. What a gift!

I realize now that there is no greater gift that I could give myself or humanity than to get perfectly free to enjoy and love all that life offers. With this experience I would become perfectly free to be honest with others and help them find the perfect and profound peace that I had found.

During this periods of meditation I would see something in my clarity. At first I was only aware of the something that I could now see with clarity. Then came the awareness of wanting to grasp the vision. With this desire to grasp the vision I could feel the loss of clarity. Then came the effort to conceptualize the vision and its accompanying loss of clarity. Then I would put the concepts into words and again this was accompanied with an additional loss of clarity. Then when I actually make a motion to write these words down I again lost more clarity.

At every level of me-ness or at every level of my desire or act of will I lost clarity. To manifest clarity into word we have to come WAY down in our levels of clarity and insight. I could see how books and words can not truly tell us about what we are looking for. And I could see how I would never be able to tell you about what I experienced. Words and language are just too limiting to communicate truth. Words, language, concepts and ideas are by definition and design used to distinguish and limit. But truth is infinite and undefinable. What a frustration there is in using words to point at the infinite and eternal. I can see how primitive language is as a form of communication.

The words then become more a puzzle to be solved then a map to follow. When we make words powerful it holds us back from the truth beyond the words. From a place of pure clarity I could see how language and words were extremely primitive in their ability to communicate truth.

As I came out of this place of perfect clarity I could see the many layers of consciousness. It was like an ocean with the ripples on the surface being our most fleeting thoughts. Below the ripples were the waves that carry us through the days. Below the waves were the tides that moved us for years. Below the tides were the currents that keep us moving all our life. The deepest thought I can identify is the thought or idea we call "I" or self. It is just a thought in the ocean. When this thought comes to stillness the ocean disappears. The "I" or self is an illusion. I could understand why Jesus said, "Deny thyself." (Matthew 16:24)

The greater truth comes in direct apprehension.

I could see why Jesus talked so much about the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God and how important it was. He said that it was a great treasure that if somebody found it they would give everything they had for it.

I would also encourage anybody and everybody to go find this same treasure that I have found. I found something that is not just very good, it is perfect and I want to share it with everybody.

This place, earth, life on this planet at this time, is heaven. It is perfect. There are so many opportunities here to experience any kind of experience, any kind of emotion. There is so much opportunity here for anything we want. We are Gods, the creators of our world and out experience. Nothing is impossible to us. This is a world where we can have all the happiness, joy, love, peace and freedom we are open to. We can also experience all the fear, shame, doubt, guilt, pessimism and pain that we want to experience. Everything is here.

I am not a fool. I recognize that most people do not experience life this way. I would say that is because they are not open to a perfect world.

Any situation we experience just is. How we react to that situation dictates whether we experience heaven or hell.

Now, I may not be able to experience torture as heavenly, but there are people, masochist, that do experience it as heavenly.

Most people have an experience of a moment of heaven when they have a situation that stimulates it. It is like falling in love. Do you remember that feeling when everything seemed so beautiful and perfect in the world. Of course, this is artificial heaven, for it is contingent upon events outside of you. It is contingent upon somebody else telling you that you are lovable. If you can tell yourself you are lovable and that life is perfect and beautiful, then you are close to heaven.

These types of peak experiences are common and point at heaven but are not heaven. For they are all contingent upon outside events that you know in your heart are only temporary. With this knowledge, even deep in your subconscious, then you know in your heart this heaven is not real for it will change.

But the heaven I experience is permanent and is not dependent upon circumstances. Heaven is an attitude, not an place, event or circumstance. Heaven comes when you no longer store you treasures here on earth were they will eventually be destroyed. Heaven happens when you no longer think of yourself or others as transitory beings that can get sick, injured or die. Heaven happens when you can see that this world is but a dream in our collective consciousness.

I use the word God to point at infinite and eternity, because infinity is experienced as Goodness.

Here is how I got there. Here is my road map. How can I help you to also find this perfection?

It is not your behavior here in the world that takes you to heaven or hell. It is your attitude about your behavior here in the world that takes you to heaven or hell. Your behavior does have an influence on the quality of your relationships with other people and the health of your body. And those relationships and your health can make it easier or more difficult to experience heaven. But behavior is not more important than attitude. if you put the priority on behavior over attitude you lead people astray.

Hell is a place where you fear and hate everything. Heaven is a place where you love everything.

Hell was when I could find nothing that I could appreciated, enjoyed or love. I saw everything as ugly, bad or wrong. I hated life and everything that it offered. There may have been things I could have loved if I would have given myself the time and space to do that but I did not so I never experienced appreciation, joy and love.

I developed my ability to find clarity that allowed me to examine my beliefs, assumptions or values that were the criteria for my perceptions and judgements until I found the falseness of those beliefs, assumptions or values. With clarity I was able to see the truth that set me free from the beliefs, assumptions and the values they created.

As I went through this process I then became freer and freer to appreciate, enjoy and love more of what life offered. Until the day came that I saw the perfect truth that set me perfectly free to perfectly appreciate, enjoy and love ALL that life offered. This is heaven.

Hell is being afraid of words, concepts and ideas. Hell is having to react or resist words, concepts and ideas. Hell is feeling obligated to continuously fight or resist that which we perceive to be as evil. Hell is HAVING TO do anything, the feeling of obligation to do anything. Anytime we think we have to do anything then we are not dealing with truth. As long as you think you have to do anything then you are trapped in eternal damnation. When life is motivated out of fear it is hell.

Hell is a state of mind, not a place you go when you die. The belief that hell is a place you go when you die is one of the delusion that keeps people trapped in hell. Just as the belief that you could reincarnate into something less than desirable. Since truth liberates then believing in the lie that you could burn in hell for all eternity IS hell. Hell starts when we take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when we think we know what is good and what is evil. We do this because we have identified with the flesh and think of ourselves as separate from the Infinite or from God. This causes us to make material things important, including the flesh of the human body. When we make things important then anything that can destroy that which is important is evil and hell becomes our experience. Hell is our belief that we are separate from God or the Infinite and that we are temporary beings. At this point we have left the Garden of Eden or the Kingdom of Heaven and everything is experienced as Hell to some degree or other.

The eternal damnation experience comes from believing firmly that we are separate and always will be separate from one another and God. The firm belief in separation is that which traps us in eternal damnation. This is eternally be separated from the thing we want most, the Goodness that we call God.

The belief that God could abandon us is Hell. It is eternal damnation just to believe that it is possible for God to abandon us. So all those who believe in the concept of Salvation are already eternally damned. The truth has saved me from a life of eternal damnation of believing that salvation could be real.

When I believed that anything ever needed to be saved it was the experience of hell. The belief I could ever fail, be wrong, bad or evil was the experience of hell. All of these beliefs are what trapped my in my hell because they gave me the sense that I could be trapped in my misery. I had been so spiteful and refused to accept the doctrine of salvation so I refused to accept that I could be saved. I would rather have the eternal hell and damnation that awaited me then become one of those hypocrite Christians. I would rather have been in hell for all eternity than living in the heaven of those Christians with their god that would have abandon anyone to eternal damnation. I wanted nothing to do with their god.

One of the images we have developed of this eternal damnation is of being in a room with all the most wonderful food that we can imagine in a large bowl. We have spoons to eat with but the spoons are so long that we can not put the food into our own mouths so we are starving while there is plenty of food. Heaven, in this image, is learning to feed one another with those long spoons.

The more separate I feel the more isolated and more lonely I feel the deeper the hell. The more different I am from everybody else, the more I belief I am this unique individual who nobody can understand and nobody cares about the greater the hell.

As I mature in myself understand of myself and look around at others I can see that I am not at all different from everybody else. I just THINK I am different. We may look different but in essence we are the same. The more difference the greater the hell, the less different the greater the heaven. When I awaken and realize I AM everybody else then that is perfect Heaven.

When I can see separation as only there for the joy of the play then the separation only adds to the richness of my experience of heaven. The puppet example above demonstrates that if we think we are the puppets and not the puppet master then we are in hell. If we are the puppet master then the drama of the play only enhances our experience of life.

Heaven is an experience you do want. Hell is an experience you do not want.

Heaven is realizing you get to do anything that you want. When you get to do anything it is all motivated out of joy and love.

There can be the same behavior or same activities that we are doing, but one is experienced as heaven the other is experienced as hell.

Jesus demonstrated what hell is like the night before he was arrested when he thought of himself as separate from God when he said, Not my will but Thy will be done. And the next day when he was on the cross and said, "My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me." Just the thought that God could forsake him was the experience of hell. At both times he felt or believed that he was separate from God so he experienced great tribulations.

The more separate from God or the whole, the more profound your experience of Hell will be. The more isolated you feel the more fear that you will experience. Anytime you are experiencing fear you are experiencing hell.

In Heaven you are with God. God is Perfect and God is Love. So when you are in Heaven you are experiencing Perfect (unconditional) Love. The measure you give is the measure you shall receive. Therefore, when you are in Heaven you are loving unconditionally.

My path to Heaven is not important. What is relevant is that because I sought it I found it. Each person who seeks their own path to heaven will find it. If any person seeks the will find if they keep at it. Patience and persistence it what it takes.

Hell is easy. The moment you take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you enter hell. The moment you THINK you know what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, you have enter hell. Eternal damnation is believing that what you think is right and wrong, good and evil is real, permanent or absolute. The belief in absolute morality IS eternal damnation.