For those who remember the cigarette-man koan (about the man who is strongly attached to his idea of emptiness), here is a true "cigarette-man" story.
Several years ago a man found himself in a living hell. His existence was so nightmarish and horrific that it destroyed his previous identity and left him struggling to stay alive and stay sane. In the midst of this nightmare the man picked up a spiritual book, read a single sentence, and had a major awakening experience. Instantly he found peace and equanimity and lost all concern with his body's life or death. In the midst of a nightmare the man found himself free and unaffected by his surroundings.
Several months later the nightmare ended and the man was free to do whatever he wished. He then wrote a book about his life, experiences, and understanding. After his book was published, he began to give satsang and conduct meditation retreats, and soon acquired a large following.
As more and more people came to him for his teachings, he acquired and dispersed many new ideas. He began to see people in terms of their level of spiritual attainment, and he began ranking them accordingly. One person might be a 530 and another person might be a 480. He considered Jesus, The Buddha, and himself to be at 1000 and everyone else was somewhere between 0 and that level. As he became more attached this idea and a few other similar ideas, his followers began to dwindle. People who heard his teachings began to think that something wasn't quite right and that he didn't pass the guru smell-test.
After his following collapsed, which he attributed to people's "unwillingness to hear the truth" or "unreadiness to embrace the truth," he moved to a new location only a few hundred miles from my home. Carol and I had always been curious about this man, but we knew nothing about him other than what he had written in his book. We did not know what he was currently teaching.
Carol and our daughter decided to go visit the man's new retreat facility, which was a kind of spa with gourmet food. After they returned three days later, I asked them what had happened. Carol told me that the man had ridden up to the retreat facility on a motorcycle, introduced himself, dangled a crystal in front of them, and told her that she was at a spiritual level of 480 and our daughter was a level of 440. I asked, "Are you serious?" She laughed and assured me that she was and that she and our daughter were somewhat stunned. I told her that she should have grabbed the crystal, thrown it into the field, and asked, "What level is that?" She laughed and said that she had been too surprised to think of that.
A year later I went to the man's retreat center along with two chiropractors and their wives. The man did not bring out any crystals or talk much during the first day. He had a beautiful facility with great food and an idyllic medtitation site. I sat with him for three days and had a great time. I found him likable, kind, generous, and interesting, but not nearly as deep or as clear as many other teachers I had met. Some of his ideas were a bit wacky and he was very attached to his high level of attainment and his ability to accurately guage other people's level of attainment. He had a wonderful dog that I think was more enlightened than he was.
After I returned home, I sent him a thank you note for the retreat, and included a copy of my spiritual autobiography. A week later he called to tell me that although he had long quit reading spiritual books, he read mine and found it to be hysterically funny. He said, "I laughed more than I've laughed in many years." He then told me that my level of attainment was very high, much higher than various teachers I mentioned in the book. He implied that I was very close to Buddhahood, and that with the right teacher (guess who?) I could probably get there. I replied that I was amazed at his ability to rank people's attainment that he had never met (some of whom were dead). He did not detect my sarcasm and explained that is was due to his deep intuitive connection with Source. He did not remember that some of the levels he quoted varied significantly from what he had previously told me or other people. He even told me that my wife's attainment was now much greater than Gangaji's, a statement that later elicited enormous laughter from Carol.
The bottom line? He was a cigarette-man strongly attached to a new set of ideas that had replaced an earlier set of ideas. Here was a man who had had a huge awakening experience and experienced total freedom only to have his attainment eventually coopted by the mind.
Probably the best definition of enlightenment is "non-abidance in the mind." Enlightement is the realization that there is nothing to attain and no one separate who could attain it. About the only thing that one "gets" from enlightenment is the cessation of seeking.
The enlightened life is very ordinary. It is not special. It is sitting at McDonalds sipping a coffee, typing on a laptop, watching cars go by, listening to an angry father yelling at his young son, and thinking, "Lighten up Dad; the kid is only four years old." No past, no future, and no present. No one separate from the action. The truth is "just like this." It is very simple.
How do we teach the cigarette-man? He is very strong. No matter what we say he will hit us. He is right and everyone else is wrong. Only he knows the truth. Other teachers have lower levels of attainment than he does, so he will not listen to anything anyone else says. It's a pretty good koan, isn't it?
