Tranquil Spirit, Northwich, Cheshire, UK - Spirit Communications: Enlightenment

Spirit Communications:

Enlightenment

The topic of enlightenment comes up on a regular basis. Sometimes Hai initiates further discussion on this subject, but often visitors have their own particular questions about it. Regular visitors often have an on-going discussion of enlightenment which they pick up again when they next talk to Hai.

Q: Is enlightenment given or is it reached?

Hai: Enlightenment is your condition already, Peter. You have only to realise it.

Q: So it's got to be reached?

Another member of the group commented:

Q: It cannot be something to be reached if it is there already.

Hai: Just so.

There was some banter about John having to go to the back of the line (after us) and Hai further responded with:

Hai: It is a queue or line in which everyone already is at first place, (smiling), but who will open their eyes first? Enlightenment is like the lotus flower that opens and reveals its heart, its essence.

Birthdays and Enlightenment

One member of our group asked Hai if he would wish her father, who is in the spirit world, a happy birthday. Hai agreed and added:

Hai: So you must wish me a happy birthday also for it is my birthday today. I am many hundreds of years now but you would never think it to look at me. (Laughs)

Q: What year where you actually born in?

Hai: 753.

Q: Do you actually celebrate your birthdays?

Hai: Yes we do. We gather together and have parties. Which birthdays are we taking about? The birthday when you are born into the physical plane or the birthday when you depart the physical plane. (smiles) We have birthdays for many different things. (laughs) Good excuse for parties.

Q: And when it is the birthday of your birth on earth, do you get together with the people who you were with on the earth

Hai: Sometimes, yes. It depends whether you have maintained a connection, the relationship with them. Things change. Not everyone can be present. Some people have moved on back to earth plane or have moved to other planes; therefore, it is a meeting of the available. (Laughs).

Q: How old are you since your creation?

Hai: It does not make much sense to count all these lives, Andrew, for there has been so much coming and going over the ages. I lived in animal form first and most of you have also; for we are all one consciousness, one sentience, one commonality. But in human form I am many thousands of years old - many thousands.

Q: Did it take a lot of lives before you reached enlightenment?

Hai: Yes - yes because the mind is ever fickle. The mind is ever like the honeybee, flying from flower to flower, from one distraction to the next, from one enticement to the next. It does not centre itself willingly, does not settle itself willingly and to reach enlightenment it must be centred and settled. It must see beyond and through the illusions of life, the changing panorama before its eyes to see the Changelessness within and beyond all the phenomena. And when it sees That it cannot but help laugh and smile. It is like; it is hard to describe; but it is like someone who had banged a vast bell of enormous size and the ringing penetrates all of existence. And when you have had enlightenment, you can hear and feel the great bell (voice changes to almost a whisper) the great toll resonate throughout all existence; you feel it as you know it and you laugh, (laughs loudly) you laugh and smile for all the pain and suffering are but illusion, are but magic tricks. There is Changelessness - there is great security - within the all-embracing One Mind, the One Mind, which you are all part of, the One Mind, which you are all of.

Q: Is that what enlightenment means, we are all light and worry free?

Hai: You see through all the illusions Helen. You see through all the manifestations to the Heart of Life, to the Essence of Life. And more than you see it, you know it, you feel it. You have a saying, "You feel it in your bones," yes? But I tell you, you feel it in every pore of your skin, in every corpuscle of your blood; you know it, you live it, are it, the enlightenment.

Q: Have any of us here been around as long as you Hai?

Hai: Yes some of you have been around as long as I've been around. You like the part of the honeybee too much, to fly from flower to flower.

Derek Chandler from Kent asked the following question relating to Consciousness

Q: A colleague similar to Hai whose words have been recorded in a book "BEING with Shang-Li" notes that we have 3 planes, conscious, sub-conscious and the super conscious. Unfortunately these recorded readings do not seem to have continued in later book versions so I am still left with wanting more information as to how one might enhance one's ability to achieve the higher conscious areas.

Hai: He speaks of enlightenment ultimately. So there is nothing easy about enlightenment except that it is simplicity itself.

Q: Why can't we attain it then?

Hai: Because you make a hard task of it as many do. This person must transcend the limitations of his own ego, as all must to seek enlightenment. They must put aside attachment. They must put aside self and the mental framework of this and that, of self and other and so on. They must drop to the bottom of the ocean. (Smiling) You are quiet now. It is a state of trust, of openness. It is a letting go, a letting loose. It is a state of freefall, to discover the immense net, if you wish, but it is impossible to fall through. You must give up all conceptions, all deliberations. You must just let go and in this simple letting go we find enlightenment.

But this letting go it seems is no easy thing to do. It is like as if you had a ball of treacle in your hand, how difficult it would be to let go of a ball of treacle. But the difficulty is (laughing) you have all been cooking treacle a long time and so this is why it is so difficult to let go. You must put the cooking of the treacle to one side. I speak of attachment, of clinging.

Q: How would you translate that in every day life?

Hai: Translate what?

Q: Letting go of attachment.

Hai: Well ancient monk in monastery asked a similar question. He was given koan. Question to think on, to meditate and ruminate on. There could be various questions put to the monk. For example: "What do you hear when the stone cockerel crows?" Or: "What is the sound of one hand clapping." Each monk would come to Master all with many, many answers. They come to Ancient Master many hundreds of times with what they think is the answer, but the Master answers each time with a simple "No, no, no." Eventually the monk gets mighty frustrated, but eventually he gives up the effort and in that moment of giving up the effort he hear sound of one hand clapping — Enlightenment.

Q: Can’t we just say then: "We give up."

Hai: (Laughing). But you have not given up. You create a device. You say: "Ah, if I tell old Hai I give up", but you have not given up.

Q: If we are truthfull with ourselves how do we know when we have reached enlightenment?

Hai: You will be in no doubt, Les, no doubt. You will know.

Q: Well can you give us a clue? (Much laughter)

Hai: (Laughing). Yes I can. What is the sound of one hand clapping? (more laughter)

Q: Well is it a feeling then or will we have a mental message?

Hai: You will know.

Q: I was thinking about some egotistical people who might say they’ve reached enlightment when they haven’t.

Hai: Those who wish to delude themselves will delude themselves and they will come up with something they call enlightenment. But for those who know they will know they have not achieved enlightenment. They will know. It will be self evident that they have not achieved enlightenment.

Q: So is it just a select few that achieve enlightenment?

Hai: All must achieve enlightenment.

Q: Could it take several lifetimes to do that?

Hai: It could take aeons.

Q: Are there many enlightened spirits?

Hai: Yes there are many such souls.

Q: Is there a further stage beyond enlightenment?

Hai: Hai answered with amusement: I give you a big cone of ice cream, Janet, and I keep adding ice cream on and on and on. You will surely say "Enough!" after a while, yes? When you have your ice cream there is no need for more ice cream is there? It is like filling a cup with tea. You keep filling a cup with tea, it overflows to no purpose — so the tea is redundant.

Q: So when someone says they’ve "seen the light", is that what they mean?

Hai: It would depend upon what they mean by "seeing the light". When someone has experienced enlightenment there is no one answer; there is no one word which is right; that will come out of their mouths, and no one word which is wrong. It is rather that they express from their own inner being their sense of enlightenment. But someone else may speak of something else and yet this too may be enlightenment. For it is individual and yet in common to all.