The Universe Works

“If who is going to die, exactly?

Different traditions express it differently. Most people in this subreddit seem to come from the Buddhist tradition, but I don’t, so I’ll give you the version I’m familiar with.

As you said, there is no ego separate from the rest of the universe. But what does this mean? It means that you are both nothing and everything at the same time. That all of the identifications you have with your limited body and mind and all of the things attached to them are meaningless next to the unlimited nature of the universe, which exists infinitely both within and without (and really, there is no within or without, since it’s all-pervasive).

Your ego is just a flimsy veil created out of a deep misunderstanding of your true nature, and enlightenment is the complete and irreversible awareness of that true nature beyond the body and mind, and the freedom arising from this awareness.

In short, you aren’t the you that you think you are. The you that you think you are is an illusion born from body-mind identification. “You” don’t die, because there is no you. Likewise, “you” were never born. Your body was. The awareness that looks out from behind the eyes of that body is an impersonal awareness, only it’s mistaken itself to be something much smaller and more fragile than it actually is.

What you are is the very substratum of consciousness itself, and since all energy is consciousness, and the universe is composed of energy, upon enlightenment you regain awareness of that oneness with the universe itself. I don’t say you become one with the universe, because there is no becoming. You already are one. You’ve just forgotten and have believed all this time that you and the universe are two things.

So, the point of enlightenment is to become aware of all this, not just intellectually but much, much deeper than that (because intellect is limited to the mind), to the point that you become established in a state of awareness that does not dissipate upon the death of the body. You won’t lose consciousness because you will have regained your identification with Consciousness itself. For such is the power of Consciousness that it “becomes” whatever it focuses on. If it focuses on the body, it “dies” with the body.

So, in effect, all meditation is is re-familiarizing oneself with one’s true nature. The daily stepping away from all of the attachments and body-mind identifications is a way to acclimate yourself to that which is always there, behind the scenes and overlooked. You don’t become anything new. You just reclaim what you already are.

In other words, meditation is the attempt to remember. Enlightenment is the remembering.”

http://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/n60qm/what_is_the_point_of_enlightenment_defined_as_the/