Enlightenment is, Experiencing the limitless continuum
Living with the limitless continuum is enlightenment. The limitless continuum will happen when you relax from the identities you hold of yourself in the outer and inner worlds.
If you are settled in that limitless continuum and are able to be active, you are living enlightenment. If you are not able to settle down in it, but you had at least one experience of it, then you have experienced satori.
Enlightenment is, Realizing the self, world, and god
The basic thing needed for enlightenment is a 'psychological revolution', a new clarity about the self (jeeva), world (jagat), and god (Ishwara).
How you think, why you think, how you are driven, what your inspiration is, what motivates you in life – this understanding is the clarity about the self or jeeva.
How to achieve your desires in the world, how to avoid fears and other things forced upon you by the world – this understanding is the clarity about the world or jagat.
Clarity about Ishwara or god means understanding the source of both the individual self and the world. Achieving the source, knowing all these three, is enlightenment.
When you have a clear understanding about why you think and how you think, this very understanding gives you the clear experience of the self. When you understand how to connect with the world, achieving what you want, and avoiding what is not needed, you gain a clear experience of the world. The third is experiencing god, Ishwara, the source of the self and the world.
Gaining a true understanding of the self, world and god is enlightenment.
Enlightenment is, Intense excitement for no reason
People ask me, 'After enlightenment, can enlightened beings enjoy?' I tell you, only after enlightenment can you enjoy! Before that, you can only think or imagine you are enjoying.
After enlightenment, you don't even need sense objects to enjoy. You will simply be enjoying all the time. There will be such an intense excitement for no reason.
If I have to define enlightenment in two words, I will say it is 'intense excitement' for no reason, intense passion directed towards no object. There is no object, but there is intense passion. There is no reason, but there is intense excitement. That is what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment does not mean escaping somewhere. Tasting life here and now is what I call enlightenment.
Enlightenment is, Seeing others as you see yourself
What I call enlightenment is experiencing the same intensity of life that you feel inside yourself, outside your skin also. You are not alive just inside your body, but you are also alive inside every other individual, tree, and rock. Your hold over your physical body is transformed into a hold over the cosmic body!
You are alive in every cell in the cosmos. Every cell is a complete, fulfilled part of the cosmos.
Understand, I am alive as much outside as I am inside my skin. So, I am alive in all the millions of heads, eyes, and feet and all the millions of beings in the cosmos.
To achieve this, start seeing everything as if you are seeing it for the first time, without bringing in your engrams, your past engraved memories. Then you will start experiencing the same life and intensity that you experience inside your skin, outside also. Try this for ten days. Once you get a glimpse, you will never miss it! You will see you are in ecstasy for no reason. You are in excitement for no reason. You will never take things for granted again. You will always be in joy.
Enlightenment is, Being unclutched
As of now you connect all the past experiences of your life and create a shaft. All your future experiences depend on how you have created this shaft. They depend on which words from the past you have picked, and how you have formed the shaft. Your future emotions, reactions, thoughts, and words depend entirely on this shaft. But after enlightenment, life is very different from this. Thoughts arise, and if they want to work, the body pursues the thoughts. Once the work is done, the thoughts disappear. Then the next time something needs to be done, thoughts arise again, and the process continues. The whole thing happens beautifully by itself. There is no shaft at all.
Currently we all carry constant irritation from the moment we get out of the bed until the minute we go back to bed. Constantly we carry some irritation or other. We are waiting to jump on people. We only need some excuse. After enlightenment, the constant fear or guilt or desire, something that constantly irritates is not there. When you unclutch from the shaft for even one moment, you get a glimpse of enlightenment.
The shift from the shaft happens in a fraction of a second. If you are deeply aware, you can catch that precious moment when the unclutching happens. All our tapas, spiritual training, is only preparing us to catch that shift. The shift happens many times. You just need to be really aware and you can catch it. When you permanently unclutch from the shaft, you are enlightened.
The four permanent changes
I can say that a few changes happened permanently in me when I became enlightened.
The first thing was that all inner chatter disappeared. By inner chatter, I mean the constant chatter of words that goes on inside us normally. In the gap between my words as I talk now, even in those few seconds, there is no chatter inside. It is simply pure space, silence.
The second thing is that the idea that my boundary ends here at this body, and there starts the rest of the world disappeared. Border consciousness dissolved. I don't feel I am just this six foot form. I see and feel myself in everything. If you watch me, I will be the first one to enjoy all my photographs after a photo shoot or on the book covers! I will just play with them for four or five days.
The third thing is that even though the body is a male body, the inner identity of male or female disappeared. The psychological idea that 'I am male' or 'I am female' doesn't exist in me anymore.
And the fourth thing is that there is a constant excitement within, everything excites. Even small things give big excitement. Even a simple thing creates intense excitement and joy.
I can say that these four changes are permanent things that happened in me after enlightenment.
Ultimate but not final
Be very clear, enlightenment is not the end. It is the ultimate experience, but not the final experience.
You need to understand these two words 'final' and 'ultimate'. They are very different. For example, after the first day of discourse in a series, one person came to me and said, 'You have said everything. Why do we need one more class?' The next day, another person said, 'Swamiji, on the first day, I thought you could not take us any deeper; it is over. And today, suddenly I felt that you have taken us deeper than yesterday, and you cannot take us any deeper than this. Every day I feel that you cannot take us much deeper than this, but we do keep going deeper.' Every day the person felt that the experience was the ultimate.
Ultimate means living every moment totally, completely. Ultimate is not final. It can be updated.
There is a big difference between these two words, ultimate and final. If it is ultimate, it is happening every moment. It is not final.
When a being becomes enlightened, not only does he experience his potentiality, but he also starts creating more enlightened beings. He starts creating the possibility of more enlightened beings.