Your Enlightened Self is the part of you that already is enlightened. When I encourage you to have a reverential feeling toward your Enlightened Self instead of toward me, I am giving two instructions in the same sentence.

One instruction is that you shouldn’t direct reverence toward me. That is because I am not asking for it and because people can forget their own wonderful human potential if they only venerate some other person.

The other instruction is to venerate your own Enlightened Self. That is because you will thereby grow the connection with your own wonderful human potential and ultimately with the best part of yourself.

When I encourage you then to have reverential feelings toward everyone else, I am also giving two instructions in the same sentence.

By using the word “then”, I am indicating that AFTER you have grown the connection with your Enlightened Self, you will be in a genuine position to feel reverence for others without disregarding yourself in the process.

And then I encourage you to treat everyone with special reverence, because everyone is equally deserving of that. At that point, it’s okay for you to treat even me with reverence.

—J.C.

My responses are inserted in your original text below.

‘Like you say, “The illusion leads to its own demise. It is just a path to awakening from the illusion,” and that explains my minute-by-minute identify shift, awakening from one illusion and then another, and so forth.’

Who is awakening? The awakener is awakening. You are the awakener. In what you are saying, it sounds like the illusion is shifting, not your identity.

‘As a long time meditator, I’m suspicious of the concept of enlightenment, since it seems like an illusion itself. Doesn’t it seem like such a relative thing?’

In Answers From Silence I say, “Enlightenment is not an idea.” Perhaps you are right to be suspicious of the concept of enlightenment.

‘I mean, can’t someone proclaim they’re enlightened, and the next day they realize it was a passing moment?’

In enlightenment, moments don’t pass, time isn’t measured by days, and one doesn’t proclaim oneself to be enlightened. But your question is whether one can experience a mistaken, temporary sense of being enlightened. The answer is that you can have passing experiences that carry the qualities of enlightenment. They will probably feel good. It’s when those qualities are there even when things don’t feel good that you will have one verification of the established state. Your question might also be whether some kind of false enlightenment could happen to you that would make you feel disappointed, betrayed, or like a failure. Your suspicion may stem from emotional issues. Fortunately, enlightenment is not essentially an emotional experience. These issues won’t have any further claim on you when you are enlightened. That would be another verification.

–JC

Your writing is very exact. I’ve had a shift of identity too, but it changes faster than minutes on a clock.

Like you say, “The illusion leads to its own demise. It is just a path to awakening from the illusion,” and that explains my minute-by-minute identify shift, awakening from one illusion and then another, and so forth.

As a long time meditator, I’m suspicious of the concept of enlightenment, since it seems like an illusion itself. Doesn’t it seem like such a relative thing?

I mean, can’t someone proclaim they’re enlightened, and the next day they realize it was a passing moment?