Teachings by Lester Levenson
Realization
Most knowledge is intellectual. It is acquired from reading books and from traditional cognitive forms of education. Most of us have a lot of this intellectual knowledge. And yet we are still not realized. This means that to achieve “realization” we need a different kind of knowledge, a knowledge that can be experienced, felt, and integrated. We can call this knowledge ”Experiential.” Experiential Knowledge is the only useful kind for growth, for through it we can finally realize our inner sight. This kind of knowledge also fits with our feelings. It feels right, and integrates with our whole Beingness. Through Experiential Knowledge we know, and even more importantly, we know that we know.
Realization is seeing something, really seeing it for the first time. Realization is like an electric light bulb has been turned on in the mind, and it allows you to say, “Oh now I see.” It allows to hear something that we might have heard a hundred times before, but this time, upon hearing it and seeing it, we experience it as real. This is realization.
The “Experiential” Knowledge is the only knowledge that does any good. But this does not mean we do not use our mind. We do. The difference is that rather than using the mind to “make up” the answers, we direct the mind toward the place where the answer is. And when we do, we discover that the answer does not come from the mind. It comes from the place behind and beyond the mind. It comes from the realm of knowingness, the realm of omniscience. By quieting the mind through stilling our thoughts, each of us has access to this realm of Knowingness. Then and there we realize. We know and we know that we know.
Happiness
When we analyze what everybody is seeking, it turns out to be happiness. And when we find God, our true Self, it turns out to be the ultimate happiness. When we seek and find the full truth, the absolute truth, again it turns out to be the ultimate happiness, and also the greatest good. The greatest good turns out to be the ultimate happiness. Every being is seeking freedom and the complete freedom or liberation is also the ultimate happiness.
So in the end, the words God, good, truth, liberation, freedom, and Self turn out to be the ultimate happiness. And everyone is seeking this Good, Happiness, Liberation, Truth, God and Self. There isn’t anyone who is not seeking It. The only difference between some of us and others is that some of us are consciously seeking It in the direction where It is and are becoming happier. And others are seeking it blindly in the world and are becoming more frustrated.
Yet, only when we go within do we discover that all happiness is there. The only place where we can feel happiness is right within ourselves. That is exactly where it is. Every time we attribute this happiness to something external, to a person or a thing, we get more pain with it than we do pleasure.
If you have experienced enough, if you have lived long enough, and if you have examined carefully enough, you have discovered this. The “happiness with no sorrow” can only be found by going within.
This great happiness that we are seeking is our very own beingness. And looking within we discover it to be our most basic inherent nature, our very own Self unencumbered with our self-imposed limitations. And it is ours here and now.
And there is not one of us who is not in direct touch with, in possesion of, an infinite Beingness that is all perfect, all present, all joyous and eternal. And there is not one of us who is not in direct contact with it right now! But due to assumptions, concepts of limitation, looking outwardly, and wrong learning, we have covered over this infinite Being that we are with concepts of “I am this physical body,” “I am this mind.” So, in order to discover this truth, this unlimited Being that we are, we must quiet the mind, we must let go of the mind. Only in this way may we achieve the ultimate happiness we seek.
The mind, after all, is nothing but the sum-total of all thoughts and all thoughts are concepts of limitation. If any one of us could stop thinking right now and stay that way, he or she would be an unlimited Being from this moment on. It is really that simple that easy to accomplish.
So our first job is to undo negative thinking in order to get positive enough so that we may go in the right direction. Then, we must drop all thinking, both negative and positive thinking. When this happens, we discover that we are in the realm of knowingness. of omniscience, we have not need to think as everything is known and we are joyous and total free. Knowing everything, there is nothing to think about!
Thinking is just our way of relating things to other things, connecting things together. But knowing everything, we know the unity, the oneness and there’s no need to relate things by thought. Thereby, we are free, free of all concepts of separation and limitation. This leaves us free to use a mind should we want to communicate with the appearance of the world. When we quiet the mind by letting go of all thinking we see this infinite Being and leaves us totally free.
Beyond Thinking
Seeing this infinite Being is not, however, the end of the job. We still have to do away with the remaining habits of thought. Then when there is not more remaining thoughts, sub-conscious and conscious, ( subconscious thoughts are the difficult ones to let go of ) that’s the end of the road of playing limited. Then we are totally free — forever! Actually since we are infinite Beings, we are choosing to be limited! And we are choosing to be limited to a such a degree that now we are blindly behaving as thought we are limited beings.