Enlightenment: Discourse

This is an audio recording that I have transcribed. It is called 'Decker and Enlightenment', and is taken from the monthly audio recording of The Authentic Man Program.

I thought it would be interesting for you to read.

(You may want to google the word Alethea, and the River Alethea if you are to understand a concept they talk about in this triologue. If you want...)


"Bryan: I don't have it that we're so spiritual, I'm like, I'm not, I don't have it that we're (Authentic Man Program) is that spiritual. Like we're just about relationship, if you asked us, we're about deepening to relationship with self, each other, and the world. Getting more in relationship with what's so, yet, so many people who tend to be interested in what we're interested in have attention on enlightenment, and transcendence, and recognizing the inherent unity, and beings, and non-dual philosophies, and all that stuff. And while we are proponents of meditation, and some of the things that facilitate that, we have had very little to say on this specific topic of enlightenment, per say. So, that's the context of this conversation.

Robbie: And when you keep including self, that's a transcendent practice. When you keep deepening relationship with self, that's a transcendent practice, to me.

Decker: Ok, here's what I get so far. When someone says well, 'this isn't just dating tips, this is a spiritual practice', that fits, for me. Spiritual in the sense of discovering more of what's already actually here, in a way that has me, like, my awareness is more expansive than it was... continually. Like, maybe forever.

Just an ongoing practice of getting more in contact with what is actually happening, and not identifying with it. Like, oh, 'I'm aware of it, it's not prodding me anymore.'


Bryan: Yes, it's a spiritual practice for sure.

Decker: And once you acknowledge that it's a spiritual practice, for a lot of people, it's like 'well isn't enlightenment the 'end-all be-all?' But that's the main thrust for a lot of spiritual practices, is enlightenment, whatever that means. And the fact they we don't even talk about enlightenment, it's kind of...

Bryan: An elephant in the room..

Decker: A bit, or a 'missing' or something. I don't know if I avoid it, but it definitely doesn't occur to me to bring it up, because I don't know what the hell it is. I've heard pretty consistent... like, when people say they try to define enlightenment, I get different stories and when I meet people who say they're enlightened, I get varying experiences. It seems like they're coming from different places. It's like God. People can call it the same type of God, but it seems like their talking about different critters, to me. So I don't even use the label God anymore, and I don't even use the label enlightenment very often, so there may be some avoidance to it. But I've never had the experience where I'm like, 'well, I gotta call that enlightenment.' I haven't had that yet.

And that's what I've been wanting to check out. Because I have had the experience that has felt like a kind of 'end-all be-all', not like I'm done, but like, 'oh ****. There's no further I can..' Everything I can possibly realize is inside of this. I have had that experience. That was one of my earliest epiphanies, kind of the satori lightning bolt experiences. It had a vibe of that. And it's the un-damning experience, it's the matrix experience, it's the experience of realizing.. and maybe the cognitive line of development followed here it made sense rationally first, but it didn't really matter, it felt like quibbling over semantics basically, and then all of a sudden in my cells I got, 'oh... ****...'

No matter what I experience it's all inside of my own head, and I'll never step outside of my own experience to see if my version of reality out there fits into to actual 'out there'. I'll never get to find out. At the end of the day all I've got is what is arising in my own mind. And the terror of that, the aloneness of that, the wonder of that, and ultimately a certain humility, like 'well, that's all I actually know, is my own experience.'

It seems like there is a world outside my own experience, it seems like I've had the experience of cracking my shin on a quote, "table". Because there's probably some table-like entity out there that I just ran into. And, I'll never actually know. Even if it's likely that there's something outside of my own experience that I'm interfacing with that's giving me the experience of pain in my shin, and y'know, maybe I'll pay attention to my acting like there's no table out there. I still will never be an authority on the final nature of that table. Even if I'm assuming there is a table-like entity out there, it's still a mystery to me. There's still a certain sense of wonder, 'whoa, is there anything?'

And if there is, what is it? I'll never know. Humility and wonder. And ultimately, owning, 'well all I know is, my own experience arising'. What I'm wanting, what I'm feeling; those old fashioned 'I' statements arise not because it's the right way, or the more kind way to communicate, or anything like that, but from just because, what else do I have?

So, that experience, is almost contrary to my understanding of people saying their enlightened. Inside of that experience are people who arise in my awareness who say, 'I'm enlightened, I know the ultimate truth, there is nothing more true than this.' And I'm like, 'Really? How the hell did you do that!?' Because I can't imagine some tablet with ten commandments etched on it falling out of the sky, saying, 'Yep, Decker, you're version of truth is the absolute truth.' I don't know how to do that. My deepest realization is the opposite of that. So, you guys did something I can't imagine doing, -or-, you haven't gone as far as I've gone.

Robbie: And I relate, thinking of Almas, right now. Who... his practice is the practice you described. And he talks about objective reality. He says there comes a point where you actually realize reality. And he talks about objective reality.

Decker: Yep, and I can't tell if that's farther along than I've gotten. Or if he just hasn't gotten far enough to get where I'm at, or if either of us will ever know. Because my realization, what has felt like the most ecstatic, and the deepest realization I have is, 'I can't ever know'. So, that includes that other people could know. So maybe it's just individual to individual, but what has moved me most includes that other people can know more than I can, and they can be the authorities on the ultimate truth, more power to them. I have nothing to say about that, I can't possibly know.

*laughs*

Robbie: No one can be an authority on truth.

Decker: Yeah, I'd contradict myself. So, if there is an enlightenment for me it's that. It's that there's no such thing.

*laughs*

There's no such thing.

And I'll tell you this though, I don't desire it. I have no desire to come to some ultimate reality, and I don't really care to affiliate with people who... ...I don't want to seek someone out who apparently has known it, or concluded it. I don't feel a need for it, at all. More and more I'm inclined to relax out of coming to that conclusion, or putting a period on the end of the sentence. Like, the question mark; I'm more and more friendly with it. It's a rewarding experience for me. I'm not done milking it apparently. *laughs*

Bryan: Milking the question mark?

Decker: The question mark. And just abiding in the question, the ultimate mystery of it. Like, the painting where the fingers don't touch. Da Vinci... Leonardo, or..

Brayn: Michelangelo, in the Sistine Chapel.

Decker: Michelangelo, yeah. Where the fingers don't touch, and if they did touch, no one would come to look at that painting. Like, that really fits for me. Like, that gap, the magic is in that gap, and it's never going to be connected. Which is the one thing with the movie the matrix, the metaphor that doesn't.. it's the perfect metaphor, except in the movie there is an objective reality you can wake up out of to get to. To me, that moment of the matrix unraveling, and him just like, being kung fu master, is just letting go of ever having to have.. like, the way that resonates with me is letting go of ever having to have an objective reality. But playing here anyway.

Bryan: I just felt creeped out..

*laughs*

Robbie: Dude, that's exactly what I was going to say! Like, 'wow, that's scary!'

Decker: And when I get creeped out, or if someone else gets creeped out, what arises from this space is wonder, and interest, and curiosity, and welcoming, actually like.. 'Oh, what has you creeped out? What is it you're wanting? What is it that you think you'll lose? Is there something you'll lose?'

Robbie: I just think it's spooky. It doesn't occur like a contraction, it's just like 'woooh'.

Bryan: Yeah, it's more like chills and goosebumps.

Decker: Yes, good. So there's a distinction for me between awe, and spooked. Cause awe is being out... when you go out to the ocean, so far, and you can't see land in any direction, and then you go in the water and you can see the blue as far as you can see.

Bryan: Yes. But it's also like, 'there is nothing under me...' Like if there was any place where I was counting on something to be there, it's not. So, if there was anything creepy about it, it would be like.. just checking if I had any attachments to having this world mean something.

Decker: It's the sheer awe of infinity itself, until I want there to be something to push against or ground it. To the degree that that rises, is the degree I get spooked.

Bryan: Yeah, then: terrified. Luckily I've done a lot of letting go, I think. So I don't feel as spooked as I think most people would, to the point where they probably wouldn't even get freaked out. I don't think they could've even gone on the ride we just went on.

Decker: There is light. So, something weird happens where the sunlight.. reflects.. it seems like the sunlight is radiating up from the depths of the ocean, even though I rationally know it must be coming from the sunlight above me. Like, there's light coming up from the depths, at me. And it's beautiful. It's so beautiful that it's almost like a siren, like it's beckoning me to keep going deeper, it gets 'whoa!' That, it's part of the spookiness too, because, I don't want to die... like I don't want to drown. And there's a sense that I can't sustain... like an impulse of sustaining this little whole-on (?), body-mind, or whatever, that is concerned about that.. infinite letting go.

And I still have... found my edge, like I can get to the edge where I cannot.. I'm like, 'Screw that! I'm not letting go, that far'.. And then I hear stories of people who even that far, and there's... still things happening, like..

Robbie: There's still things happening, but some of them say, that the guy that let go..

Decker: ..Is never back at my depth. Yeah, the stream is still going and parts that I thought were me were still floating along in the stream, but, some float off, and some don't... but it's worth it. And every time I've let go in that stream, another layer, it has been worth it. And I'm never quite who I was, and, every time I let go of another layer it's harder.. it's more terrifying than the last time. And more rewarding. And more so, of, I wouldn't go back. I would not do the cypher card, of like, 'no, no, no, I know this is fake steak but I just want my juicy steak.' I've never had that experience, I always never wanted to go back in contact with it.
So, in some ways, the letting go into the wonder, that is Alethea, I'm actually more richly in relationship with my experience as it arises..

Robbie: It's not oblivion of consciousness, it's oblivion of like.. fixed..

Bryan: The fixation..

Decker: So, the river Alethea, is... is, for me, has been the ongoing drifting along to ever increasing levels of thinking I know something. And therefore, leaving relationship with it. And Alethea is awakening to the truth of... arising in this moment, more and more. Which is why, a lot of people when they use the word 'enlightenment', I haven't heard anyone use 'enlightenment' where it resonates with that. 'Enlightenment' is another thing that I would know, it's like, *claps hands* the truth, the ultimate reality, like.. that's more..like, to me that's the epitome of Alethea.

Robbie: So wild.. Because I totally resonate with that perspective, which is why Almas is like this demon for me, and like.. why, I'm director.. and at the same time, I want to honor the perspectives of the people who have done the research, and there are people who have done heaps more research than me, but are saying something that contradicts that.

Decker: Inside of that process there is an ultimate realization you will come to...

Robbie: Yeah, and I'm like you holding... I don't know which side of your realization Almas is at, and he would say very distinctly that he is on the other side..

Decker: That he is further along...

Robbie: Yeah, that he's had the realization you've had, and deeper than that, you actually come to objective realization.

Decker: I... I have no response to that... Oh, wait, wait, I have one response to that.. Which is the experience of going into the Monastery, with no expectation where I'm going to go, and having a profound experience arise. And then from that... that's my new base camp. Relinquishing knowing what peak I would summon, and coming to a whole new one, that was based on one before. Which then allows even another one, like there's these establishing... base camp upon base camp, and you can go higher and higher. And then reading stories and documentation of other people who have... given up everything, in pursuit of this path. Sharing this is the exact same... it's like.. we're climbing the same mountain. Because they had the same discoveries that I had, in the same sequence basically... and, then they'll share about a summit beyond where I've been. About past lives, about.. stuff where I'm like..

Bryan: I have no point of reference for that..

Decker: I have no point of reference, I have nothing, no basis to agree or disagree with that. Um.. and everything else they said happened, happened. So it's fair to assume that maybe they're onto something, and eventually past lives are true.. So.. there is an inclination to give some credence to what they're saying because of that..

Robbie: Which is what Cambial.. like that's his whole schtick, right...

Decker: I don't know.

Robbie: Those are the people doing the research in the upper left. Those are the upper left scientists and, that's the community that is adequate, unless you've done the injunction to the point where you've had all the experiences they've had, and.....

Decker: And then something contrary to that. Then, otherwise, show some respect. Right?

Robbie: Yep, basically..

Decker: Ok, so, that does come up for me naturally. Except for when the transmission feels contrary to the trajectory I've been on. So if there's a vibe, a building vibe, or a building resonance - base camp to base camp to base camp. And then someone shares something later on that's like... contrary to the basic resonance...the orchestra that's been building - then I'm.. I'm not giving it up to it, I'm agnostic.

And a lot of people when they say they're enlightened, their ways of being, their behavior towards other people, even the way that they feel when they say the phrase, 'ultimate truth', has felt dissonant. Like.. the frequency that has been building, building, building, building with each realization, actually subsides, or is like.. scratching the record a bit.

Bryan: It's funny, 'cause they've said in Spiral Dynamics; If you speak to someone one level above, they might disagree with you. If you speak to them two levels above, they won't like you, and three levels above they will try to kill you.

Decker: It could be that, or it could be what Mariano Caplan wrote about with 'Pathway To The Mountain Top' .. ooh! Which is funny that I'm using the mountain metaphor, is.. premature claims to enlightenment, that that distance is actually my discernment. That at some point they got off track, that they want to know something and be the enlightened one... I'm not sure which..

At my current level of development I don't care.. that much. I don't know how much it matters, as long as I stay open, and honor that they're teaching may be potential guidance for me, I don't think it really matters that much..

And that's all I have to say about that..."