Table Of Content

Blueprint for Happiness Groundhog Day as a Spiritual Guide Metch 1 ISBN – 978-2-9574288-0-9 First edition – 2020 Copyright Metch, all rights reserved. Cover picture by Mikkolo 2 To my parents 3 Introduction 5. Part I – Definition and Teachings - Definition 7. - Teachings o Buddhism 23. o Hinduism 36. o Advaita 37. o Kundalini 41. o Tao 44. o Miscellaneous 46. o No technique 49. o Monotheistic Religions 50. Conclusion 66. Part II – Frequently Asked Questions - Basic Questions 69. - Essential Questions 117. Conclusion 130. Part III – Groundhog Day – or How to Live Life in the Present 132. Conclusion 158. CONCLUSION 163. 4 Introduction This book is about enlightenment. What is it? How does one “get there”? What do all spiritual masters have in common that allowed them to “achieve realization”? Considering that from one teacher to another they often have opposing views, do they even have anything in common? Which beliefs should be adhered to, which practices adopted? Is there a common thread connecting the teachings of the various spiritual schools? What if an enlightened person does not live near you to help you progress? Well, the 1993 movie Groundhog Day does answer some of the most pressing questions regarding enlightenment, especially the ‘How?’, but we will analyze it in the last part of this book only. In order to understand what’s essential about that movie, we first need to understand spirituality itself. One of the most fundamental lessons learned in school is to first carefully read the subject of the exam, the question that is asked. It is better to waste ten minutes to make sure you’ve understood it than to rush in and write an off-topic essay. This is an analogy that has rarely been better illustrated than in spirituality. Too many seekers go from one guru to the next, from one teaching to another, all because they have no clear understanding of what exactly they are looking for. The aim here is to understand what enlightenment really is, to go over the available teachings, and to dispel certain contentious points, so that the reader can serenely deepen their understanding of the path that will best suit them. Some expressions will be used indifferently below: awakening, realization, death of the ego; also Consciousness, the divine, the Brahman, non-self, the immaterial... These words are interchangeable because what they describe is beyond the usual 5 experience of reality through the senses alone, which language fails to properly express. Also, the words ‘achieve,’ ‘reach’ will be accompanied by quote/unquote since nothing is achieved nor reached. Enlightenment is a state that is already underlying everything, and to recognize this does not need any ‘doing,’ but rather a lot of ‘undoing.’ This book is intended for all beginners in the field of spirituality, or people seeking to clarify certain points in this discipline that can often seem confusing. Tackling the available literature on this subject is a daunting task as there are so many different schools, teachings, and practices, as well as seemingly contradictory beliefs. To ease in the student into this vast field, three divisions have been made. The first part of this book is an overview of the most influential spiritual schools and teachers. People familiar with spirituality will probably already know some of the information it contains. The second part is a synthesis of the answers given by various teachers and gurus regarding a number of questions, ranging from the mundane to the metaphysical. Finally, the third part is devoted to an analysis of the 1993 movie Groundhog day and how it represents the experience of an individual gradually learning to live in the present moment. 6 I - Definition & Teachings 1. What is enlightenment? Enlightenment is a state of consciousness characterized by an absence of compulsive thinking (ahamkara in Sanskrit). It is the realization that we are not a body, but that we have a body. Enlightenment is a permanent state in the sense that no enlightened person has ever “regained” their ego once dropped. When compulsive thinking ceases, it ceases once and for all. The thought process is always possible, of course, but it is no longer an uninterrupted phenomenon accompanying the life of the individual, it becomes a choice, an action taken when necessary. In-between thoughts, only sense perception is left. Living then becomes a series of moments during which awareness, attention, is monopolized by sensations. Scientists have estimated that the brain produces between 12,000 and 50,000 thoughts a day! We don’t save time by not thinking, since it is a phenomenon that happens on top of what we are already doing, but we gain tremendously in terms of quality of life on a daily basis. We live consciously, i.e. more intensely. How do we know that it is a real phenomenon and not the ramblings of wobbly minds? Let’s imagine for a moment a father and his daughter who got stranded on a Pacific island following the crash of their plane. Let’s say the father broke an arm and a leg, and the daughter is very young and doesn’t know how to swim, nor has she ever seen anyone swim before. They have food for a while but the only true hope for them is to cross to the next small island which is inhabited. The father can’t do it because of his broken limbs. So it is up to the little girl to save them both. She can’t swim, and has no idea that swimming is even possible. How does she know she can cross over to the other island? She doesn’t. Only 7 her father can convince her that it is indeed possible. Therefore, he has to hammer into her mind: 1) the fact that swimming is indeed possible, 2) that she can learn how to swim, and 3) instructions on how to swim while watching her from the shore. “Join your arms in front of you, then bring them back along your body…” and so on and so forth until the daughter knows how to swim so that she can reach the other island. Well, enlightenment is a bit like that. You have masters convincing you it is real, telling you what to do or not to do, but in the end, only you can experience it. So, what do the masters tell us? That enlightenment is a state of consciousness in the sense that the perception of reality then becomes different from that allowed by the brain alone. The ego perceives divisions in all things: beings, objects, ideas. The absence of ego allows the realization of the uniqueness of life, of “reality.” Only Consciousness exists and all the elements of creation are merely its manifestation. As for knowing what this new perception consists of – for once all teachers agree on one point – its description is impossible because words are powerless to express the ultimate truth. It is an experience so alien from what we are used to, so extraordinary, that any language remains too limited to express it. The seeker will have to wait until they experience it to know what it is really about. Consider the testimony of Suzanne Segal, an American woman living in Paris in 1982 when she was disconnected from reality out of the blue. She was then about to hop on a bus home. As I took my place in line, l suddenly felt my ears stop up like they do when the pressure changes inside an airplane as it makes its descent. I felt cut off from the scene before me, as if l were enclosed in a bubble, unable to act in any but the most mechanical manner. I lifted my right foot to step 8 up into the bus and collided head-on with an invisible force that entered my awareness like a silently exploding stick of dynamite, blowing the door of my usual consciousness open and off its hinges, splitting me in two. ln the gaping space that appeared, what I had previously called “me” was forcefully pushed out of its usual location inside me into a new location that was approximately a foot behind and to the left of my head. “I” was now behind my body looking out at the world without using the body’s eyes. […] The bus arrived at my stop on the rue Lecourbe, and l got off. As I walked the three blocks home, I attempted to pull myself back into one piece by focusing on my body and willing myself back into it where I thought I belonged in order to regain the previously normal sensation of seeing through the body’s eyes, speaking through the body’s mouth, and hearing through the body’s ears. The force of will failed miserably. Instead of experiencing through the physical senses, I was now bobbing behind the body like a buoy on the sea. Cut loose from sensory solidity, separated from and witnessing the body from a vast distance, I moved down the street like a cloud of awareness following a body that seemed simultaneously familiar and foreign.1 This testimony gives an idea of what the true self is, and it is not the body. Other than the cessation of compulsive thinking, there are secondary physical or physiological characteristics associated with enlightenment (reduced eye movements, modification of Theta and Delta brain waves, to name just two examples), particularly in the case of 1 Suzanne Segal, Collision with the Infinite – A Life Beyond the Personal Self, Blue Dove Press, 1998. 9 Kundalini, which will be discussed later, but they remain anecdotal. What defines this state is the cessation of the constant flow of thoughts. There are, broadly speaking, three paths to get there: 1) Those to whom it happens, often without them having done anything about it (Suzanne Segal, Eckhart Tolle, John Wren-Lewis…); 2) Those who have a sudden realization of the emptiness of phenomena, a “eureka moment” as Stephen Jourdain dubbed it, often after an intense introspection (Ramana Maharshi, Satyam Nadeen…); 3) Those who progress slowly and laboriously, often toiling for years to tame and eventually drop their ego (most teachers). All spiritual disciplines distinguish two principles: that which has a form and that which doesn’t. God and its creation, Purusha and Prakriti, the atman (the individual soul, of the same nature as the Brahman, the collective soul, God the creator) and Maya (the illusion that is the material world), Essence and Function in Chinese philosophy. The true nature of the self is pure Consciousness (the first principle in the pairs above), the body – and the universe itself for that matter – is merely a false reality (the second principle). The problem comes from the identification with the body through the ego (both from the second principle). We end up forgetting what we really are. The ego believes that what happens in the material world is real and at the same time creates all the suffering it experiences. Realizing that we actually belong to the first principle, the uncreated, allows us to get rid of all suffering. What happens does not happen to us, only to the character we play. So how does one stop making the mistake of identifying with the body? Understanding compulsive thinking is the key to all spiritual teachings. What is it all about? Take five minutes of your time and, sat comfortably in your chair, observe your thoughts. Very soon you will 10