Today's Jean Klein for a lovely spring day

[Guest guest]

Having often sat at the feet of various teachers, listening to them talk

about "enlightenment" and wondering what this might be "like" - although it

cannot be like anything...here is a short bit from Jean Klein, from his

book, "Transmission of the Flame", that perhaps gives a sense of it, a

perfume. -J

 

"Student: And during this stay there was a moment of enlightenment?

 

Jean Klein: Yes, it was a total switch-over from the residual conditioned

state to the unconditioned state. Awareness expanded completely and I felt

myself in globality.

 

Student: Had this ever happened before?

 

Jean Klein: No. There had been glimpses, but this was more than a glimpse.

There was no going back. I had found my real ground.

 

Student: Did you know in the moment that it would be permanent or did you

discover this in the days that followed?

 

Jean Klein: Because of the quality of the switch-over there was no doubt

that I could be taken again by duality, and this was confirmed in the days

and weeks that followed. I felt a recitification in my body and in my

brain, as if all the parts had found their right place, their most

comfortable position. I saw all events spontaneously appearing in the

non-state, in my total absence, real presence.

 

Student: Could you say what were the exact conditions, physical and mental,

before this moment?

 

Jean Klein: There had been, for two years, a retreat of all the energy

commonly used in becoming, so that when some birds crossed my horizon,

instead of becoming lost in them, they were lost in me and I found myself in

awareness free from all objects. This time, what I admired, the birds,

dissolved in my admiring, in presence. And admiring dissolved in the

Admired. Before the birds appeared, I had been in a profound and prolonged

state of being open to openness. Now I found myself AS the openness,

identical with the openness. Openness was my being. There was no more

duality.

 

Student: Was there any other difference between this time and other times

when you had looked at birds?

 

Jean Klein: Before, there was a looker looking at something. This was a

moment when there was simply looking without a looker. Previously, it had

been my nature to live in pure perception with objects, not living in the

divided mind. I had for a long time ignored the arising of all

qualifications.

 

Student: Ignored?

 

Jean Klein: It belongs to the traditional approach, and so that of my

teacher, never to refuse or indulge in the coming up of qualifications, but

simply to ignore, and eventually forget about them. neither to look for

freedom nor avoid non-freedom. The mind simply ceased to play a role except

in a purely functional way.

 

Student: How is life different now?

 

Jean Klein: There is no more identification with time and space, body,

senses and mind. All events simply happen in awareness.

 

Student: Did your relationships change?

 

Jean Klein: There was no more relationship. As there's no longer an "I",

there is not another.

 

Student: Can this non-dual state be described at all?

 

Jean Klein: It is love where the mind is dissolved in love. The seeker IS

the sought, and is always so very, very near.