—From what you say, suffering doesn’t end, the experience continues to be painful. I wish it were the end of all suffering.

Enlightenment opens the door to the end of unnecessary suffering. The rest, the unpleasant half of duality, we face as adults, according to our virtues, weaknesses, level of experience, and maturity. Enlightenment does not make duality non-dual or less dual. That is a new-age or religious fantasy.

—I see there are teachers who say that suffering ends forever, like John himself. He’s pretty emphatic about it: it’s the end of suffering.

It’s necessary to make a distinction between the two types of suffering. There is inevitable suffering, which is an integral part of duality, and unnecessary suffering, which arises from a false personality due to psychic weakness, unawareness, ignorance and immaturity. In practical terms, we have to see these distinctions in our own psyche, totally, without exceptions—no blind spots. Bypass that distinction and that degree of awareness and we have a problem that we are not trying to help solve.

—Or like the title of your book, “There’s Nothing Wrong Anymore.” But you also give me the impression that suffering continues in some way, from what you say here. So there would still be things that seem “wrong” to me.

Duality is called duality because half of it is pain: emotional, physical, and mental pain. Being at peace means embracing the entirety of duality, not just the half we like. Psychological maturity is a factor. Either we grow up willingly and consciously or the universe finds a way of giving us a good spanking.

—Maharaj seems to suggest that it’s the end of suffering. Maybe the Buddha too.

The death of a loved one, an accident, or a war, is painful to any normal human. The notion that enlightened people become like vegetables is naive. Without distinguishing between types of suffering, there is confusion. Relying on translated books by people who have died is a well known problem in spiritual circles. We do not know what they said, to whom and in what context. The chances we are believing in a lie are high. Talk to people who are living and then try to figure things out by going inward and listening to your intuition and understand your pain. Leave dead people and their dead translations alone.

—There are also teachers who say you need to do “shadow work,” a kind of therapeutic work, after enlightenment. How so?

In my model, in most cases there are two events: Enlightenment and Realization. There’s a process for most people after Enlightenment whereby residues of ignorance and bad habits require a good brush, soap and a bucket. That is why the subtitle of my book is “a manual for spiritual janitors”. After Enlightenment it is time to get on our knees and brush rather than trumpet to the world that we are awakened and start teaching before this work is done. Read the book and ask for clarification if you want to continue discussing this. This was my experience, I am living and can discuss this. If other teachers are alive, go and ask them too, and determine what makes sense or not. Also, you told me that awakening has not happened to you, what is it to you what others say about what happens after awakening? Make a note of it and go do what you can to do in your present situation.

—All of this makes me think that maybe each enlightenment is very particular. As if there were enlightenments, not a single enlightenment. Or different degrees of enlightenment. Or deepening of enlightenments.

What is revealed in Enlightenment, and what is eliminated in Realization, is the same for everyone. But how the personality, body, and soul react and manifest must certainly be different for each person. Even the degree of detachment from the manifestation is different for each person. That is the beauty of the manifestation, and how the universe manages not to be boring, no two objects are alike.

—What I want to make clear is that I have no fantasies about perfection or constant bliss, nothing like that.

You do have a fantasy about Enlightenment and what kind of suffering it removes and that fantasy is enough to throw you off the scent in your seeking. This fantasy has the effect of not only making the search continue but it will keep leading you into cul-de-sacs.

This is a common sticking point for many seekers. They don’t want to do the work and go through he trouble of understanding the mechanics of the psyche and the weaknesses of the human personality. They put all suffering and pain in the same bucked and don’t know what to do with them because they each require a different approach. Knowing your weakness is a requirement. It will be quicker and easier to deal with with pain and suffering if you know your personality and the laws that operate through it, rather than expect that Enlightenment will solve everything automatically—it will not. Being pragmatic is an asset. I suggest you question and investigate your view that you have no fantasies about what you want from spirituality and take a good look at what reality is willing to offer you.