Definitions
Here I offer my definitions of a few terms that I use when discussing spirituality, metaphysics and psychology.
Pure Consciousness / Natural State
Everything and Nothing. The potential of everything as well as the manifestation of everything. Pure Consciousness has no subject or object so we cannot say: “I am conscious of…” from this perspective.
Awakening / Revelation
A recognition of our True Nature and a simultaneous recognition of the True Nature of the world. That is: All is Consciousness. Deep enough to change the character of the spiritual work. (Referred to as Enlightenment in some traditions.)
Spiritual Realization
Total Acceptance and peace with whatever is present in this moment. Absence of sense of separation. Absence of psychological suffering. Absence of seeking. Nothing is wrong anymore.
Sense of Separation
The attachment to, or involvement with, the entity that goes by our name, and the personal feeling of being separate from the rest of the universe, and the feeling of vulnerability that it generates. The sense of separation is the root of psychological suffering.
Psychological Suffering / Unnecessary Suffering
Suffering that is created based solely on wrong ideas and wrong identification. Suffering created through the ego. If the wrong ideas are recognized and neutralized, and the identification is corrected psychological suffering becomes absent.
Ego / False Personality
That part of our personality that is concerned with survival along with its emotional and mental counterparts. The ego naturally has a mechanism of caution or fear built into it. Normally, the ego does not receive proper education early in life and thus fear becomes overblown due to the sense of separation, and psychological suffering becomes habitual.
Accumulation
The process a seeker goes through in the preparatory period of spiritual work whereby the personality is re-educated, observed, and controlled. During this period the seeker does not know what he/she is seeking. Or has a vague intuition about it but which is covered by a series of temporary concepts and beliefs.
Elimination
The process a seeker goes through in the final period of spiritual work whereby the personality is stripped of unnecessary concepts, beliefs, and functions. This period begins with Awakening. In this period the seeker has clear intuitive knowledge, based on direct experience, of what he/she is seeking.
Self-Inquiry / Self-Remembering
The effort or action of investigating the True Nature of “I”, or questioning the veracity of “I”. Prior to Awakening this action may lead to Awakening. After Awakening this action has the function of re-establishing the Truth glimpsed and of contributing to the further elimination of the unnecessary from the seeker’s personality.
I Am
Space and the sense of existing prior to having a name, a personality or a body. It is the seed of the manifestation or experience. It is the Natural State manifested in sentient form. Now.
Spirit / Natural State
Pure Consciousness. As the unmanifested it is Potential and Nothing. As the manifested it is the perceived universe, including our bodies, personalities and the sense of “I Am”, including the ego and the sense of separation.
Spirit or Natural State is realized when the sense of separation is removed. Our Essential Nature is not something special, it is natural and normal. Now.