Throughout history, spiritual leaders, beginning with shamans, have been among the most esteemed, and sometimes deified, mortals in every culture. Christians have their reverends, popes, saints; Jews their rabbis, hakham, marans; Muslims their imams, ayatollahs, grand Muftis; Hindus their rishis, vyasas, paramahamsa, Buddhists their lamas, rinpoches, arhats.

Most faiths have a mystical elite. Their sole ambition is divine union, called Enlightenment by the Dharmics, Ecstasy or Beatitude by Christians and Abrahamics. No matter the name, the individual is thought to be a very different being than he or she was before. No longer an ordinary mortal—though many insist they are—the reputed self-liberated person is revered. As such, honorifics are attached: Chogyal (King of Truth), Mahesh (Great Lord), Jinsen (Fountain of God), etc.

Since all spiritualism, organized or freelance, deals in the invisible and unprovable, while at the same time having unprecedented power over the faithful, it has drawn more pretenders than most other human endeavors. Many preach the dangers of pride, encouraging their followers to surrender the burden of their egos and worldly belongings to their own humbled, sanctified selves.

Of all the prides, the most pernicious is spiritual pride – a holier-than-thou, more-learned-than-thou, or more-advanced-than-thou superiority, overt or (more often) under wraps. The most enslaved of the spiritually proud are the self-worshippers of whom there have been more than a few in every faith and cult, especially in recent years.

Gaining a large following during the Spiritualist fad more than a century ago was the self-described “Most Most Holy Son Absolute,” George Gurdjieff. The Armenian-Russian mystic made a fortune from his esoteric “System,” guaranteeing immortality to subscribers. The former carpet and caviar salesman was soon rivaled by Meher Baba. This Sufi-Vedic impresario identified himself — “irrespective of doubts,” he said — as the first of the Five Perfect Masters and went on to write God Speaks and dazzle Hollywood stars. The avatar’s last silent words, delivered in sign to his devotees, were “Do not forget that I am God.”

The “Most Most Holy Son” and “the Compassionate Father,” were succeeded by Maharishi Mahesh. “The Great Sage” founded TM — called by critics “the McDonald's of Meditation” — which soon became a multi-billion-dollar franchise after boasting disciples such as the Beatles and Beach Boys. Meanwhile, the blessed entrepreneur launched his own publishing company, his Veda Vision TV channel, plus the Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development Foundation committed to “ridding the world of all unhappiness and discontent.” His precocious students such as magician, Doug Henning — already famous for disappearing elephants in Vegas — earned advanced degrees from Maharishi U, which taught Siddhi-Flying and other supernatural skills. When the “Giggling Guru” left his body, his Rolls Royces and his Lear Jet, he was worth more than a billion dollars.

The Maharishi’s favorite disciple, Deepak Chopra — aka "Dhanvantari,” the legendary doctor of the Hindu gods – was passed over for CEO of the TM empire. Rebounding, the former Indian endocrinologist published two bestsellers: Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (1993) — a DIY on how to live up to 200 — and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (1994) — a Hindu Think and Grow Rich. Though scientists called the doctor of the gods a “psychobabbler” and “purveyor of woo,” the prosperity meditation guru had soon banked $100 million thanks to his books, his lectures, and www.shop.chopra.com mystical merch — anti-aging elixirs, shampoos, lotions, and aromas.

Chopra has since been eclipsed by his own countrymen in the Prajna prosperity business. According to Forbes magazine, Baba Ramdev leads with $230 Million, followed by Mata Amritanandamayi ($230M), and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ($153M). Best known of all was Bhagwan (“Blessed One”) Rajneesh, aka the “Sex Guru,” with 99 Rolls Royces, a fleet of jets, and the 64,000-acre Rajneeshpuram International Meditation Resort, his update of the Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development. Claiming to be America’s Messiah, he presided over his flock on a white throne with a banner backdrop reading “SURRENDER TO ME, I WILL TRANSFORM YOU!” After a four-year reign, he was convicted of 34 felonies (including drugs, fraud, firearms, terrorism), expelled from the US, and returned to India to a hero’s welcome.

Due to the celebrity, if not notoriety, of these modern holy men, today’s skeptics take nobody’s word for mystic wisdom, much less Enlightenment, because self-aggrandizement has become nearly as common in spiritual circles as in theater or politics. The Bhagavad Gita warned of this long ago: “The blessed Lord said: among the thousands of human beings, scarcely one strives for perfection; and among the thousands of faithful strivers after perfection, scarcely one knows me in truth.” The venerable Zen master, Gasan, added: “What of the one who preaches without Enlightenment? He is killing Buddhism!”

While most ancient sages made no bones about the fact that Enlightenment might take lifetimes even for the most dedicated, some current evangelists and spiritual florists inspire their followers with the prospect of a Just do it! Yes, you can!  abracadabra Awakening, or at least a take-home samadhi after a weekend retreat. Earnest practitioners have tried to discourage this presto-chango magical thinking.

What, then, is this true transformation? What is Enlightenment? Is it real? And, if so, can it be explained or taught?

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After his own awakening, Buddha faced a dilemma. Given mankind’s ignorance, could he possibly teach the "subtle, deep and hard to grasp" Dharma (cosmic law) leading to Enlightenment, or should he simply keep it to himself as unteachable because it was inexpressible? Legend has it that the immortal Brahma Sahampati descended from the Brahmaloka (or Suddhavasa worlds). and convinced Sakyamuni that the few "with little dust in their eyes" would understand. Indeed, the twenty-seven mythic Buddhas who preceded Sakyamuni had each lived for thousands of years, attained Enlightenment after eons, and gone on to liberate many souls themselves.

Buddha’s contemporary in China, Lao Tzu, lacked the Brahma’s optimism. “My teachings are very easy to understand and very easy to practice, but no one can understand them and no one can practice them,” he said. Nevertheless, when Yin Xi, the wise gatekeeper at the Western border Hangu Pass, begged him to do so, the old man agreed. He returned three days later with the Tao Te Ching, the 5,000-ideogram revelation with no punctuation, no case, no person, no tense. Then he vanished. “The career of a sage is of two kinds,” he had written. “He is either honored by all in the world, like a flower waving its head; or else he disappears into the silent forest.”

Buddha, of the first kind, gathered disciples and began teaching. His first lesson was on the Eightfold Path, his second on Not-Self, his third – the Fire sermon – on Suffering. These lessons and all others were compiled in the Pali Canon, copied, memorized, and chanted by future monks. In another address, Sakyamuni told his followers: “Bhikkhus, my teachings are a finger pointing to the moon. Do not get caught thinking the finger is the moon.”

Near the end of his life, Buddha, perhaps tiring of trying to express the inexpressible, delivered the Flower Sermon. He plucked a lotus blossom and, without a word, held it up before an assembly of monks. All seemed baffled except his favorite disciple, Mahakasyapa, who smiled in recognition, recalling his master’s oft-repeated advice: “Stop, stop! Do not speak. The ultimate truth is not even to think.”

Though Buddha and his successors repeatedly precautioned against it, many monks did indeed mistake the finger for the moon. If their instruction was like a map, they mistook it for the land and the journey itself. So, putting a samurai sword to abstraction, Lao Tzu declared, “The teaching without words is without compare in the universe.”

Nevertheless, the eminent Japanese scholar, D.T. Suzuki, who helped introduce Zen to Westerners a century ago, wrote: “We cannot have even an experience if we cease to give expression to it — Zen would not be Zen if it were deprived of all means of communication.” Dispensing with flowers, fingers, and any other means of nonverbal communication, Suzuki undertook the daunting task of attempting to demystify his faith, conceding from the outset that it was “the most irrational, inconceivable thing in the world.” As for its north star, Enlightenment, he said that, without it, Zen would be “like a sun without light and heat.” The problem, as the scholar well knew, is that the Enlightened, yesterday and today, have declined to define this numinous state because it has released them from conceptualization, no less than misleading words about the actual experience.

A monk once asked his master, Tung-shan: “Who is the Buddha?”

“Three chin of flax!” exclaimed Tung-shan.

Other sages responded to similar questions with a Kwan! Kwat! or Katsu! followed by a sharp blow from their awakening stick.

When some have ventured explanation, they have embraced apparent contradiction: For the Enlightened, Mind is no-mind, Truth is no-truth, Self is no-self, Cause is effect, Permanence is impermanence. These paradoxes are rooted in the double-meaning of seminal words. Depending on context, “mind” can mean the abstract mortal mind, or the immortal ontological Original Mind. Similarly, “knowledge” can indicate analytic, dualistic knowledge, or all-embracing intuitive Knowledge. The same goes for “self”: the term may apply to the temporal self, or to the eternal Self.

After awakening and abandoning conceptual thinking, Buddha solved the Eighty-three Problems which had bedeviled his Brahmin predecessors. However, at his death, fourteen others supposedly remained, all related to the essence of Dharmic Law and of reality itself. For the outsider, the “Ungraspables, as they are called, involve these ideas: the Illusory Self, Empty Reality, Mindless Mind, Changeless Change, Unconditional Compassion, and Unity in Disparity. To approach an understanding of Enlightenment, let’s drill down on each mystery.

Buddha taught that the reality of the dualistic human mind is illusion, whereas the reality of the undivided cosmos is emptiness because its being is always becoming expressed in constant motion. Thus, for the Enlightened mind, only the ever-changing present is real, whereas the past and future – time itself – is a creation of the clouded mind. Since this mind is the nucleus of the worldly self, Buddha and his successors taught that this self is the greatest I-llusion of all. 
“To master the pride of defiant selfhood,” preached Gautama, “that in truth is the highest bliss.”

This mastery comes through zazen meditation either based on logic and concept-confounding koans of the Rinzai sect, or objectless “just sitting” meditation of the Soto sect. The goal of both techniques is the same: the meditator begins to discover the filters, rationalizations, and attachments that make the ego, as well as the selective memories and desires that underpin the personality. In this mindful deconstruction, the devotee begins to approach mindlessness, seeing what he formerly thought was objective “reality” as a mental projection.

This mindful/mindless paradox at the core of Zen is particularly puzzling to the analytic Western brain. It wonders: Is idea-as-illusion not an idea itself? Given its fondness for equations of opposites, one might expect Zen to say that, since reality is illusion, illusion is reality. But it generally prefers a = b to b = a.

Illusion is nearly ineradicable for most of us because its ability to clone reality is uncanny. When an illusionist saws a woman in half, from the spectator’s point of view this is real. Moreover, illusion is not illusion when one is in, not outside an experience, viewing it from a godlike eye above. But, practically speaking, how illusory can illusion be when, naturally and spontaneously, it dominates most human lives from youth to death?

Buddha’s original quest was motivated by one burning question: What causes human suffering? Enlightenment brought him the answer: Desire. A man suffers when his wants are not fulfilled, so his past often becomes a source of regret and his future of anxious anticipation. But in desiring to eliminate desire, Buddhist monks are confronted with another Ungraspable: if I somehow escape my own definitive Will, am “I” still a human? Do “I” even exist?

Logically speaking, if self is indeed an I-llusion, isn’t free will too? If so, who then is the seeker who decides to follow the Eight-fold Path to liberation? If the decision is cosmically predetermined, isn’t the Dharmic law of personal karma also fanciful? To escape such questions, Zen masters – again embracing paradox while eluding conceptualization — say that free will and determinism are both true and false.

So, if Enlightenment is undefinable, can it at least be described symptomatically?  Buddha said it was “Seeing into one’s true nature.” Though the description is vague, it implies specific states of spiritual emancipation: NonAttachment, Egolessness, Compassion, Present immersion, Fearlessness in the face of death.

These hard-won new states of mind are obviously quite different than ordinary states of mind. But sages have argued that this difference is deceptive too. Explained Dogen, the thirteenth century father of Zen’s Soto sect: “Before Enlightenment, a mountain is a mountain, during meditation a mountain is not a mountain, but after Enlightenment a mountain is again a mountain.” Added Basho, the Zen Haiku master: “Before Enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After Enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.”

Why, then, wonders the Western pragmatist, would a man spend a lifetime trying to become what he already is? It was only after Buddha himself abandoned asceticism that he awakened. So, if he truly “gained nothing from Supreme Enlightenment,” as he insisted, had his preceding six-year self-mortification been all for naught, a dead end, a waste of time? Or was his early struggle an indispensable part of his journey, not only leading him to the Middle Way, but deepening his understanding far beyond what it had been in his youth?

Buddha deepened the changeless change Ungraspable when telling his disciples,“Every child is a little Buddha.”

When a man sees the light, then, has he simply returned to the mind he once enjoyed as a child? Even Jesus seems to have thought so: "I praise you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Matthew 11: 25). “Unless you are converted and become like children,” he went on, “you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

How literally should such a message be taken? Before compartmentalizing experience with words and concepts, the infant may seem to live in a state of in-the-instant wonderment. But an essential first goal of every meditator is single-minded focus lacking in children. Also, most are prone to crying and carrying on when their wants are not met.

Here, then, yet another Ungraspable: How can the child’s mind, driven by desire and impulse, exemplify the pure and unselfish? As an adult, will he save himself by simply returning to it? Even the Buddhist law of karma challenges the idea: the only reason the child is born is that his former lifetime imperfections and ignorances have carried over, requiring another ride on the samsara merry-go-round. According to the Bhagavad Gita, “All beings at birth fall into delusion, caused by the pairs of opposites, arising from desire and aversion.” This idea, however, is based on Buddhist deterministic belief which, again, would seem to preempt free will and responsibility for one’s actions.

D.T. Suzuki’s master, Soyen Shaku, ordained him Daisetsu, meaning “great simplicity.” The scholar translated the honorific as “Great Stupidity.” The jest begs another question related to the mind/mindless Ungraspable: Since Zen regards intellection as an obstacle to awakening, is intelligence itself an obstacle? Is attaining Enlightenment easier for a simpler, childlike man than for a mature thinker? And if such a thinker somehow manages to free himself from his mental labyrinth, is his Enlightenment shallower, deeper, or much the same as that of the simpler man?

For centuries, Zen monks have posed a related question to their teachers: Does a cow have the Buddha nature? Mu!” lowed the masters, meaning No. But in the answer is an implicit Yes, too, since the cow, an empty vessel, lives in the present and ruminates without thought. The question, then, becomes: if she is mindless and has the Buddha nature, is she Enlightened? If so, another question arises. The very concept of karma presupposes a hierarchy: animals at the bottom, man at the top. Since a bad man can be demoted and reborn as an animal, how can such a former man-animal have the Buddha nature? 

Daisetsu replied: “A dumb experience is no experience at all. It is human to appeal to differentiation and analysis. And, so, we can say that animals have no experience whatever.” Taking leave of his own reason, Descartes, the I-think-therefore-I-am father of modern philosophy, said much the same thing.

The previous four Ungraspables — Illusory Self, Empty Reality, Mindless Mind, Changeless Change — bring us now to their confounding corollaries: Unconditional Compassion and Unity in Disparity.

Though the Dharmic perspective may seem negative in dismissing all the products of the conceptual mind as illusory, it is in fact positive in affirming that the noblest quality of an Enlightened person is that he or she feels unconditional kindness, compassion, and selfless love for all. But cosmic love is such a rare and different animal than regular love, it needs a different name. Even a non-cynic will allow that lesser love – romantic, parental, fraternal, etc. – is often conditional and exclusive. By contrast, to understand everything is to forgive everything, expresses universal love. 

Puzzlingly, despite the belief that self is hallucinatory, Buddhists stress the importance of self-love. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection,” preached Buddha. Presumably, he wasn’t advocating an illusory love much less a Narcissus love, but a love of true Self. But the pragmatist wonders: if it has been cleansed of all worldly desires, judgments, and thoughts, is there any identifiable self left to love? And, even if there is, love is meaningless without the idea of hate: so, in loving, isn’t one still entangled in duality?

Like all lofty terms, love is more easily defined by what it is not, than what it is. Everyone agrees that war is not an act of love. “When the sage wages war, he can destroy a Kingdom and yet not lose the affection of the people,” wrote Chuang-Tzu in The Great Supreme. “He spreads blessing upon all things, but it is not due to his love of fellow man.”

How to fathom such words? Was the Taoist sage thinking of the Bhagavad Gita? In the sacred text, Prince Arjuna’s charioteer, Lord Vishnu, persuades him to kill relatives in battle “to uphold the Dharma through selfless action.” Even if the relatives were evil, was this really the Dharma? “Because the sage has no human passions, the questions of right and wrong do not touch him,” Chuang-Tzu went on, an argument the atheist and Buddhist-influenced superman, Friedrich Nietzsche, later expanded in his Beyond Good and Evil.

The notion that an Enlightened person has transcended morality while at the same time lives immersed in unconditional Love, invites further confusion. Does he or she regard, say, the perpetrator of a holocaust as merely ignorant or subverted by maya (if not simply a traumatic childhood) and, therefore, still worthy of love and compassion? How do destroyers and despoilers emerge from the karmic Bardo as humans, not more primitive life forms? Since good and bad actions have consequences, the perennial question from people of all faiths: Why do the good often suffer and the bad prosper? How is it that Homo Sapiens, one of the few species that kills for sport, are at the top of the karma totem pole? Or is our moral superiority just another chauvinist conceit?

The idea that a Bodhisattva has boundless empathy for all while remaining serene, even blissful, is especially baffling to non-Buddhists. With such empathy, doesn’t he or she, too, suffer at least vicariously? As it is written in the Svetasvatara Upanishad: “Only when men shall roll up the sky like a hide will there be an end to misery, unless God has first been known.” The Bhagavad-Gita reveals the deliverance of the “mighty men” who manage to roll the sky and know God: “He is fit to attain immortality who is serene and not afflicted by these sensations, but is the same in pleasure and pain.”

The Dalai Lama and other moderns translate this remarkable claim simply: “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” Here again: How should a man of common sense and hard experience interpret such a notion? Pain doesn’t need to hurt? Imagine the Buddha on the cross. Would he have experienced pain but no suffering – no Passion? And, since Christ did suffer on the cross, does this mean the alleged son of God Himself was unEnlightened?

These questions lead us to the final Ungraspable: “We are all One.” How is this mystical aphorism to be understood? Since most men are unenlightened, does this mean that in one-world nobody is Enlightened, including those who say they are? Despite epidemic human suffering since the beginning of time, this Oneness is said to be an expression of Creation’s perfection. “When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky,” said Buddha. Both Muhammad and Jesus agreed. “Return your gaze [from Creation], it comes back to you dazzled!” preached Mohammad. In the Beatitudes, Jesus spoke of God’s perfection and infinite “Ask-and-it-will-be given-to-you” Grace.

Christ’s audience, like Buddha’s and Mohammad’s too, were sufferers – the poor, the downtrodden, the diseased and dying. Is it any wonder that many were “astonished” (Matthew 27:8) by such otherworldly words, finding them utterly at odds with their own experience, hence ungraspable?

Though few have experienced it, civilians generally regard Satori as a state of ultimate well-being. Buddhist Follow Your Bliss and Art of Happiness type titles are legion. Why be depressed, you have the Buddha nature!” the Dalai Lama exclaims.

One day a master announced that a young monk had been liberated. The other novices hurried to their fortunate friend, and asked, "We heard you are Enlightened. Is that true? How do you feel?" "As miserable as ever," replied the monk. Did his master, then, reconsider his promotion of the novice, or did he already know bliss wasn’t an essential part of the E-experience? 

“If you want to be, be,” as the Christian anarchist, Tolstoy, once said. This requires expanding consciousness by making it inclusive, not exclusive, turning it from a filter to an open door. A monk or mendicant can learn with his begging bowl. With gratitude he eats everything that is put in it, even if undesirable or inedible to his former self. He has disabused himself of the notion that he has a fine palate and special needs that must be met. Until the Untouchables of experience are accepted, welcomed, Brahmin moments will never arrive.

After the Flower sermon, when Buddha was ready to retire, to the disappointment of his disciples he refused to name a successor. “You should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, seeking no other refuge,” he told them. His Taoist counterpart, Lao Tzu, agreed: “Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is Enlightenment.”

Many, however, seem to think that a master, minister, or the Messiah himself is more qualified to do this. But, since each mortal is one-of-a-kind, he is the only true expert on himself if only he tirelessly dedicates himself to self-discovery.

The premise of this idea is profound and odds with conventional, collective religion: each soul not only comes with its own teacher, but its own healer. The initiate who hopes a temple or teacher will open his eyes admits that his own self-teacher is nonexistent, inadequate, or too slow. This sense of spiritual inferiority and dependence was fostered by history’s dogmatists and false prophets: they insisted that, due to the ignorance and/or sin of man, Satori or Salvation could only be reached through a semi-divine middleman.

But Buddha revealed that the truth was otherwise: after abandoning his ascetic teachers, striking out on his own, and at last awakening alone under the Bo Tree leaving every ungraspable behind, the eternal man declared, “I am the miracle!”

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David Comfort is the author The Insider’s Guide to Publishing (Writers Digest). His other nonfiction titles are from Simon & Schuster and Kensington. His literary essays appear in Pleiades, The Montreal Review, Stanford Arts Review, and Johns Hopkins' Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review, and The Philosopher (UK). His short fiction appears in The Evergreen Review, Cortland Review, The Morning News, 3:AM among other journals. He is a Pushcart Fiction Prize nominee, and finalist for Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren, Narrative, and Glimmer Train Awards.

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