The Jhanas and Enlightenment

Enlightenment may propel them into the flow of ideas. If so, how are they likely to interpret the flow? All the seekers will find their beliefs validated. Each seeker will take from the flow the ideas that justify his own spiritual and subconscious beliefs. The flow contains ideas that range from understandable ones to ones that are beyond our present intellectual abilities and degree of evolution: in the latter case the ideas will be accepted only as symbolic ones rather than cognitive ones. The greatness of the Reality of God means that all religious/spiritual/atheistic beliefs will be found within Its plenitude. God encompasses all beliefs.

In my view there is no definitive form of enlightenment. There are various forms of enlightenment, by which I mean that the seeker attracts the enlightenment that he is seeking. That is, the seeker will be enlightened in such a way that it validates his spiritual beliefs. His enlightenment will be congruous to his existing core beliefs about reality.

Enlightenment is tailored to the level of spiritual and cognitive development of the seeker, and to the seeker’s spiritual needs. Except as a source of inspiration, there is not much point in presenting aspects of higher reality that are beyond the seeker’s ability to accept or understand. In addition, since people’s spiritual needs are different, so enlightenment appears differently to different seekers.

In the spiritual literature, the experience of enlightenment is presented as the ultimate attainment of a human life, leading to some conception of paradise. My view is different. I see enlightenment merely as a rite of passage. It takes the person to the next stage of his or her evolution, which entails reincarnating around higher planes of reality that do not usually include the physical plane any more.

Analysis of Enlightenment

In the early 2000s, I had tried to analyse what I knew of enlightenment. Then in 2021 and 2022, I began to try and analyse the enlightenment process again, this time taking into account my experiences of jhana riding. As I remember it, my enlightenment when I was 22 seemed devoid of any emotion.[²]. I was not suffused with bliss. But at that time I had little awareness of emotions and would have been unable to identify any except the usual ones of anger, fear and similar. Also, I could instantly switch in or out of the enlightenment at any time of day – perhaps this is typical of enlightenment experiences.
I make three assumptions:-

i). I assume that enlightenment will occur at one of the jhana levels. Which jhana level it occurs at will depend on the interests and spiritual desires of the seeker. This is because the content of enlightenment matches the same interests and desires.

ii). I also assume that the flow of ideas can happen at any jhana level, though a cognitive flow only occurs in jhana-1 and to a little extent in jhana-2. The flow at the other jhanas would feature just symbolic ideas and images.

iii). Any happiness or bliss of the experience comes from the person himself, and not from the flow. Hence the flow is emotionally neutral.

The enlightenment process means that enlightenment is given as an act of grace to suitable recipients. Although uneducated seekers can become enlightened, the enlightenment process does not bring an educated mind with it. An uneducated seeker will remain uneducated even after enlightenment.

For a suitable recipient, the various conditions for enlightenment are three-fold: his character, his intellectual vocabulary, and his level of self-awareness are all involved in some degree. His level of intellect will determine how much or how little he can describe the enlightenment experience. Usually character is the main condition, but when the character is not quite good enough but he has intellectual attainments, then the person may have an intellectual enlightenment.

In meditation practice, the accessing of states of jhana is not seen as a big attainment, nor is it equated with enlightenment. This is because the meditator had previously worked his way up the stages of mind control needed to reach jhana. Therefore he sees jhana as just another stage that he has attained.

In the Western mystical tradition, only two stages of attainment are known. The first attainment accesses the bliss and joy of enlightenment – this is sometimes called positive mysticism. The second attainment is much harder and the seeker may describe it as journeying through the abyss or the void – this is sometimes called negative mysticism. In general, in Western mysticism there is no awareness of jhana. There is nothing in between a simple worship and jhana. So when the potential mystic accesses jhana, it comes out of the blue and seems so wonderful and overpowering. If the intensity of the rapture is the focus, then it indicates jhana-1; if sexual themes occur, then this indicates jhana-2. The mystic doesn’t know why the experience happened, and so misunderstands it and over-emphasises its importance. He values the rapture and pays little attention to the flow.

In my view, enlightenment is independent of the jhanas. Enlightenment is a product of grace from God. Therefore, when a person is due to be enlightened, his mind becomes anchored to the relevant level of jhana that will suit his needs.

The Seven Rays

I need to add another factor that plays into enlightenment, and that is what ray a seeker is on, in terms of his or her personality.
An aspect of psychological thought that is not well known in the West is the Eastern idea of the seven rays of personality. This theory came into Western theosophical thought through the writings of Madame Blavatsky, and was popularised by Earnest Wood [³]. The theory assumes that there are three binary pairs of personality types, plus a type that tries to harmonise the other three. The binary pairs are based on the traditional view of personality as comprising three factors, those of will or behaviour, mind, and emotion or feeling or sensibility. A standard view of the three factors is expressed in the symbolism of the charioteer who has to control the horse that is pulling the chariot. The charioteer (representing the mind) has to control the activity (representing the energy of desires and emotions) of the horse, and direct its behaviour (representing the will).

Each personality type is called a ray. To emphasise the qualities of personality that each ray symbolises, we take the extremes of personality, so that each binary pair consists of an extrovert and an introvert. Rays 1, 2, and 3 are the extrovert type, whilst rays 5, 6, and 7 are the introvert type. The binary pairs are rays 1 and 7, 2 and 6, 3 and 5, with ray 4 being the ray of harmony and balance.

Rays 1 and 7 centre on the will. Ray 1, being extrovert, focuses on the external application of the will. This is the person who does things – the politician, the businessman, the military type. Ray 7, being introvert, focuses on the internal application of the will. This is the craftsman and artist.

Rays 2 and 6 centre on emotion and idealism. (My view of these two rays is rather different from Earnest Woods). Ray 2, being extrovert, focuses on the external application of idealism, such as we find in the humanitarian and philanthropist. He tends to be active with his idealism. Ray 6, being introvert, focuses on the internal application of idealism, and becomes the man of religious faith. He tends to be passive with his idealism.

Rays 3 and 5 centre on the mind. Ray 3, being extrovert, tends to be the rationalist; his thinking is often logical. Ray 5, being introvert, is the scientist; though a rationalist, his thinking is occasionally intuitive.

Ray 4 is the balance. This personality ray is the most difficult one, since until he attains balance he is always swinging from one ray to its opposite. He oscillates between each pole of the three binaries on his journey to achieve understanding of all rays.

Now I return to the enlightenment process. I extend it by introducing the seeker’s personality ray.

Jhana and the Three Feelings

Now I add the influence of the three feelings: positive, negative, and neutral. Initially I was thinking about the ethics of each jhana. Then I thought of the hard asceticism and purity of jhana-3 pride. This led to the idea of hard and soft teachers. The soft teacher is on the positive feeling whilst the hard teacher must be on the negative feeling. The teacher who embraces understanding is on the neutral feeling. I know that God inflicts pain and suffering on peoples to see how they handle it. Then that led to the idea of three enlightenments: one enlightenment for each feeling. The result settled a puzzle of mine, on whether each jhana has its own form of enlightenment. This had meant four enlightenments. But now I see that jhanas 1 and 2 are both on the positive feeling, since they are both vehicles for love. Thus only three enlightenments are needed.

In addition, I thought about negative mysticism. What is the abyss, the void? One day the answer came to me – the void usually signifies the influence of pride (in hate mode).[4]. The void signifies hatred, both the hatred of oneself (which indicates guilt) and the hatred of society (which indicates pride) within the mind of the seeker. Pride is dominant in the void because it has the function of purifying the mind – in particular, it purifies the mind of sexual influences. Therefore the void occurs in jhana-3, when enlightenment is experienced. Now I clarified my ideas on enlightenment and jhana. I give examples.

The jealousy of jhana-2 can produce problems in interpreting mystical experiences. Women mystics often introduce sexual yearnings into their experiences, especially if they are on ray 2, the ray of emotion. Whilst the sexual yearnings can be viewed humorously, there are no sexual desires in the enlightenment experience.

Buddha focused on the cessation of suffering, which occurs in jhana-4. However, he also produced an ethics based on jhana-3. So I believe he oscillated between jhanas 3 and 4. Jesus was an understanding teacher. However, from the time of Nicea onwards, Roman Catholicism turned to the negative feeling and produced a hard, intolerant, jhana-3 ethics. An unusual teacher was Ramana Maharshi, who lived in Arunachala, south India, in the 20th century. He taught mainly by silence and peace induction in the disciple, since he had few intellectual concerns. So I believe he oscillated between jhanas 3 and 4.

Now I considered my own enlightenment. It was an intellectual one that produced an increased understanding of a branch of mathematics. Additionally, I could not detect any feeling that accompanied it. Where to place it? I still assumed that it was a jhana-4 enlightenment, based on the neutral feeling. However, I changed my mind once I considered the effects of relativity on enlightenment, and then allocated it to jhana-3. The apparent lack of emotion was due to the impersonal nature of the enlightenment.

Overall, each jhana enhances particular skills, with the skills of any jhana being different from the other jhanas. Whichever skills a seeker needs most, his enlightenment will occur within the jhana level which is most propitious for those skills. Overall, the jhana level within which enlightenment occurs matches the desires and expectations of the seeker. In the spiritual world, there seems to be no comparisons. So one kind of enlightenment is equal to the other kinds.

More Ideas on Buddhism

When Buddhism rejects the ego, this means only that Buddhism is rejecting the structures created by the ego. One common structure is personal identity. Without structures, the ego just is; another way to put this is that the ego is basically impersonal. The ego is just a particular unit of consciousness that works with structures. Or, the ego is a unit of consciousness that has learnt to impose structure on consciousness.

In Buddha’s lifetime, it was necessary for about 500 seekers to become saints (arhats) in order to kick-start Buddhism as a way of life after Buddha died. Otherwise, if Buddha died with only a few arhats living, then Buddhism would have ground to a halt, and ceased to exist when those few arhats themselves died. Therefore, the presence of so many arhats during Buddha’s life, and only during Buddha’s life, was due to the grace of God and not due to anything in Buddhism. That is, the presence of so many arhats at the same time in history was due to the need to kick-start and embed a new religious practice.

Hence with new ideas that society really needs, there are two factors involved: the person who comes up with the new ideas, and other people to popularise the new ideas.

[³]. Earnest Wood. The Seven Rays. A Quest Book. The Theosophical Publishing House, 1979. [3]

[4]. My views on emotions and feelings are in the three articles on Emotion on the Home page. [4]

Wisdom and Jhana

The Moods of Jhana

Morality in the Jhanas

My Enlightenment

The Jhanas and Enlightenment

The Jhanas and Relativity

The copyright is mine, and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced
anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

Also, since there are numerous articles on this site, please include the title of the article if you want me to clarify or discuss particular issues.

.	Five Meditators contemplate Reality Over 50 years after my satori at Reading University, I again returned to the theme of enlightenment. The experiences of both the flow of ideas and jhana riding enabled me to change my ideas on enlightenment.[¹]. This article represents my views up to 2025. The flow of ideas produces a flow that is harmonious to the seeker’s desires and mood. He attracts the answers that he is looking for. However, the answer that one seeker gets from a few occurrences of insight may not be the answer that suit other seekers. Suppose that five accomplished meditators sit down together to meditate. Each of them contemplates reality and becomes enlightened. One is a nature mystic, another is a Christian mystic, another is a Buddhist, another is a Vedanta Advaitist, and the fifth is an atheist. How will they experience reality? I speculate on their accomplishments.
Sub - Headings
Analysis of Enlightenment
The Seven Rays
Jhana and the Three Feelings
More Ideas on Buddhism
References