The Ten Worlds or Basic Life Conditions

The Ten Worlds or Basic Life Conditions

HELL:
All conditions of suffering and despair. In this state, we are utterly devoid of freedom, and undergo extreme and indescribable suffering.

HUNGER:
Consumed by desire and a sense of lack, Hunger is a state characterized by an insatiable desire. In this state, a person is tormented by relentless craving and by his inability to satisfy it.

INSTINCT (ANIMALITY):
The state of Animality is governed by instinct, and one has no sense of reason or morality. A person in the state of Animality is in fear of the strong, but despises and preys upon those weaker than himself. One is dominated by a selfish ego. A person in this state is compelled by the need to be superior to others in all things, despising others and valuing himself alone.

ANGER:
The fourth world is Anger. It's filled with various aspects of anger, hostility and rage, from whatever motivation and whether directed to others or toward oneself. This world also can involve striving for power and domination.
*These four states are collectively called the four lower worlds.

HUMANITY/TRANQUILIT Y OR MUNDANE WORLD:
The fifth world is the normal basic state of neutral human experience. In this state, one can pass fair judgment, control one's instinctive desires with reason, and act in harmony with one's environment or society.

RAPTURE:
The sixth world is Heaven or Rapture. This state indicates the sense of pleasure and ecstasy one feels when desire is fulfilled. However, the joy in this state is temporary and disappears with the passage of time or with even a slight change in circumstances. It is said that the shortest road to Hell (suffering) is from Rapture.
*These six worlds from Hell through Heaven are where the majority of people spend most of their time, moving back and forth among them. In these states, people are governed by reactions to external influences, and therefore they are extremely vulnerable to changing circumstances.

LEARNING:
In the seventh world, learning - seeking some lasting truth - pervades. Generally one enters this life condition after pursuing the truth of life through the teachings of others. This life condition is relatively free from avarice, anger, stupidity, arrogance and doubt, as well as from bias or depravity. However, a selfish or arrogant mind, although hidden, is still present to some extent in this life condition.

REALIZATION:
In this condition, one seeks some lasting truth through their own observations and effort, and attains a degree of emancipation by perceiving the chain of causation, or by observing the natural order. In other words, one understands cause and effect as the nature of life in the universe. Because this is a life condition reached by discovering the truth in the universe after much effort, the sense of fulfillment felt in this state may be deeper than that gained in the world of learning. *Realization and Learning can often turn into arrogance, because people in these life conditions become stubbornly attached to their own realization with its limited perspective. Learning and Realization are called the two vehicles. The defect of the two vehicles lies in the fact that persons in these states may primarily seek only their own salvation and enlightenment.

BODHISATTVA or COMPASSIONATE ALTRUISM
In the 9th world, one aspires to enlightenment, and also devotes oneself to compassionate actions and altruism. Those in this state dwell among common mortals of the 6 Paths humbly, while respecting others. They seek to serve and benefit others. This life condition is characterized by the great desire to extend help to those who are suffering.

BUDDHAHOOD, ENLIGHTENMENT or ACTUALIZATION:
The highest life condition is a state of perfect and absolute freedom in which one enjoys boundless wisdom and compassion, and is filled with the courage and power to overcome all hardships. This is the condition underlying the rich, altruistic activities of the Bodhisattva, in which one takes the sufferings of others as his own and defies all obstacles to help others change their destiny. One demonstrates to others how they can call up their own Buddhahood from within themselves.

What Does Enlightenment Feel Like?

It's the experience of "My God, I took myself to be a human being named so-and-so and I'm not. And it's not that I'm something better or bigger or more expansive or more holy or divine. It means I'm not.

What Does Enlightenment Feel Like?

In one sense enlightenment is realizing that there is no separate self. The taste of no separate self is totally liberating. But Oneness/enlightenment is not merging. Oneness is when there isn't another. There is no that over there, there is only this. And that's all there is. Read here a description of what it feels like to become enlightened, written by Adyashanti, a man who has had such a spiritual awakening: It is a total waking up outside of time. This awakening is just like waking up from a dream at night--which is why that metaphor has been used so often throughout the centuries.

The dream is as real as this moment. If you think your life is threatened in your dream, you're going to panic just as much as you'll panic if you think your life is threatened right now. But when you wake up in the morning, you think, "My goodness, it wasn't really that real." It was real as dreams go. It existed as dreams exist, but it doesn't have the reality we thought it did when we were in the midst of the dream.Human beings don't know how significant it is to wake up from a dream in the middle of the night. You literally woke up out of a dimension that you took to be just as true as this dimension. It's a cataclysmic change of consciousness. Everything that I thought was true in that dream ends up not being true. When there is a real and authentic spiritual awakening, the impact is exactly the same. I'm not saying this world is or is not a dream--it's pointless to define this world. But I am saying the experience of awakening is exactly like that. It's the experience of "My God, I took myself to be a human being named so-and-so n I'm not. And it's not that I'm something better or bigger or more expansive or more holy or divine.

It means I'm not. Period."When there is awakening to our true nature, our minds are no longer looking at emptiness, because there is no separate somebody to look at it. We realize that the only thing that's ever looking at emptiness is itself.There is only this, and as soon as you say what this is, you've just defined what it's not. This is only realized in the utter demolition of everything that it's not. Then that awakening is an awakening outside of everything that comes and goes.Enlightenment is a demolition project. It simply shows you that everything you ever believed was true isn't.This doesn't mean there is not a body.

There is obviously a body. There is also a sense of self. Enlightened or not, you will have a sense of self. Otherwise consciousness couldn't work in a body. You can have the experience called a temporary cessation of the experience of self, but I guarantee that it will be temporary because your body cannot function without a sense of self.