What follows are a series of declarative statements about the nature of enlightenment -- what it is and what it isn't. They are meant to be provocative rather than definitive, and to serve as probes to further investigation.

There is only one "stage" enlightenment, and that's the removal of whatever is obscuring the mind from becoming perfectly transparent to (or a perfect mirror of) the Awakened Self or Buddha Nature.

Various folks will have moments when they taste this perfection, when "ignorance" briefly clears, or when a clot of "mental effluents" dissolves -- or perhaps significantly, when a big fissure opens up in the precious illusions of the mind.

But until the hypothetical moment when the mind is perfectly purified and released, there are necessarily sanskaras (mental impressions), karma, fabrications of consciousness...and the impulse to continue existence as an ego.

There is an unbreakable bond between those who are "enlightened" and those who are not.

Great realizers, knowing that "enlightenment is only the beginning of the Work", will always confess their humanity, acknowledge their share of mankind's Shadow, and will manifest real humility and compassion in their relationships. (The human race is, after all, the Unfinished Work.)

But Narcissism -- and arrogance -- creeps in when an enlightenment experience is used to "empower" the ego, and the I-of-the-mind becomes enamored of the idea that it is "enlightened".

This inflated ego almost always thinks of enlightenment in classically dualistic terms -- "I am enlightened therefore I must now wear robes and start a school"...as if enlightenment is the ultimate job-description. Or, "I am enlightened therefore I am an Avatar"...as if one has become identical with a mythological being, a figure in a story told in legend. Or, "I am enlightened therefore you owe me something." Or worst case, "I am enlightened therefore the world must bend to my will"...(the classic Nietzschian enlightenment.)

The false enlightenment of the ego is entirely inconstant, temporal, and must create itself every day. Either metaphorically or in reality, it seeks to build temples to itself, acquire followers, and establish an institution around itself -- for it must perpetuate itself in order to live up to its false view of enlightenment as an attainment.

You can see this played out in Frank's drama -- the devotees, the temples, the institution "Only By Me Revealed"...and the endless demand for "gifts" -- the perks and "rewards" due to the Realizer, according to Frank's idea.

The need for rewards is a clear sign of the self-doubt that lies at the heart of Frank's "enlightenment". And Frank's endless talking can also be viewed as an attempt to prove something about himself to himself. His complicated self-justification includes reading all the classic spiritual texts and then emulating them, writing his own Gita, writing his own Upanishads, writing his own Buddhism, writing his own esoteric Christianity...

Reading him I get the feeling I am being argued into believing in something and somebody...some hypothetical "Liberator" who has come down to earth to "save" me from myself. (I also get the impression of a man with a terrible Father-Complex, who is arguing his case before the Highest Court in the Universe.)

What's missing in his endless rationalizing? The simplicity of truth. Where's the simple direct and spontaneous heart-speech of a Ramana? I am sure Frank has tried to simulate that at times, just as he once tried to simulate the Christ of the Gospel of John. But to my knowledge he has never succeeded, because Truth cannot be simulated.

From the beginning one has detected a certain anxiousness in Frank -- a desperation to achieve a goal that he envisions. (As somebody once said, "Franklin always had a hard-on to be a guru.") In other words, he wants to become an idol he has visualized in his own mind. And the fact that he cannot do that -- because no one can do that -- is a source of his life-long anxiety attacks.

If Franklin Jones' life has proved anything, it is that enlightenment is not to become a glorified image to others, or worse yet, an apotheosized object to yourself. (Frank just loves to dwell on pictures of himself. In a real sense, he is his own greatest devotee!)

But the creation of the Da-Guru is becoming and annihilation, it is dualistic and co-dependent, it is the rising of ignorance, it is the clouding of the mirror, it is the pollution of the Mind-essence.

Paradoxically, it is a useful demonstration of everything it is not.

"Who could have conceived that Mind-essence is intrinsically pure! Who could have conceived that Mind-essence is intrinsically free from becoming and annihilation! That Mind-essence is intrinsically self-sufficient, and free from change! Who could have conceived that all things are manifestations of Mind-essence!"

--Hui-neng