Three Kinds of Spiritual Teachings
'Object' Teachings:
These are any teachings about 'actual' things or any internal or external phenomenal experience. Energetics, Intent and Magick, Most Shamanism, Most Theistic traditions.
Any teaching that approaches the Divine as a 'Force' that can be felt or related with, followed, intuited.
For Instance in Theistic Paths, one practices Intuiting the light and presence of God, and attempts to constantly be connected to that energetic presence. Through constant prayer and surrender ones nature becomes more and more transformed into what one is focusing on. The Theistic mystics are often Powerful healers who can tangibly channel the light and perform 'miracles' on a regular basis. Master Choi Cok Sui was a great recent example of this path.
This Intense focus also brings around a Oneness experience that is Non Dual in nature and Extremely powerful [[[fire]] works wise] compared to the gentler Nondual states brought round by the 'Subject' teachings.
Shamanism, also has a grand tradition of entering into a deeply connected, reciprocal relationship with the 'Felt' forces of Nature, and also a powerful Devotion to the creative spirit/Light, behind everything.
I Find it Interesting that these paths often actively encourage 'grasping' as a successful sadhana for attaining the union they seek.
Also, for people who view through the lense of the 'Object' teachings, divinity is nearly always seen/experienced as Interactive or communicative or Intelligent in some way.
Any teachings about a Soul or Spirit as things that can be experienced also fit in here.
These too are real experiences. Across many traditions, you find detailed sets of teaching on the soul, as a minute point of golden light/awareness that lives in the Heart center, in the right ventricle of our actual heart, and is the 'Root' of our being. Many years ago I had the privileged to spend 3 whole days as this point. This experience made it very hard for me to accept 'No self' initially, but It all fit together in the end. :)
Astral projection, soul retrieval, and any similar phenomena obviously fit here as well.
'Subject' Teachings:
Here we have a bunch of the Non Dual schools, and a bunch of meditation systems.
These Traditions usually aim to Free the subjective element, Often labeled 'Awareness'
from identification with all the 'Objects' or the content of experience. One spends hours and hours looking for Awareness, until one realizes that It can not be caught, experienced or observed in any way. The only real thing we can say about it is that it 'experiences' things. So Awareness often gets labeled 'the Self'.
Some of these traditions go a bit further and look to see that even though awareness can not be pinned down, It also can not be separated from what it is experiencing. Where is the line? Where does awareness stop and the observed 'object' begin? This again leads to oneness experiences, or Nonduality of subject and object, Nonduality of Seer and seen.
Thus everything becomes the Self or Awareness.
This gives rise to a gentle but potent sense of Being and peace as the foundation of everything.
An Interesting point to me, is that as these path's do not usually treat Divinity or awareness as an 'object' within space and time, they only usually experience Divinity as an Incredibly vast Beingness and presence, without any Interactive element.
To me this suggests that the filters we view Divinity through, seriously Impact the way we experience mystical states. I think it is probably Impossible to prove that one View is more correct or more right than any other view. Traditions have spent thousands of years trying and still have not convinced each other.
What is true, is that each of these varying experiences is real to the experiencer, and has profound life changing results, Not to mention the Inner psychological revolution that they bring about.
'Beyond' Teachings:
Now we get to the 'Beyond' part.
As far as I understand, Buddhism is the only tradition that has most of its emphasis here. Buddha objected outright to any teaching that makes a 'self' or 'Consciousness' into a permanent source or unchanging core to our experience of our selves or our world.
To counter these 'false' teachings he gave the Teachings on Emptiness and dependent origination, and Anatta, or No self.
Emptiness and Dependent Origination [E&DO] means that Nothing in phenomenal existence, or awareness itself, has an Inherent self existing nature.
In other words it is 'empty' of any form of ultimate reality. Obviously things exist still but only in a relative manner. Things exist only as a result of countless other conditions that pooled together bring about our present conditions.
The same goes for our 'self'. Buddha contended that there is no self, not in any ultimate fixed or eternally unchanging sense. Even awareness is seen as being tied within the cycle of suffering and is one of the aggregates. To counter Awareness teachings that claim Awareness is 'One' thing he pointed out that if one looks closely, one see's that there are 6 different awareness's. Visual, aural, touch, smell, taste, and mental {which includes emotions and psychic phenomena}
To Buddha, if you said 'I am awareness' [even if it was true] That would cause a deep subtle area within your mind to grasp or cling to that as a concept.
Grasping is never good In Buddhism. It is a subtle stress, and It causes us to start creating a false sense of self that needs to be protected and defended, and which then ties us back into the cycle of suffering.
So in Buddhism one slowly gives up all claims of being anything, and relinquishes all belief in anything being anything other than relatively real.
As all that attachment dissipates, One finds oneself absolutely Free and clear, no clinging, no grasping and the world holds Zero power over you any more.
Its kind of like a neat side step out of everything, into freedom. Amazing.
So the Buddhist Enlightenment is a realization about the nature of experience, and is not the Attainment of some 'existing' state, as is enlightenment in 'Object' and 'Subject' schools.
Non duality in Buddhism it should be noted, is also not the Oneness of 'seer and seen'
which gets called the Nonduality of extremes {the extremes being 'seer and seen'} but is actually better stated as a middle way {between the extremes of seer and seen} non duality where there is just arising experience.
Zen Master Dogen put it along the lines of "Seeing, no seer. Thinking, no thinker..."
