What is a realized person?

Sridevi and Kamal Haasan in the Tamil film Guru (1980).

Those of us in the culture of spiritual search often hear the terms realized, enlightened, awakened, and so forth. But these superlatives are rarely defined, even as they are commonly used.

I question the existence of a realized being, obviously willing to abide exception. At age 59, after many years in the search in both traditional and esoteric precincts, I have never met one. A friend leads a dojo and has spent significant time at Buddhist monasteries in Japan. “Have you,” I asked him, “ever once met a realized man?” His answer: “No.”

A viewer recently wrote me on YouTube:

On the subject of awakened and realised people, yes there are awakened and realised people but they are still human. They still experience anxiety and depression. Awakened people aren't free from suffering. They are awake to who they are and how the world really is. How will you know an awakened person. You will feel accepted and loved by them.

I find that a reasonable if satisfied definition. It is not my own.

My perception of a realized being derives from the teachings of G.I. Gurjdieff (1866-1949). A realized or awakened being possesses an “I.” By which is meant a central I from which to do.

That is not the individual’s situation. We are in pieces. Our thoughts, emotions, and physicality all run on their own tracks. Were that not so, there would be no addictions, outbursts of rage, harmful self-distractions, and so forth. The body wants something—food, sex, sleep, whatever—and the intellect has no more power to oppose it than a paddler does a mighty current, if such effort is even expended. The emotions, like a horse, kick in fear, and no degree of intellectualizing or inner talking can change that.

What I write is a confectionary description of man’s real predicament, or what Gurdjieff called “The Terror-of-the-Situation”: man pursues war, i.e., me and all of us; man must be right; man invokes high-sounding ethics while living from “I like” and “I don’t like.”

I believe that humanity’s situation is near-impossible. Hence, I virtually never use terms to connote openings that are not there, at least evidently. What my YouTube correspondent describes is not, I believe, awakening but suffering—of a right sort.

I hear from some seekers that their teacher is enlightened. But three-dimensional normies cannot detect it. There is, to my ears, vanity in this. If one’s teacher is enlightened that makes the student an apostle, hence the eagerness to school others.

This confusion is deepened by the conceit or unawareness of soi-disant teachers themselves. A friend of mine recently joined a panel of New Age spiritual bigwigs, some of whom are household names. During a shared moment backstage, he said to his co-panelists: “Wow, that audience is looking at us like we actually know something.”

To a person, they stared blankly at him—and then argued, “no, we know things.”

I am acquainted with some of these panelists. Some of them I’ve published, share colleagues, or collaborate with from time to time. Among them are people who struggle with rage—but never on stage. Some break their word—but never on stage. I once interviewed one for a now-defunct streaming talk show. In between fifteen-minute answers (not responses), into which I could hardly interject a word, he went on and on about enlightenment and non-attachment and (kill me now) sensing “the thinker behind the thoughts.” I know this person professionally as someone who has flown into rage when his book didn’t make the New York Times bestseller list. Sounds like me.

And here is the point: we need greater transparency from spiritual eminences. Rather than dirge-like monologues about our “being afraid of how great we are” or the healing powers of forgiveness (“you forgive for yourself…”) or one of a hundred fortune-cookie scrolls of wisdom, which we’ve all heard if rarely verified, we must hear from the guru who has failed.

I am not a teacher. I am seeker. But in my writing and talks I am self-disclosing not for some morbid attention-grab but because my life is unexceptional and what I have experienced, and where I have failed, may provide commonality from which to search.

Some who use the terms I critique eagerly share their own stories of breakthrough. But these are memories. If a moment cannot be summoned now, what is it but showing one’s vacation photos? Wake that same person at an inconvenient hour, in an unfamiliar place, to perform an unpleasant task and you will see how enlightened we are.

I once separated from a remarkable teacher whose judgment I believe had slipped. We were out of touch for weeks. People assumed (and still do) that we had no contact. This was not so. He contacted me, not to ask me to return or to make peace, but rather he asked me to meet one-on-one with prospective newcomers to the group he led. His action, followed soon after by his death, was the closest thing I have witnessed to realized. Were he here, he would probably say, “Let’s take me out of it.”

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The talk I reference is here: