Well the point was that he perceived that there was no separation. How he or anyone else gets there is how they get there. You have to experience/perceive it firsthand. Sometimes lots of people get glimpses of this, even without any sort of rigorous training. It just kind of happens when the mind is relaxed and not resisting. But it can be lost just as fast, which is where the practice of meditation, mindfulness, things like that come into play.
In any case, what was interesting to me about the buddhist teacher I mentioned was how he suggested it wasn't actually living life and doing stuff that was the cause of suffering, it was how we perceived our relationship to those things. I think many folks figure, to be enlightened means literally giving up their participation in society to avoid the attachments to "things" that cause suffering.
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