ethereal - I'm not qualified to answer your questions one way or the other, but I can provide some comments (or ramblings) based on my own search and my own experience. So feel free to integrate whatever personally works for you and throw out anything that doesn’t.
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Originally Posted by ethereal Was that actually the final doorway to enlightenment or just a satori, a warning signal? |
I don’t know. But I'm not sure if there actually is a "final doorway" to enlightenment, as in some barrier to break down or some portal walk through. But that’s just me. I used to think there was this final door too, but now I don’t think there is.
Personally, I like the idea of levels, stages, paths, and doorways. I find them helpful in my own personal growth. But I don’t think the “Final Step” is anything like climbing the last rung of the ladder. I think it’s more like kicking the ladder away. The “Final Doorway”, instead of picturing it as a person walking through a door and finding enlightenment on the other side, I think is more like destroying any and all concepts of “doorways” altogether, along with any distinctions between what’s on “this side” vs. what’s on “that side”.
If you are THAT, as the book you refer to says, then who needs doors anyway? Who is it that walks through them? Where is there to go?
Here’s a quote from one of your other threads:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal  The innate beauty of all that exists becomes progressively apparent. All things become of equal value so that all life and all that exists are honored for their presence and the sheer fact of their existence. The perfection of all that exists stands forth, and the illusion of imperfection dissolves. Each and every thing is the perfect expression of its essence manifesting as its innate existence, simply by being what it is.
--David Hawkins from "I: Reality and Subjectivity" (pg. 216-218) |
So, along the same lines of the advice that "If you see a Buddha along the side of the road, you should kill him.” I think if you come across a "doorway to enlightenment", you should destroy it, or at least ignore it. Or even better, enjoy the experience for what it is and also for what it isn’t.
I hope this doesn’t sound discouraging. I’m stumbling in the dark too, if not more so! I mean, there is no way I can truly know what it was that you experienced. And I’m sure it’s difficult for you to reduce these kinds of experiences to a few paragraphs, and even more difficult to try to make someone else understand them.
But “I Am That” is a pretty good book. It doesn’t resonate with me as much as it does with other people, but I still think it’s a good book. So who knows?! Maybe reading that book was the final conceptual straw that broke your conceptual back. But only you can know that for sure. (No outside confirmation required.)
Also, I write this post more for myself than for anyone else. So please ignore anything here that doesn’t work for you. I’m very grateful you asked your questions. Because just trying to answer them myself helped me a great deal in clarifying my own understanding.