I cannot tell you what it is like to be enlightened, cause I have yet to experience nirvana. However I can tell you things along the way to do (and not do) in leading to enlightenment. One of the biggest things is letting go of attachments. Even one attachment can prevent nirvana. Just one. This clinging is all the result of dukkha and all attachments can lead to suffering. Here is a bit from the Book After the Ecstasy the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, from a monk who wrote on attachment:
The biggest surprise for me was how much I still needed to learn to trust. For years I thought spiritual life was about some special state of perfection or enlightenment. It is really about releasing attachments. Life doesn't depend only on what you do. The big illusion we strive for, whether in the world or our spiritual life, turns out to be false. When you learn to let go, you find a tremendous faith in the ground of all things, that which is true before and after all our plans. Everything arises and passes -- this is the true perfection. I found I could trust this.
This is one of the reasons I watch Hoarders, as some may have seen me write in my blog. People attached to objects which they may have assigned memories or value which perhaps have been turned into trash, or just clutter. Watching them agonize in the show in letting go of the items, is not so far fetched from even one who has only two solid attachments. For example, I am attached to my photo albums. I will pass them onto kids one day when they are older, but I would freak if something happened to them. I have my health and am attached to it. I know when they day comes my health declines, I will probably be quite attached to an old life of being quite healthy by standards so this will be a tough one for me. Having freedom with the body which is well is something I do treasure, so later having health issues will be a tough one, so I do try to mentally prepare for this moment when one day health issues will creep up on me. I am hoping I can keep them at bay by eating healthy and so forth but you never know what is around the bend.
Attachments hold our mind down like a brick being tied to our feet and then tossing us in water. We cant breathe we cant go no where with our attachments. Some may seem small but watch them grow big later and really hold us down. So working on say a meditation where you release more and more of the attachment, maybe have a cord cutting ritual, various things would be healthy to do.
One of the biggest attachments we have is to people. Say we are with a loved one, we cling on to dear life and do not want them to go when we love them. But as we know, many will hold onto relationships which have run their course, where people are just fighting and bickering all the time, and really do not like each other anymore. But they are attached to the relationship and dont want to face their own loneliness. They would rather bicker and fight all day long, then face the pain of loneliness. This attachment must be overcome, and one can surely see how this lesson can take lifetimes to overcome. Spirit, ultimately wants to get us alone and work us over I believe. Not saying spirit does not want us to have relationships. But spirit wants us to have good ones. And also we learn from those we encounter. once the lessons have been learned, it is time to move on. If one drags their heels in a relationship cause they dont want to be alone, they may face even worse things like abuse in the form of emotional verbal or physical. So it is important for the person to realize when something is over and get out, and work on detaching from the past with the person. Very important how one can get into a tangled web of attachment with another if they overstay the relationship.
So it is important to let go of attachments. when we do set forth on the infinite, these things can bind us to this plane if we hold onto whatever we are holding onto. To be free, truly free, we must be fetter free, or these things can pull us back.
