5.5 Now that the far journey has ended, survey and secure what you have won.

The far journey to understand and experience the true nature of reality is over. Begun long, long ago, the struggle to end your ignorance is finally and irrevocably over. You know who you are, and you know the true nature of what you experience during each moment.

In Implicate Technology teaching this is called the clear setting face to face with reality. Transcendentally still and clear, you experience reality as it is, directly and without ignorance or illusion. Reality is that, this is that, you are that.

That relative and illusory component of mind which comprises your individual mind has been transcended – so much so, that the purity of original mind is no longer tainted and corrupted by individual choice. Your whole psycho-physiological system has become a driverless vehicle, a tool for the use of that. Transcendentally serene and clear, your mind and body is, from the point of view of your inner experience, an empty shell devoid of volition.

Acting as a direct expression of that, you no longer have a propensity to act in such a way as to incur negative or positive karma. Your ordinary, everyday state of consciousness transcends the karmically reactive system. The lesson of reality has been learnt.

Although your mind may be free from the influence of karma, provided you maintain transcendental serenity, your body is not and cannot be free. Your body is a product of karma and that karma must be experienced. That is to say, your body must experience ageing, suffering and death according to its destiny.

In addition, you will be subject to the vast aggregations of individual karma, incurred across waves of incarnations, shaping cultural and global history. An enlightened person can be swept up in events every bit as much as an unenlightened person. Being enlightened does not exempt you from AIDS, terrorism, nuclear war, race war, economic deprivation or any other event of life.

Yet whatever may be the destiny of your body or your time, your mind has irrevocably won freedom. You may temporarily drift or fall from the state of absolute clarity, wisdom and delight, but you cannot lose what you have won. Any drift from direct experience of the absolute can only be temporary – Jesus’s agony and doubt on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’, was only the momentary result of a transient set of conditions.

If you do slide back into the karmically reactive system, then karma will guide you back into the enlightened state of mind. You have no need any more to practise meditation daily. You are now capable of living in meditation, although occasionally you may need to meditate formally to regain inner serenity.

The experience of mind in its unconditioned state at first seems bland. It feels, at first, like an infinity of stillness devoid of qualities and interest. This is simply due to unfamiliarity with the unutterably inexhaustible source of all forms of experience.

As a result of the initial impression of blandness, you may be tempted to retrace your steps along the path – simply because there is more apparent richness of experience, and more familiarity, in the events of the past. Resist that temptation; learn to maintain your consciousness in this new state of mind, just as you did at the beginning of samadhi. Although demanding at first, it will rapidly become second nature to remain in the unconditioned state.

The key to maintaining the final stage of enlightenment is to keep the mind in its natural state. Steadfastly remain in the qualityless stillness, transcending all conditions and all forms of mental activity: such as memory, anticipation, analysis and all forms of emotion or thought. Simply experience that, mind in its natural and unconditioned state, knowing that such experience is inexpressible and incommunicable.

Witnessing this with clarity, wisdom and delight, know that you are no different from anybody else. Knowing the nature of the illusion that is objective reality, be guided by karma as you work to help others along the path. Live for the service and benefit of others, according to your intuition.

As you work to help others understand the true nature of their experience and their suffering, always direct them towards overcoming the limitations they place on their own minds. Crippled by some combination of selfishness, stupidity, lust, greed or fear, the unenlightened person unknowingly limits the possibility of a fulfilled life. Treat each person uniquely and respect their limitations and weaknesses.

Explain to others only what they are capable of understanding at the time of explanation. Your goal is always to help them take the next step along the path. There is no hurry – this, with its ignorance and suffering. will last for an infinite length of time.

Witnessing this with the unconditioned clarity of that, know that conditioned existence and its inherent suffering are both unreal. Ignorance gives suffering the illusion of reality. Yet this is no game or pretence, and until the last unenlightened person knows that from direct intuitive experience, the endless cycle of birth, ageing, suffering and death will continue.

Time, ignorance and suffering last infinitely long, yet have only relative reality. The process that is conditioned existence will continue to unfold for the duration of time, witnessed and experienced by the absolute and only mind which embraces and transcends mere existence. Now that you have attained enlightenment for your psycho-physiological system’s individual mind, your greatest contribution to the general good lies in helping others along the path towards release from suffering.