"You Don't Need to Be a Monk To Be Enlightened"

This first article in a series aims to show that everyone can access higher states of consciousness, thereby igniting their own transformation, leading to inner peace and unlocking their full potential (source: "HOPE – Enlightenment For All" by Oriane Livingston).

The Overview Effect – “Samadhi” from Space

This inquiry originated from a singular, life-altering moment I experienced over a decade ago while hiking alone in nature—a moment that washed away all past trials in a wave of unconditional love.That moment—later described to me in neuroscientific and contemplative terms as a non-ordinary state of consciousness—served as the point of entry into a multi-year exploration of consciousness, neuroscience, ancient wisdom traditions, and human potential. As someone known for rational, structured thinking, and as a skeptic, I sought evidence-based explanations for what I had experienced. My nonfiction book and Documentary Project HOPE and related publications are the culmination of that scientific inquiry.

I spent the following ten years looking for answers, traveling the world to meet with scientists, monks and teachers from all traditions. As I learned along my exploration, this experience has been described by various yogis, poets, artists, and saints, and is often referred to as spiritual awakening, cosmic consciousness, enlightenment, satori, nirvana, moksha, or samadhi, among other "labels." #awakening #enlightenment #samadhi. My investigation culminated with a meeting with Adyashanti, a former Buddhist monk and self-realized American spiritual teacher, who provided a frame of understanding for this expansive state of consciousness.

"I learned that everyone can experience this extraordinary state of consciousness, through which you can free yourself from all suffering and past traumas."

As outrageous as it may sound, I had never heard about enlightenment or the concept of awakening before, and if I did, these notions pertained to distant myths or eastern legends in my mind.

"Anything is possible."

In autumn 1968, a lanky college student from Oregon, Dick Fosbury, stunned the world of sport at the Olympic Games of Mexico. Fosbury jumped, shockingly at the time, with his back to the bar. He was the first ever to do this, which triggered immense hilarity in the world. No one thought it could ever be done. Fosbury was considered quite odd by his peers, somewhat a dreamer, who missed the opening ceremony of the games because he was visiting some ancient Aztec temples. Not only did he win gold for the United States, but he also beat all previous world record of high jumping, revolutionizing sports with the “Fosbury” jump.

Once Fosbury had shown that this type of record was possible, jumpers’ beliefs changed, and a multitude of new records followed shortly, all using the Fosbury jump.

Reciprocally, HOPE - Enlightenment For All aims to close the gap and open a conversation about this possibility by sharing other testimonies. I trust that this message of hope will find its way to people from all walks of life, skeptics, or people who, like me, were not initiated or exposed to such spiritual knowledge. I am not a former monk or a former practitioner of any tradition.

The Overview Effect – “Samadhi” from Space

I discovered that astronauts frequently report a new perspective after returning to Earth, some kind of heightened awareness of how small we are in the grand scale of the cosmos. NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, the sixth person to ever walk on the moon. While looking back at the Earth from its orbit on his way home, the astronaut had an experience for which nothing in his life had prepared him: “It was all there suspended in the cosmos on that fragile little sphere. What I experienced was a grand epiphany accompanied by exhilaration, an event I would later refer to in terms that could not be more foreign to my upbringing in west Texas, and later, New Mexico. From that moment on, my life would take a radically different course. What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I felt what has been described as an ecstasy of unity… I perceived the universe as in some way conscious. The thought was so large it seemed inexpressible, and to a large degree, it still is.”

The sensation is referred to as “The Overview Effect,” a term coined by Frank White in his eponymous 1987 book to describe this cognitive shift. After Mitchell came back home, he devoured countless books, whether in science literature or religious literature, and couldn’t find any satisfying explanation. “It was somehow defining, but I was simply left puzzled in the aftermath. Something extraordinary had happened, and I didn’t know what it was. It was only after I came back to earth and started researching the mystical literature that I realized that the experience I was having all the way back home had a name; it’s called samadhi in the ancient Sanskrit—the samadhi experience. That’s pretty wild!”

Samadhi is a term used in Vedanta, the Hindu philosophy based on ancient sacred Vedic literature, to refer to the highest, transcendent state of consciousness.

"Samadhi is a divine ecstasy, a sense of total unity and oneness. "

In #yoga, this is regarded as the final stage, at which union with the divine is reached (either while alive or at death). “Which,” As Edgar Mitchell stated, “means that you see things as you see them with your eyes, but you experience them emotionally and viscerally, as with ecstasy, and a sense of total unity and oneness. That’s exactly what the experience was… The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes… The knowledge came to me directly.”

Edgar Mitchell left #NASA shortly thereafter to form the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which aims at creating a worldwide shift in consciousness and inspiring people to take action to help humanity and the planet thrive.

We are one single crew of astronauts on “Spaceship Earth,” sailing through space, said architect, former Mensa director, and futurist Richard Buckminster Fuller. Popularized in the mid-60s, “Spaceship Earth” is a rhetoric device used by Buckminster Fuller to express the idea that we are one single species living on a tiny blue ball suspended in the cosmos, sharing the same destiny, and that it is in our interest to live harmoniously together, without impacting negatively the Earth’s ecosystem.

Edgar Mitchell’s epiphany redirected the trajectory of his life.

I hope that sharing this first testimony with you will ignite curiosity in you. This is the first of a Master series.

There is a doorway inside you leading to another way of being, free from suffering, where pure awareness, pure love, and peace exist. A peace that nothing can touch.

Warmly,

Oriane