Enlightened? Stay Enlightened.

A sannyasin of attainment has had many, many lifetimes of accumulating this power of kundalini to break that seal at the door of Brahman. Here is a key factor. Once it is broken, it never mends. Once it is gone, it's gone. Then the kundalini will come back--and this gives you a choice between upadeshi and nirvani--and coil in the svadhishthana, manipura, anahata, wherever it finds a receptive chakra, where consciousness has been developed, wherever it is warm. A great intellect or a siddha who finds the Self might return to the center of cognition; another might return to the manipura chakra. The ultimate is to have the kundalini coiled in the sahasrara.

I personally didn't manage that until 1968 or '69 when I had a series of powerful experiences of kundalini in the sahasrara. It took twenty years of constant daily practice of tough sadhanas and tapas. I was told early on that much of the beginning training was had in a previous life and that is why, with the realization in this life, I would be able to sustain all that has manifested around me and within me as the years passed by. Results of sadhanas came to me with a lot of concentrated effort, to be sure, but it was not difficult, and that is what makes me think that previous results were being rekindled.

The renunciate's path is to seek enlightenment through sadhana, discipline, deep meditation and yogic practices. That is the goal, but only the first goal for the sannyasin. To stay enlightened is even a greater challenge for him. This requires a restrictive discipline--not unlike a military, at-base, on-call life, twenty-four hours a day--even in his dreams.

Many people have flashes of light in their head and think they are totally enlightened beings, then let down in their sadhana and daily worship to later suffer the consequences. Enlightenment brings certain traditionally unwanted rewards: attention, adulation; one becomes the center of attraction, knows more than others and can exist on words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, for a long time, even after the light fades and human emotions well up and new mixed karmas build. He then may become known as having attained the erratic human behavior of the "enlightened" person. This is totally unacceptable on the spiritual path. Once enlightened, or "in-light," even to a small degree because of daily sadhana, stay enlightened because of daily sadhana. Once having intellectually realized Vedic truths and become able to explain them because of study and daily sadhana, then realize these truths by intensifying the daily sadhanas, lest the remaining prarabdha karmas germinate and create new unwanted karmas to be lived through at a later time.

The advice is, having once attained a breakthrough of light within the head, wisdom tells us, remain wise and do not allow these experiences to strengthen the external ego. Become more humble. Become more self-effacing. Become more loving and understanding. Don't play the fool by giving yourself reprieve from pranayama, padmasana, deep meditation, self-inquiry and exquisite personal behavior. Having once attained even a small semblance of samadhi, do not let that attainment fade into memories of the past. The admonition is: once enlightened, stay enlightened.

Enlightenment has its responsibilities. One such responsibility is to have respect for and pay homage to the satguru and the satgurus of his lineage. These are the ones who, in seen and unseen ways, have helped you on your path. Another is to keep up the momentum. The wise know full well that the higher chakras, once stimulated, stimulate their lower counterparts as well, unless the sealing of the passage just below the muladhara has been accomplished. Diligence is needed, lest higher consciousness fall unknowingly on the slippery slide of ignorance into the realms of lower consciousness, of fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, loneliness, malice and distrust. The faint memories of the beginning enlightenment experiences still hover, and while now in lower consciousness but still emulating the higher qualities in personal behavior, the now unenlightened claims full benefit for the previous enlightenment. Shame! This is because he did not maintain his disciplines after enlightenment. He let down and became an egocentric person.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_342.shtml