Barrier to Enlightenment: How Hungry Are You?

The concept of enlightenment, often referred to in psychological literature as self-transcendence, refers to states where individuals experience profoundly positive emotions, a significant reduction in self-centeredness, and feelings of deep connection to others and the world. Research in neuroscience and psychology supports the reality of these states, showing changes in brain areas involved in self-awareness during deep meditation (Newberg, 2016; Yaden & Newberg, 2022).

Enlightenment is blocked by too much hunger (desire), because hunger causes us to seek excitement (pleasure). If we get used to too much excitement, normal moments might feel boring instead of peaceful. Enlightened states are the opposite, where people feel profound positive emotions like awe in simple moments like sitting on the same park bench they've been to many times, or peace when doing absolutely nothing.

In order to transform boredom to peace, we need to control our hunger. Hunger causes our itchiness (boredom, sadness, discomfort, anxiety) in unexciting moments, which blocks our peace (appreciation, love, joy, awe).

Boredom Is the Barrier and Pathway

What happens when you shut off all distractions and lay staring at the ceiling without thinking of anything? Many people won’t do this because it is too boring or uncomfortable to do nothing. What if instead of boredom or discomfort when doing nothing, you could feel emotions such as appreciation, love, joy, and awe? There is a way to achieve this state, but it will require sitting through the boredom that arises when doing nothing.

How Hungry Are You?

Boredom is the ego’s hunger for excitement: Food, social media, drugs, gatherings, activities, and even thinking. It’s no joke when they say that philosophy is mental masturbation. Thinking about the past or future, about how amazing you are, what the world means, or what dress you want to buy all gives us excitement, even though it is a small amount of excitement, it is still enough to cover up our inability to do nothing. Excitement feels amazing, but sometimes, in seeking it, we don’t even realize how uncomfortable we have become when doing nothing. The amount of pain experienced when doing nothing is the amount of hunger we have.

The Problem With Too Much Hunger

Seeking excitement is not bad, but when we don’t learn to control our hunger for it, it might cause us to be more hungry and eat too much. This might be why some humans mostly act in selfish ways. Even worse, when people have a lot of hunger, they might reach a point where they don’t care about hurting the world/people to get what they want. For example, Jessica is obsessed with becoming a billionaire and experiencing as much as she can. In the process to fill her hunger, she takes advantage of people and leaves a big dump on Mother Earth with her consumption.

Hunger Fuels War

Not only is our hunger eating our planet away, the core psychological reason we have war is because people did not control their hunger and so the hunger took over them. Here we are today in a world where people have such big bellies that they feel like eating another country will fill them up. It might fill them up for a little bit, but it’ll grow their stomach (desire for power) even more. There is no end to this cycle, and there is no peace in it either because pleasure is always followed by pain, whereas the happiness of our true naked state is consistent and generative.

The Problem With Psychedelics

There is currently much hype around the prospect of psychedelics to treat depression and various other conditions. These substances have their benefits and might help shed light on how your hunger plays out, it won’t necessarily eliminate it, in fact it might even feed it further. You don’t need to take ayahuasca, go to a special money-sucking retreat, take psychedelics, or find a ‘guru’. The solution is simple: Do nothing and let your hunger shrink so that you can come back to a state of peace.

The Process of Meditation

Just sit in your room and do nothing. In one way, this is essentially what meditation is: hunger deprivation. Watch your thoughts as they come up, but don’t give yourself the excitement of engaging them. Simply notice your existence for a little while. Watch yourself watching your thoughts and sensations.

What Will Happen?

Well, you might feel really itchy at first (aka bored, tense, uncomfortable, sad, anxious). Think of it as your hunger dying and your belly shrinking. These feelings are good because every moment that you sit with them and feel them, they are going away and you are getting closer to a consistent state of peace. It might even be worthwhile to try meditating while you’re hungry.

Appetite Essential Reads

Why People Get "Hangry"

Eating Well Is More Than the Food You Put on Your Fork

Our True Naked State

Eventually, with enough consistent meditation under your belt, doing nothing and staring at your ceiling, which used to be boring, now feels peaceful. You might notice your senses are more sharp as you see colours brighter, hear more clearly, smell more strongly, and feel a sunset's beauty instead of just thinking it is beautiful. You might look at the same tree in your backyard and feel like it is more alive.

Enlightenment Unlocks Agape

You might feel more love and a sense of familiarity for strangers you pass. Not romantic love, but agape love. Agape love is a selfless love that automatically values and nurtures every being. Engaging in agape love is not only nourishing for the receiver, but also for the giver. The giver is usually a person who has little hunger (desire), which allows them to be in touch with their limitless supply of love that just pours out into the world. The beauty of this state is that there is more appreciation of life as it is, and less of a need for more.

So you see, reaching enlightenment or slowly getting closer to it is not only incredibly fulfilling for us, but for the world and people around us. Everything we do, we do it to be happy, but we're fooled by hunger and take excitement for happiness. Hunger is essential for survival, and excitement is a healthy treat once in a while, but too much of it can lead to an inability to be with ourselves joyfully for simply existing. Through the process of meditation, we slowly let the hunger pass, which lets us come back to real peace.