Spiritual Enlightenment -
No Judgements and No Labels
What Is Spiritual Enlightenment?
Simply put: it is to be free of conceptual thoughts. Spiritual enlightenement is not the belief that you are spirit. It is to see clearly what you perceive, experience, think, or feel. To do this, you first need to find out
who you are not.
Why? Because it is easier to first become a watcher of your thoughts and then eventually to be able to control or prolong the gaps between thoughts.
Enlightenment is therefore your emergence from the delusion of the sense of self.
It means living fully and mindfully in the present moment. Realising and accepting that this present moment is all there ever was, is and will be. Past and future are just thoughts which are of little value apart from obscuring the present moment.
So spiritual enlightenment means accepting what is without negative emotions like worrying about the future or trying to change what is. Rather when you accept what is, your actions will communicate clarity of thought and compassion.
What Is Spiritual?
I find it interesting that when I think about myself and those close to me, my thoughts are about non-physical things such as: kindness, ideas, intelligence, imagination, sense of humour, kindness, creativity and so on.
And what do most people seek? Happiness, love, friendship and peace. Again all non-physical.
‘Spiritual’ means non-physical and it is evident that it is the non-physical that creates our worlds. All the above mentioned qualities are reflections of what we hold in our minds.
"Continue to ask questions within yourself, continue to learn, continue to let go of fixed beliefs and the truth will unfold within you." - Patanjani Yoga
It is through spiritual enlightenment that the meaning of life is revealed. Many ancient philosophers, writers, religious and political leaders have offered their views down the ages. Each shedding some light on the subject on personal question such as:
What Is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment means understanding or enabling clarity of perception. The ability to see things as they really are not as you would like them to be. It is not seeing the world through 'your life story' or ego.
Why So Simple Yet So Difficult?
For some, initial spiritual enlightenment can happen in a flash. After all, you are seeking something you already are. So it is natural to have glimpses of it every now and then.
Yet living a spiritually enlightened life is not easy. I can go even as far as saying 'it is hard.' This is because, although you are part of this whole we call the Universe, you are still plagued by the delusion of separateness; you from me and you from them.
Einsten understood this to be the root of much of human suffering when he wrote:
“He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of comparison to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein
If you are looking at spiritual enlightenment as an intellectual or conceptual acquisition, then you are missingthe whole point of it. Then what you will read about spiritual enlightenment or indeed self realisation will actually impede you from becoming spiritually enlightened.
Habits And Conditioning
Your life is too often lived out under the constraint of habits and conditioning that you are entirely unaware of. Yet they shape your moments, choices, experiences and emotional responses to life.
So how you see life is not a full picture. Habits make you go through life with blinkers. So your decisions and actions are not as informed as you think they are.
Your decisions are at the mercy of your mind’s habitual grasping and pushing away. You are perpetually caught in reacting to events, do 'this' or 'that.' See things 'this' way or 'that.'
All this conditioning adds up to an appearance of a life. A life which is disturbingly superficial and unsatisying. The Result?
A lingering sense that there must be something more, some deeper meaning to life, a possibility of being comfortable in one’s own skin, independent of conditioning thinking.
It was not until I started questioning my thoughts about my life I realized that I put a lot of passion into doing things I didn't want to do. Sometimes I did things which were clearly bad for me and privately wondered why.
It is only when you ask questions that you receive the answers and discover the truth. According to the
law of attraction,
when you ask questions and really want to know the answers, you will attract the answers in a form that you can understand.
Amazingly, spiritual enlightenment is continually available to you to offset your conditioned mind. It helps you expand, understand and be more in touch with your feelings.
This will increase your capacity for understanding the feeling of 'what is.' You will become more calm. You will also find it easier to accept whatever happens in your life without judgement
How To Become Spiritually Enlightened?
For most people enlightenment comes gradually as a developmental and cumulative process of growing spiritually through steps and stages. Of course, how you become spritually enlightened is as individual as you are.
All I can say is that it takes time to get comfortable and be consistent in surrendering to what is, which in turn leads to the dissolution of the ego.
So whatever information you find out. Don't view it as guidelines or commandments, but rather something to tried and used on the basis on whether they work for you or not.
You most likely have had glimplises of spriritual enlightenment but you didn't recognise them for what they are. This is because your illusory ego, which you so completely identify with, takes credit for them.
You Have All You Need
“Everything has its origin in the mind, and which you seek outwardly, you already possess.” - Genevieve Behrend - The Invisible Power
Within you are the exact answers that you need to every single question, and so it is important that you discover them for yourself.
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