ENLIGHTENMENT
HAPPENS
‘IMPOSSIBLE CONCEPTS’ ARE NOT REALLY SO!
If you're looking for the path, you're on it!
When I
began my so-called spiritual journey, enlightenment was far from my mind!
What I was looking for was a better life…and at the most some abstract notion
called peace of mind. And oh yes, most
certainly a quick fix method to jump start me out of my problems! But
enlightenment? That sounds an impossible
concept and we usually leave it for another life time …or whom I would perceive
as the holier than thou’s!
And yet if we could only become aware,
that it is our preconceived notions of what the term suggests that comes in the
way, perhaps more of us might make it our reality. Enlightenment is not
something for the sages, it is not an impossible dream…and it does not imply a
distancing of self from all that we have held dear! Life…even my very modern
life and enlightenment are not mutually exclusive states! And this to me is true spirituality- something
that includes and not excludes my daily life! Something that blends with and indeed
optimizes my humanity & its purposes and desires rather than opposing,
suffocating, suppressing them! Thereby deeply fulfilled, and in deep union with
Self and all Selves around us, we but naturally become more and more palpably
the God within...!
Indeed we come to realize that impossible
(sounding) concepts are not really so! Unconditional love, non-judgment, thankfulness,
oneness and the like might appear abstract, exotic and out-of- reach when read
off the pages of a book, but once you are on the journey they are unexpectedly
user friendly! Ask me! I used to think unconditional love was only a sop for
those who had no ‘real’ personal lives of their own! And being the much touted ‘witness’
seemed to me a concept Shiva created so that no body could match him! And yet …
a few years into this wondrous path…all these qualities ‘happen’ more and more
naturally! One discovers that it was partly the misconceptions of a half baked understanding
that made them loom so large and forbidding…and the rest of the gap is easily
bridged by a growing awareness that literally unravels and extends self to …selves…
and Self!
And
enlightenment is suddenly an escalating lightening of the heart… automatically
reverberating like a chorus of joy, creating beautiful realities at tripartite
levels- personal, environmental and the world! And your more personal journey involuntarily
becomes a spiritual service to the world- for you are in 24/ 7 service as
transmitter of these energies wherever you maybe placed in life, through whatever
tasks or jobs your day –to- day life may comprise of!
And the
best part! Enlightenment happens in individual ways, tailor made to you! Enlightenment does not mean becoming some
impossible ideal…a Buddha or Jesus (or whichever Gods and Masters we resonate
to) …for we individuated to each be what only we could be for the
whole… towards enlightening the whole in unique ways! We do not lose our identity
but indeed expand and revel it in ways perhaps we were not even aware of! Religion
is a path described by another (or a set of others) …if you view these as a set
of must-do rules, they can limit ; if you completely shun them all you may
ignore some vital clues and tips of those who have already journeyed along the
path you now traverse! I find it best to adopt the middle line, use from them
what works for me…expand some of its concepts in ways which are applicable to
the time and space coordinate that I am in, so that ‘religion’ does what’s it here
for …help me re align… and in touching spirit within, spirituality blossoms…and
we now contribute I unique ways to ‘religion’!
And
through it all we are moving towards what -en ‘light’enment- is best known for!
The startling eureka’s… of inner illumination! A rapidly expanding
understanding of self, the other and the universe we live in! In more modern
and scientific terms enlightenment is a re-mapping of our neural pathways, a
literal expansion of our minds, for our expanded consciousness leads us to consciously
activating parts of the brain we haven’t accessed thus far! With new brainwaves…
our perceptions begin to change… ignorance and separation start to dissolve… and
enlightenment is ‘happening’ …involuntarily almost!
Divinity
permeates your day-to day life, for then the 'sacred' cannot help but pervade your
every living moment- awake, asleep, playing, at rest or working. And life
becomes an Arabian night’s journey. For the journey within is truly that:
infinite scope for inner expansion, reflecting in external areas of life all
panning out more and more to our individual ideas of what they can best be!! And
then...there is more...! Yes there always is!
And
enlightenment has happened somewhere along the way! It is not one magical moment as we sometimes think it
to be…but a series of…and it’s conscious realization permeates us in a manner
quite like the music that has been
playing all along in our neighbors
house…but we only become consciously aware of it at some seemingly sudden point... |