The Truth About Enlightenment

What we call enlightenment literally means to make illuminated inside, to in-lighten. It’s simply an English word describing the state of conscious awareness where we are metaphysically severed from a connection to the intellectual Self and instead experience intuitive re-connectivity with our Creator’s will.[i]

As you begin to increasingly live in the awakened state, you become impervious to despair, fear, anxiety, and depression. Health improves. You know physical, mental and emotional wellness. Behaviors regulate. Latent virtues are enhanced while simultaneously, imperfections of character begin to diminish.[ii] These are the benefits of true enlightenment.

It isn’t knowledge. Neither is it the mere elimination of ignorance. It is much more powerful than either of these.

Enlightenment is independent of the thinking mind. It isn’t a feeling. There is no emotionality about it. We aren’t looking for a sign that we are reacting the right way, doing the right thing. We aren’t straining to hear the voice of God as though He might motivate us by whispering uplifting words into our minds. We don’t feel holy or spiritual once we’ve been enlightened. Enlightenment works inside in a subtle way, barely noticeable to us in real time.

In practicing God-consciousness, Light enters, becoming a noticeable energy within. This is the inner light spoken of by ancient mystics. It’s real. You feel it. You see it. This Light is not a metaphor for knowledge. We literally light up inside with understanding. Intuitiveness flows via our connection with the Creator’s expression of His will on earth, through us. As this occurs, we are enlightened. We become full of grace. This sounds wonderful, of course.

But no words can adequately describe the experience.

Through enlightenment, life becomes more ordered and peaceful, not artificially by willful conduct, but truly and automatically, without any of our own efforts.

Enlightened doesn’t entail “carrying water and chopping wood,” as some settlement into a life of mediocrity. An enlightened individual may sit as well on a gold throne as he would a wooden stool. It does mean that we go through our days trudging faithfully in our daily affairs, experiencing optimism and gratitude in each moment, while never feeling special along the way.

That is because once awakened, we simply go forward with our daily living as ever we did before. It’s only later when we look back do we see how propitious our course has become.

Living humbly, moment-to-moment leads to enlightenment . . . then enlightenment leads to humbly living, moment-to-moment.

To place ourselves on a pedestal, or to stand on a holy mountaintop, darkens our vision and impedes progress. We revert back to into blindness and lose our protection against anger, hate and fear.