Enlightenment. The word itself is uplifting, even if we are not sure we know how to define it. It's something to which we are sometimes certain we should aspire, but are not really certain how to achieve it or if it's achievable at all.
And then that job interview, date or something really important to us does not shake out as we had hoped and we dismissively ascribe enlightenment to Buddha or Snoopy.
Or to people who would be fulfilled by a life spent in an ashram listening to Enya with incense wafting by all day.
I.e. not to people like us.
The article at the link below is in Yoga Journal Magazine. It demystifies enlightenment a little. Makes it more relatable and relevant.
Even if you do not buy into enlightenment at all, there are many perspectives in here that are still uplifting. Enlightening.
By all means, read the whole thing to see what resonates with you. If you would find yoga-themed anecdotes and jargon off-putting, the following highlights might do the trick.
Link: http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/750
The Search for Enlightenment
Traditionally, the goal of spiritual practice has been to attain enlightenment, but is that what today's seekers are really after?
By Colleen Morton Busch...
Enlightenment Is......Depending on whom you talk to, enlightenment is a sudden, permanent awakening to the absolute unity of all beings or a gradual,back-and-forth process of liberation from the tyranny of the mind. Or both. It is freedom from feelings or the freedom to feel fully without identifying with those feelings. It is unconditional bliss and love, or it is a state devoid of feelings as we know them. It is a shattering of the sense of a separate self, a transcendent experience of unity, a radical freedom available only to the few who are ready to give up everything and surrender the ego to pure awareness.
Buddhists and yogis tend to agree that in a sense we are already enlightened; we are already there. "Enlightenment is really just a deep, basic trust in yourself and your life," says Zen priest Ed Brown. The work that awaits us is stripping away the layers of delusion that we have accumulated through our karma, so that our natural state of peace and wholeness can be revealed. "Enlightenment is not a new state that is in any way obtained or achieved," says Richard Miller, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, "but rather, it entails the uncovering of our original nature that has always been, and always is, present." Or as Robert Svoboda, the first Westerner to graduate from a college of Ayurveda in India, says, "The enlightenment process is much more about getting rid of stuff than grabbing hold of it."To understand how the concept of enlightenment is framed by today's Western ambassadors of the yoga tradition, YJ interviewed five prominent teachers whose practices in yoga and meditation collectively total 125 years and span many traditions...
...When asked how they hold the goal of enlightenment in their own spiritual practices, not surprisingly, they each had unique ways of relating to liberation. But whether they view awakening as rarefied, permanent, and sacrosanct or hard-won, human, and imperfect, they all spoke of enlightenment as coming home to our deepest truths and aspirations...And like most precious gifts, it remains a mystery until we receive it, until our hearts open and do not close.
Stephen Cope: Spiritual Maturity
...Cope measures his progress on the path by how well his practice attenuates greed, hatred, and delusion—the three defilements in Buddhism that are reflected in the five kleshas of the yoga tradition: ignorance, egotism, attraction, aversion, and clinging to life. "You can always ask yourself, "Is this softening my clinging, craving, and holding on? Is it'softening hatred and delusion? If it's not, you've probably gone off track somewhere."As human beings we have just the right balance of suffering and awareness to awaken our determination to practice," says Cope, paraphrasing yoga scriptures. However, as he continues on, we tend to experience the world in pairs of opposites, choosing one experience (the pleasure or gain) and shoving the other (the loss or pain) away..."The solution to the problem of suffering is to expose the roots of suffering and be present. That's why I talk about spiritual maturity instead of enlightenment—because it's a really mature and difficult thing to drop our romantic ideas and just be with what is."
"...But I think the liberation I'm talking about is quieter and less dramatic than the highfalutin goals that are often projected. The goal of freedom from clinging to greed, hatred, and delusion is a very ambitious goal. And any moment in which the mind is not craving or pushing experience away, when we're capable of being fully present, that's a moment of liberation..."
Sally Kempton: Radical Transformation
...Kempton comes from a generation of spiritual seekers who threw themselves into the romance of renunciation...She speculates that unfortunately we may be living in a time when "understanding that attaining enlightenment is not easy might have led people to lose sight of enlightenment and radical transformation as a goal."
...Kempton has known teachers in states of enlightenment...a mode of being characterized by complete mastery of the mind and senses, a steady experience of unity, and "a kind of ecstatic, all-embracing love." That state of ultimate enlightenment is permanent, but, says Kempton, there are also "stations" along the way—moments available to most of us when we "no longer identify with ourselves as a body-mind and experience ourselves instead as free awareness"; when we are not separate from others; when the dichotomy between form and emptiness dissolves; when we are capable of "free, unselfish, loving action" because we are no longer at the mercy of the ego, with its thoughts and feelings...Patricia Walden: Action and Sacrifice
..."Sages and seekers have been trying to define enlightenment for thousands of years. The Hindus say it's fullness, and then the Buddhists say it's emptiness," says Walden. "it's difficult to talk about things one hasn't experienced, but I would say it's our unconditioned state. it's a state of innocence and purity. Maybe we're born with it, but as we grow older, we have more experiences, and it's obscured. By the time we become seriously interested or aspire to enlightenment, there's this veil of avidya [ignorance, the root of suffering]—and a lot of work to do to peel away the layers."
..."Though enlightenment, or freedom, is our birthright, says Walden, whether we reach it or not depends on our karma, our discipline, and how burning our desire is. The various forces in our lives that compete for our energy can pull us off track...But inevitable lapses into negative thinking or doubt need not be heartbreaking. For Walden, they are reminders to be humble and to continually approach the practice anew."
"...Whether or not I reach enlightenment in this life—and according to the Hindus it takes many—it doesn't matter, because there s such tremendous benefit in the journey toward it. I can ask myself 'Who am I?' forever, and the same goes for 'What is enlightenment?' The question is the teaching, and just asking it can bring on transformation."
Sylvia Boorstein: Unconditional Kindness
...These days, many new yogis and meditators enter their practice with a similar expectation—that they will find abundant and perpetual peace, a sort of plastic bubble of tranquility that suffering cannot penetrate. What they find if they stay with the practice, says Boorstein, is that it's not about abolishing pain and suffering, but rather, honing the heart's response to it...
...Boorstein says that if someone had told her when she started that her practice would make her more kind, she would have said, "Listen, that's not my main problem—I'm reasonably kind—I'm tense though!" She now says that kindness is her main intention...she tells the story of an early dharma talk she heard wherein the teacher explained the path as a journey from attention and mindfulness to insight and wisdom and an enlightened understanding of suffering, leading finally to complete compassion..."Practicing compassion can also lead to enlightened understanding, and that in turn can lead to a greater capacity to pay attention."
Boorstein keeps a composite of the Five Precepts taped to her computer and takes them every day before turning it on: "Do no harm to anyone; Take nothing that is not freely given; Speak truthfully and helpfully; Use sexual energy wisely; and Keep your mind clear." She teaches that the goal of practice is not to escape our humanness but to be more genuinely engaged in our lives. "I don't want to be more than a human being," says Boorstein. "I want to be able to forgive myself...it has become more and more obvious to me that my own ability to live with a certain amount of freedom and clarity is directly a condition of my own ability to not create more suffering in the world." When asked to define enlightenment, Boorstein comments that her years of practice have left her with "less of a need to know. There is a kind of humility I have now that I'm both surprised and happy about. I don't feel like I know nearly as much as I used to think I knew." She speaks, in Pay Attention and in person, of "enlightened moments, instances in which I see clearly and choose wisely," more often than she speaks of "total understanding forever." After all, "Each moment is new, and you respond to it anew. It is the first time that moment's ever happened."
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