+ENLIGHTENMENT+

Q: What is enlightenment? Is it a laudable and attainable goal? How do I obtain, rediscover or remember my enlightenment. I desire to be more firmly on a path of spirituality yet find that I am too easily distracted.

There are many different views of what it means to be enlightened, but the view I would give you is that it is a state to be attained by the very few, if any at all. To be totally and completely enlightened would mean that you have completely pierced the veil which separates the physical and spiritual planes and that you comprehend all in its totality. To be completely enlightened would mean to be freed from the physical plane and merged into the all, the great silence, the one which contains all that is.

I would ask you to assume that you will not be one of the very few who reaches this highly unusual state, but instead that you simply work to become more connected to your own soul self, allowing more energy from the spiritual to flow down into this physical life.

Your goal should be very simple: to achieve a well of peace inside that stays with you during the day; to be connected enough to the spiritual that you are not thrown about with emotional turbulence, but instead walking your path in peace and joy and love, but yet also being a part of this physical life and all that entails.

A pure state of enlightenment is one in which the physical loses its meaning as a separate entity. This is not likely to be your goal or your destiny. It is more likely that what you will achieve is to walk your physical path with peace and calm inside, and a sure knowledge that what happens in your physical life makes sense, though perhaps at a level you do not quite understand.

Your goal should be to live a fulfilling life, one in which you are doing things which you believe make a life worth living. And to live a life of integrity, one in which what you feel deep inside, your true self, is in accord with what you do and say in your life. A life of deep integrity is a life without anxiety, because you have replaced fear with love and self-knowledge and are acting in accordance with what feels right in your deepest core. A life of integrity is a life without internal conflict, because you know what to do and are
doing it.

Of course, such a life is not without its challenges, for it takes some time to build up enough faith to know that doing what your truth tells you to do is in fact the right action. You may be surrounded by people who are telling you quite the opposite, and it takes a good deal of courage to act on what you know you must do, from an inner drive, as opposed to what will bring you the most recognition or what will be the easiest path in terms of compliance with the desire and demands of others.

As for being easily distracted, perhaps you are referring to difficulty in meditating. Do not burden yourself with expectations. Having a busy mind is a perfectly normal thing. When your mind chatters away, just let it be. Let each thought come in and go out and merely observe them floating by. Do not strive to prevent their flow. Your mind will do what it will do. Seek only to distance yourself a bit and to gently watch the thoughts entering your mind and going out the other side, without getting worried about it. Meditation for you will be what it is. Do not assume that you are doing it well or not well. You are doing it your way.

You may experiment with many different kinds of meditation and choose what works best for you. Know that even if the exercise itself is not a great state of bliss-and for most it is not-it still has an effect. And that if you will but spend the time meditating, it will
eventually help you to build up a pool of peace deep inside and to gain control over your emotions, so that you are deep into the ocean, swimming down among the glowing fishes, rather than up on the surface tossed to and fro with each wave which comes along.

Do not try and strive to be enlightened. Just learn to know yourself and love yourself, learn to find some peace building up inside, live your life directed by love instead of fear, faith instead of doubt, and you will do well indeed.

You are here because you have chosen to live this life. Enjoy it! Help yourself enjoy it by learning who you are, deep inside, by listening to that quiet voice which is you. And as for your soul self, that higher self within and without you, yes, of course you are fully
enlightened at that level, knowing all, seeing all, being all. And at the level higher than this you are one with all. And you will regain this state when you die and transition out of this physical state, but you are already there now as well, and when you meditate and open yourself to the flow of energy from your soul self you can sometimes get just a little touch of the feeling of what it must mean to be like this, to be in a state of grace, of love, joy and peace, at all times.


				*+ENLIGHTENMENT+*