Let’s take a little look at what is meant by the word ‘enlightenment’. Many people have a concept of enlightenment being something that only people from India or Tibet (etc) can have, because we here in the western world don’t have the mind-set or gurus (Teachers) to help us on the path to enlightenment. And enlightenment doesn’t fit into our modern, technological, and wholly materialistic culture that we spend every spare second and dollar chasing.

Generally, we tend to think of those who seek enlightenment in our culture as new-agers, dreamers, weirdos and losers who may live a fantasy existence with no basis in reality, if they aren’t already certifiably insane. Added to this is another general perception that you need to spend years meditating in caves to reach enlightenment. And if you are into thinking this perception then you’ll probably spend the rest of your years enjoying this enlightened state in your cave, all the while thinking you are helping others awaken because you ‘attained’ the state in the first place.

Enlightenment is a hard to discern thing for most people which is really something very simple. For me it means being able to open up to the light of higher awareness, at will. En-lightening is to have access to more Light, and therefore insight, understanding, empathy and loving capacity.

It’s important to remember this also, Enlightenment is not like a trophy! It isn’t something you experience and then are always enlightened. It is something you can experience initially, and then you must choose to work at it and with it, for service to humanity. What service you choose is also up to you. Otherwise, it’s a wasted experience if you do nothing with it.

There really is no mystery to it. Making things a mystery was a control mechanism, so very few people ever came to understand how easily we can open-up to higher awareness and experience enlightened states in our day to day lives here.