What Is Enlightenment REALLY?

We have this false notion that enlightenment is a state of perpetual bliss. It is the complete transcendence of all negative states/feelings and the abiding in a state of constant love, peace and happiness. It is the eternal ecstasy of some heavenly nirvana. This could not be further from the truth.

Enlightenment is not found in removing oneself from the ups and downs, the highs and lows of daily existence, but instead it is found in learning how to ride these waves with ease, grace and effortless flow. Instead of trying to become free from something, you become free with the very thing you were trying so desperately to escape. You recognize the underlying freedom that was always your inherent truth, your essential reality beyond the surface level of constant change, of gain and loss, birth and death. And thus you are able to transcend suffering, which always stems from a resistance to what is in the here and now.

Enlightenment is not about reaching a finish line, but instead it is about committing to a process, it’s about improving 1% every day, it’s the small steps that lead to great strides and shifts within oneself and the collective. Yes, enlightenment is found in the here and now, as this is all there ever is, but at the same time, the here and now is perpetually expanding, at least in terms of its manifested aspect, and so your degree of enlightenment is perpetually expanding as well.

You could look at presence, the awareness of the eternal now and the recognition of yourself as pure formless consciousness, as the foundation of a building. With this foundation, you are free to build the actual structure of the building in whatever way you so choose. It is like the parable given by Jesus, of the man who built his house on the sand and the man who built his house upon the rocks. Yet the foundation is only one aspect of the creation itself. The building can always be improved upon, it can always be refined and reformed, made more beautiful, more magnificent, more perfect. There is no end to its expansion into greater levels of divine brilliance. The process is eternal, it is infinite.

Enlightenment is a receding horizon. The closer you get, the more you realize that there is still further to go. It is a reflection of the divine paradox, being that you are already whole, complete and perfect in this moment, yet simultaneously you can always improve, learn more, do more, better yourself into an even more perfect reflection of the most high. There is no end to the infinite potential that you are.

Enlightenment can also be found in all areas of life. There is enlightenment in art, in music, in health, wealth, fitness and relationships. This enlightenment comes from gaining a greater understanding and awareness in these areas of life, both informationally and experientially. It is the path of mastery. Like the old christian term gnosis, meaning knowledge. This divine and sacred knowledge was recognized as the key to salvation. Knowledge of one’s true identity as the one eternal God Self, and knowledge in all areas of human existence in which one wishes to thrive.

So enlightenment is not some elated retirement, it is not the party after arriving at the finish line, instead it is a dynamic process, it is a flow, a surrender to the expression of life force energy emanating from the One, allowing divine grace to carry you where it will, wherever is in the highest divine order for your greatest enlightenment.

Much peace and love,

Bodhi

The End of Suffering

"There is the state of being wrapped up in or identified with something, then there is the state of detached witnessing, and then there is the merging with it and the becoming of it; your presence transmutes it into itself. This point is the end of all suffering."

The unwillingness to experience even the worst hell is literally what creates it, as the resistance we have to suffering is what holds it in place. An open willingness to explore all experiences and sensations that could ever be is the essence of enlightenment.

The original polarity was the split between the essence and the experience, or the observed and the observer. This then fractured infinitely into a fractal of polarized reality, the mind being a by-product of such. We, as the eternal underlying essence, then lost ourselves in this fragmented and fractalized reality experience so that we could recognize ourselves once again to gain a higher level of self-awareness. It is a perfect ever-evolving eternal process of expansion and evolution both within and without. Both on the level of experience and the level of awareness, as both are perfect reflections of eachother.

This polarity is what in fact gives rise to all of creation. Nothing could be without it, there would be no matter, no sensation and no experience. It is the original split or division that occurred within the space of consciousness when it first had the desire to know itself. This polarity exists on an energetic spectrum. Everything in experiential reality is the same substance expressed at different frequencies, or imbued with ever-changing information. Hot and cold are really the same thing, just expressed differently. This difference in expression is what gives rise to the conception of duality.

Polarity is what gives birth to the conception of the "self" and the "other", both being mind-based perceptual delusions. The belief in the "other" gives rise to the feeling of separation and fear. We fear that which we feel is outside of our control, that which we feel is separate from us. But how could anything be separate from you if it all arises within your own consciousness, your own awareness? All that could ever be must be within the space of your consciousness, for nothing could exist without a witness for its existence. Your truest self is the space in which all that is arises, and all that arises is an inseparable part of that. So in reality, there is no other. There is only you.

Reality itself is an ever-flowing expression of life-force energy which perpetually emanates from the one. The movement occurs in a toroidal flow pattern, whereas the center point is the singularity of consciousness or awareness. Creation bursts forth, projects itself as an externalized reality experience, and is then perceived and received as the cycle repeats. This occurs at such a rapid rate that we have no conscious awareness of it. It appears to happen instantaneously.

In the picture above, you could think of one half of the sphere as being positive and the other half as being negative. Reality is the interplay of these two polarized forces, and so long as we believe in it and identify with it as being real or "self", we are stuck in this polarized dance of highs and lows, expansions and contractions, joys and sorrows. When we recognize our true Self as the singularity, we integrate polarity into the wholeness of the Self and transcend it all together.

When you surrender to the entire spectrum of happiness and suffering, of pain and joy, you transcend it by experiencing it all simultaneously. The way in which black is not truly a color, but is the absence of color because it absorbs the entire light spectrum, the state you achieve is not so much a feeling or emotion but rather all feelings and none simultaneously; it is the peace that passes all understanding. That which Jesus described as heaven and the Buddha described as nirvana. In other words, it is the end of suffering and the beginning of your liberation as a self-actualized being free to experience the infinite magnitude of creation in whatever way you choose.