What Is Enlightenment
- Enlightenment is the complete awareness of life without any mental modifications.
- Enlightenment is happiness -- happiness in the most profound and yet most simple sense.
- Enlightenment is an experience, a journey -- the journey to light, into cosmic consciousness -- to be completely aware of eternity. To be aware not just of this moment or this world, but of timelessness, of space, of organic life and what lies beyond it.
- Enlightenment is something that is real. It’s a journey through the ten thousand states of mind -- a journey that is not accomplished in a single day or moment. Each time you meditate, you take the journey, you become more conscious, you love more, you feel more, you increase your depth. Each time, you gain a happier sense of what it is to live, you gain a little more control over your life, and when you don’t -- and you don’t allow that to discourage you and cause you to give up -- you become a little more enlightened.
- Enlightenment is a journey, a journey into light, a journey into self-knowledge, a journey into beauty, reflection, awareness. The infinitude of being calls us to become conscious of itself.
- Enlightenment is the best of all things, the brightest of all lights. It is union with immortality, timelessness and with the temporal, with all the myriad worlds, planes and things that simply can’t be put into words.
- Enlightenment is not the responsibility of the teacher. It’s your responsibility. You’re the one that wants enlightenment, and you have to do what’s necessary to find it, enter into it. To do that, you have to let go of everything. You have to let go of your ideas about enlightenment, your ideas about teachers and teachings, your ideas about yourself.
- Enlightenment is cumulative. You become a little more enlightened each day as you practice yoga and Buddhism.
- Enlightenment is a journey. It’s a journey that’s made alone. It’s a journey that’s made with a teacher. It’s also a journey that’s made with friends, with other people who are practitioners, who are practitioners of yoga and Buddhism. As you meditate, it’s good to have people around you who are doing the same thing because you help each other not take it not too seriously, and yet you can cause each other to be inspired by each other’s journeys.
- Enlightenment is the state of awareness we reach when our consciousness is one with infinity, with the infinite consciousness of life itself.
- The key to all enlightenment is to have personal experiences in the world of light. All you need to do that is to meditate twice a day; to learn to practice mindfulness; to lead a simple, economical life; to work happily at whatever your tasks are and to use them to help you achieve perfection. And if you’re able to have a teacher, to be with that teacher, try to follow their instructions to the letter, if not more so -- about how to meditate, how to lead a balanced life, how to gain power, wisdom, to have a sense of humor -- the things they show you.
- Meditation is the key to enlightenment. To meditate, to make your mind still and supremely aware, to penetrate the void, the essence, the substance, and go beyond both to what is referred to as the clear light of reality -- clear in the sense that it doesn’t have a definite color; light in the sense that it’s not solid, yet it is, pure energy; reality in the sense that it is that which is most real, that which is actual, meaning it doesn’t change. It’s always here.