Enlightenment Law # 24

...It is our most sacred task, to be Light and to bring Light. Could this be so hard? What allows it and what prevents it?  

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Enlightenment card 

        (cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)

What makes us believe we are enlightened, or not? 

How do you evaluate someone else's degree of Enlightenment? 

Who radiates light among the people in your life?

As you experiment with this Law for the next ten days, be playful. Solemness is no substitute for genuine Enlightenment. Being able to laugh at yourself, and the human condition, seems to be a prerequisite for those on the Enlightenment quest. 

Have you heard the Zen saying?

Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

What is meant by this?

When you broach the subject of Enlightenment with family and friends in the coming days, co-create a list of enlightened qualities. Then list who has them, especially the capability to enlighten others. 

Review your beliefs, assumptions and expectations about Enlightenment. 

Is it possible to become enlightened without meditation and isolation? 

Does the Process require a guru or teacher? Many teachers? 

How long does it take to become an enlightened being? 

Is any single practice guaranteed to produce Enlightenment?   

Decide how important Enlightenment is to you, during these next ten days and what, if anything, you plan to do about it, in the time you have left. Here's some enlightening advice from the wise ones.

Is there a fear of enlightenment in some societies? For example in societies which focus their energies on materialism, possession, consumerism, and time-based activities? I think there is, and it might be called phobosophy, the fear of wisdom. In short, what is the opposite of enlightenment and where did it come from?

Thomas Clough Daffern (1956 - ) Welsh educator, author and peace advocate

Enlightenment is…one part physical study of Awareness, one part mental application of truth, one part Cosmic Kiss.

Meredith Young-Sowers, in her Spirit Heals book

In general, all the steps toward enlightenment are mind reforms. This mind of ours must be cultivated and transformed. There are methods of doing so…. our real enemy is our own inner habit of self-preoccupation... A blade wheel is a very fierce image for mind reform… exposing the self-preoccupation and self-addiction habits, underlying all my other bad habits… It causes damage—serious, blessed damage to narcissism, vanity, the self-habit.

Robert Thurman in Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious... This is disagreeable and therefore unpopular.

C. G. Jung

I had hoped to get instructions in Yoga…but what the teacher did was mainly to force me to face the darkness within myself; and it almost killed me.

Irina Tweedie

To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied. To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation.

Reginald A. Ray in Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body

The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.

Albert Einstein

Gaining enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon doesn't get wet; the water isn't broken... The whole moon and the sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Dogen

Since ‘there is really no duality, separation is unreal.  Until duality is transcended and at-one-ment can be realized, enlightenment will not be attained.

Padmasambhava (8^th century)

Not two.  In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where. Enlightenment means entering this truth… in a single thought is ten thousand years.

Sengstan 3^rd Zen Patriarch

(Non-duality comes from transcending duality)

I spent years trying to be a holy, solemn monk. It was so artificial, unnecessary, and, in retrospect, goofy. I was trying to glow in the dark while in truth everything was naturally radiant.

Josh Baran in The Tao of Now

Liberation is… another name for enlightenment… Enlightenment is not morally neural; the will to enlightenment is the most profound commitment a spiritual seeker can make. The experience of enlightenment is the end game, so to speak, if there is one, of the spiritual journey… We need to begin talking about Enlightenments, rather than spending futile energy disputing whether Eastern or Western enlightenment is better, whether Sufism, or Christianity or Buddhist, or Mahayana or Theravada or Zen – is the quickest way to enlightenment. … We need a methodology that enables us to remain true to all our separate and diverse enlightenments… It may be that all of us are tapping into a substratum of collective transpersonal consciousness, which is one, yet appears as many. …this perception of unity is one of the tell tale signs of genuine enlightenment.

Thomas Clough Daffern (1956 - ) Welsh educator, author and peace advocate

As more and more enlightened people take over powerful positions in all areas and fields of governments, businesses, economics, education and communities the nearer we will be to the coming Golden Age. The Golden Age will come about only when many people are enlightened and live in harmony with universal laws.

Margo Kirtikar, Ph.D, Flowing with Universal Laws

In ten days, we'll take up the 25th Law of Creativity, which is more enjoyable when we've done our Enlightenment work.