I distinguish between the process of awakening and enlightenment. But they aren’t really two separate processes. They are intimately interwoven and mutually supportive. Have a read and see if this resonates for you too.
Awakening and enlightenment are mutually supportive.
Let’s start with what I mean by awakening and enlightenment.
When you fall asleep, forgetting who you are, forgetting your essential nature, believing you’re primarily a person, it will feel personal and yukky and fearful (stress, frustration, impatience, irritation, anxiety, overwhelm, self-importance or self-flagellation, the need to control, or be right…).
Awakening (as I define it) is the recognition of your essential nature which is absent of any personal yukkiness or fear. It is impersonal. It is good feelings.
If you feel burdened and heavy, believing your conditioned thoughts to be true, and saying something about who you are, you will keep having a difficult, effort-full experience of life. There will be problems and hurdles and repeating patterns that you don’t like — over and over.
Enlightenment (again, as I define it) is the lightening of your conditioned thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. It is the route through these repeating patterns and difficulties to the ease and delightful experience of an enlightened life.
Now here’s how the two are mutually supportive.
We’ll start with awakening.
The more deeply you awaken to your essential nature of impersonal good feelings, the less personal and scary life feels.
The less scary life feels, the less contraction there is in your system, or said another way, the more space there is in your system. This makes it easier for conditioning to be enlightened because there’s space for old patterns of thought, feeling and sensation to move, and be seen, and released.
The more conditioning is enlightened from your system (muck is cleared off the lens) the more clearly you feel your essential nature of impersonal good feelings, i.e. the more deeply you awaken.
A deeper awakening means that the next time something similar happens it feels impersonal, or at the very least it feels less personal, and therefore less scary.
Less personal and less scary means there’s more space. You can be with it more. Which means the conditioned thoughts, feelings and physical sensations are more easily enlightened from your system.
A more enlightened system means you even more clearly feel your essential nature of impersonal good feelings (more muck has been cleared off the lens) – you more deeply awaken.
A deeper awakening means next time something similar happens it feels even less personal and even less scary.
Even less personal and even less scary means there’s even more space…
Are you getting how this is going?
Awakening and enlightenment are mutually supportive.
Which do you want to know more of the ‘how to’ for?
Much love, Helen
P.S. If you want to know the ‘how to’ for awakening, you can begin (or deepen) this with The Complete Book of Awakening. Available on Amazon. And its publishing home is here.
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It is of interest too me, that today I found myself in a situation, where Ross had said that he would open the gates and garage for me when I came home. This had not happened. My thought came, he cannot be good at everything. If I was living on my own I would be doing this for myself anyway. So this diffused the situation for me. Not quite Awakening and Enlightenment, or is it the start!
Hi Llyse, yes it sounds like a great example of enlightenment. Sometimes we create ideas of awakening and enlightenment being something big and fancy but these quiet, simple moments in everyday life are all signs. If you were lost in the mind’s narrative you’d have probably believed a judgmental thought and followed through on its ‘instructions’ about what he’s like, and you might have had a go at him. The fact there was space to allow something more loving to come through shows greater identification as yourself (awakening) and enlightenment of old, stale judgements. By the way, none of this prevents you also being able to say ‘I’d love it if you could open the gate next time, it really helps me out.’ (Or similar) Being in full acceptance of life includes making requests of others and saying no. It’s just the angst, judgement and need has fallen away.