The Search For Enlightenment: 5 Crucial Lessons… And Why None Of It Actually Matters

by Conscious Reminder

I’ve been on my spiritual journey for quite some time now. I was on pursuit of enlightenment, but somehow, it was always out of reach. I would feel like I was almost there, and it would slip my fingers. It was frustrating and unlike anything I thought ‘enlightenment’ should feel. That was until I decided to drop everything. That was the very moment I came to realize many of my truths, and I would like to share with you, what I believe to be the 5 most important lessons on your journey to enlightenment. 

Divinity

Even in early childhood I knew there was more to life than what we were presented with. I would spend hours and hours reading about the great teachers and masters, trying to comprehend what meditation was and how it could help me on my spiritual path.

It wasn’t, yet, quite clear to me what this path should look and feel like, since I was just a child. My young mind created all this fantasies about having God-like powers like walking on water or healing people. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t dreaming about becoming a superhero, I, simply believed that all human beings can manifest these powers, which were laying dormant within every single one of us.

To be honest, I had no idea what God was. My pictured of it was formed by whatever rather limited spiritual literature I found and read. I believed that god was this omnipresent and omnipotent force residing everywhere.

I began meditating at a young age inspired by stories of those who attained enlightenment through meditation, or obtained divine guidance in meditations. To me, meditation was one of the paths that would lead me to that enlightened place.

For quite some time I believed that my devoted practice will result in a magnificent encounter with some ascended master or energy from another dimension that would share the secrets of the universe with me, but it never happened. No one ever came!

No divine beings, no angels, no masters, no energies…

Later in life, when my actual awakening took place, my soul remembered…I learned my first lesson. I realized the divinity I had been looking for has been inside me all along, and it is inside all of us.

Dream

We did not come here to play God, that would be too easy and almost pointless like taking an exam after having been given the answer key. We came here to play non-God.

In Chinese mythology, there is a Lady of Forgetfulness called Meng Po and she serves the realm of the dead. She brews a special bittersweet drink called Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness so that each soul, before it leaves the realm of the dead to reincarnate into a new body, drinks the tea of instant amnesia and forgets who he/she was and all the memories are lost.

This is obviously a folk story, but it seems this is what happens when we choose to take on the human body. Within us are the swirling universe and all its mysteries, yet it is much more exciting for us to go on this unpredictable adventure pretending we are mere mortals.

After all, how convincing can a play get if the actors are constantly behaving like themselves without acting, drama and an interesting plot full of twists and turns? 

Nothing

The pursuit of enlightenment can easily be mistaken for an objective, an idea, an experience, or a way of life, but it is none of these things. The great paradox here is that enlightenment is No-Thing.

The moment we place words, thoughts, feelings or actions around it, we are distracting ourselves with form when in truth, each one of us, and everything at the core is infinite, unmanifested and formless No-Thing dreaming ourselves to be something.

Enlightenment is not something to be had, found or owned. It has nothing to do with superiority or wisdom, and if one is not careful, he or she can easily get lost in the search for enlightenment while missing the entire forest for the sake of staring at one tree while having forgotten that in the ultimate reality, there is neither forest nor tree.

Everything

Everyone and everything, whether manifested or un-manifested is an extension of the One Source Energy channeled in its infinite number of expressions.

If One is the ocean that is all inclusive where all beings, particles and experiences are birthed, then every human being no matter the skin color or background, every living thing whether a puppy or rose, every inanimate object be it a rock that is being washed by the waves or the waves themselves, and every expression, idea and inspiration is just a different manifestation and aspect of the ocean. Within each drop contains the entire ocean, and it does not matter what the drop looks like, its essence remains the same all along.

Looking for enlightenment is like looking for consciousness when we are the consciousness. The search for enlightenment yields evasive results because we are enlightenment, looking. 

Self

It is through our bodies, minds and souls that Oneness experiences itself. Through our eyes, Source is seeing the beauty of its own grand creations. Through our ears, the divine orchestra of all sounds is composing its most seductive melody. When we taste the sweetness and bitterness of life, Source is ravishing in the deliciousness of life itself.

With our every thought, feeling, decision and action, Source is ever deciding, evolving, creating, expanding and revering at its own infinite creative power.

The Self is merely the vehicle through which Source can receive its miraculous experiences of creation, and every experience is to be savored. Within the Self contains every concept, invention, desire, need, experience, choice, possibility and outcome. Nothing is outside of Source, hence nothing is outside of the Self.

Though the dual human mind may deem certain experiences negative, unspiritual and unenlightened; in the perspective of Source, everything is a gift that allows it to express, fulfill, be and become.