What is Enlightenment?
The first thing to understand about enlightenment is there’s nothing to actually attain. It is truly, “just you,” your natural state.
As we come into this life we gather identities of different kinds. We select what is “me” and what is not “me.” In this way, we need to develop an ego in order to survive. If we want to experience more wellbeing we need to develop a healthy ego and also remember where we came from. Enlightenment is that remembering of our original state. Without this remembering we live in a state of suffering and separation that never satisfies.
I like the image of an optic fiber lamp as a metaphor for enlightenment. Picture our individual human selves as the tiny lights at the ends of the fibers and our enlightened selves (which are in unity with everyone and everyone) as the light that shines in the middle, which also lights up all of our individual selves.
On the outside people don’t perceive that they are joined together in a common consciousness.
On the periphery we suffer tragedies, pain, stress, injustices, and death. In the center there is only never-ending being. When people experience that they are one with this never-ending being it puts everything in perspective.
To illustrate, a very good friend of mine had a profound experience of enlightenment. In this instance, it was like her heart burst open to everything and everyone.
I don’t have words to describe the immense joy that flowed through me, the sensation that came over my body…I was plugged into a high source where the construct of me wasn’t needed, I was pure love and energy…
The following day there was a lady having a screaming fit, I had a flash of her childhood and without any thought started to send her all the love that I could. When she made eye contact with me, she stopped suddenly and her expression changed, a few moments after that she seemed quite confused and left without saying anything more.
The truth is we’re always plugged into that “high source of energy,” but when we realize it everything changes.
We suffer because we feel as if we’re alienated and alone when in fact we’re not. When we let our doing be funded by our being amazing things happen.
Here’s another way to illustrate enlightenment:
It’s a little bit like a character in the painting below waking up to the fact that he is made of paint just like everyone else in the painting. He is united with them in this way via the basic medium of his existence. All his life, he thought of himself as a separate character with unique features and clothing and so forth. But now he discovers that this is all illusion. It’s a trick, so to speak, of light.
Whoah!
As a matter of fact he’s made of the same stuff, paint, that the columns, statues, and sky are made of.
Life is like that. At the most basic level we are not separate from the rest of it. We’re united with everyone and everything. Our consciousness is not actually separate. It’s joined. The only thing that keeps us thinking of ourselves as separate is our own brain. We think of ourselves as separate because we have separate bodies that have survival needs. But we are not our bodies. We are not our brains. We use them, but we are not them. Once we examine the situation, it becomes self-evident.
Enlightenment is seeing things as they are.
- It’s less lonely
- It’s naturally joyful
- It’s freeing
- It helps people be more compassionate
- It helps knock out that dreaded fear of death
- It just feels…lighter!
- It helps release judgment of yourself and others
You can still operate as an individual, do your job, have a partner, have sex, go skiing, raise your kids and all that other great stuff. It’s just that, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it from a place of being connected. The shift cannot be overstated. Look at the stars in the night sky. You are included. Look at the grass growing in the field. You are included. Look at the people. You are included. You belong here. It’s irrevocable. Joy springs forth naturally.
Learn more about awakening sessions
“Working with John was truly profound and deeply transformative! Not only did I awaken, but the connection and unity to All was nothing short of life-altering. I see, hear and feel things differently than I did prior to our session together.” -Shawndra Michell
“Yum-ness and yes-ness as a description of God/Oneness, the sense of holding my core/center…the wonderful sense of moving from skepticism and anxiety toward ease and openness, that my Self-ness was still present during an experience of One-ness.” -Awakening session participant
Below is a video I made early in 2020 with Shawndra. The video was made 3 weeks after our session.