now some people see enlightenment for sages and mystics, that it brings a person further away from reality and that enlightened people are above everyone, which is a completely false perception. enlightened people are just like everyone else. however, this article states that “Part of the problem is Enlightenment can mean many things. Bringing light to dark places, bringing clarity, and perceiving the truth are a few different interpretations. But ultimately, Enlightenment is understanding your true nature. It’s the realization that you are not a separate ego, you are the eternal, unbounded energy of the universe.” The same article explains that enlightenment helps you realize:

* Death and birth are an illusion.
* Life is a dream with the brain awake.
* Beliefs are subjective. Something is only true if you believe it is.
* Life is essentially one, everything is consciousness.
* You are eternal and there is no reason to fear death, or anything for that matter. Essentially, if you are experiencing fear, there’s a bug in your consciousness.
* What you do to others, you are really doing to yourself.
* You know yourself through the difference of others, you perceive in others the reflection of yourself. i.e. if you think everyone else is an asshole, it just might be you.
* Because we are all one, compassion and love become the highest principles.

so in reality it means “living life more fully, passionately and fearlessly.” these are all characteristics which i have begun to see in my own life over the past year or two as my own personal growth evolves. in addition to those points above, there are also a series of agreements i have made with myself to recover my personal freedom again: using the power of my word to go with myself rather than against it; never taking anything anyone does or says personally; no longer make assumptions as it only creates a lot of unnecessary drama in the end (don’t assume others know what i’m thinking or how i feel), don’t believe myself and my inner voice of knowledge when that voice is used against me; and, listen to what other people have to say, but don’t believe what they tell me unless i feel they are speaking from their integrity.

i wouldn’t say i am totally enlightened, but definitely feel that with these ideas in mind that it is the direction i am heading towards in order to bring about a greater feeling of inner peace.

he then relates this situation with his grade school days when in elementary school… looking back at how much of a waste of time everything was now that we realize it. he suggests that it was a huge waste of time “learning addition, long division, multiplication tables, the revolutionary war, over…and over…and over again…1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade…on and on and on. oh to think about all the other things that could’ve been learned! like maybe something about world history? foreign languages? art theory/practice? the possibilities are endless. now as sad as that is to think about the waste of a child’s mind in the hands of an educational system that caters to the lowest common denominator, would i not be repeating the same pattern as an adult if i just kept going to church every week of my life getting spoon-fed the same words in exactly the same way every week?”

this is very similar to how i feel about things. if you compare our education system in the united states with those in foreign countries, especially across europe and eastern asia, ours definitely is put to shame. in a way i feel like i’ve been robbed of the ability to gain a more diverse wealth of knowledge and education. why aren’t we taught a lot more while we are younger and more capable of remembering/learning it? why don’t we have the ability to learn a foreign language until high school rather than during elementary school which would be much easier? why don’t we value the power of knowledge as much as we should? for most people, learning ends once they graduate… especially if only graduating from high school. that’s not what life is about. we should be curious… questioning everything and needing to know more about the world that surrounds us. we should be learning throughout our entire lives, which is why i don’t think many people are an expert at anything… being an expert suggests one is all-knowing. no one is all-knowing; there will always be something more and a deepening personal evolution before us.