Enlightenment

In Ode Magazine this month there was an article by Tijn Touber. After all his meditation exercises, guru's and mindfulness experiences he's finally arrived at the inevitable conclusion: "I am already enlightened." All the spiritual practises and training is actually keeping us from knowing this. At the heart of the matter, there's nothing other than: we are already enlightened.

When I was about 16 I was a prolific reader. People at the library got to know me, even to the extend that they offered me my first job ever: putting books back on those shelves. A bit of a bookworm I was in those days. I still enjoy reading a lot but it's never been like those days because I figured something out pretty soon. All the psychology books, all the self-help and sociology books, even the romance novels I read were about one thing only: Being human.

Being catapulted into enlightenment like Tijn talks about in Ode reminded me of something my good friend and mentor Tom Crum used to say. "We are already connected"
We don't end where our skin ends. Recent discoveries in quantum mechanics show that something of who you are gets absorbed into your surroundings, a measurable quantity of you remains in a room even if you only spend an hour there. And I assume something of your surroundings gets absorbed into you. That means that at least a little bit of who I am becomes part of who you are. Hurting you is tantamount to hurting myself. We are already connected. Enlightenment, indeed being human is about accepting that connectedness.

Enlightenment, in my opinion, is the recognition that we're all part of this great quantum soup, each of us a drop in the ocean. Each of us with our own individual beauty and part of a greater truth at the same time. When those two beliefs are united within us, that's when you are enlightened.

I believe I'm enlightened, although I'd say I'm a part-timer at it :-). It's all too easy to get caught up in our littleness, our separateness and loose sight of the fact that we're also the great ocean of abundance. It's like I know that I am the light, or at least part of the light, but I get caught up making sure my lampshade is good enough. Oh well, I'm only human...