The Art of Enlightenment

By Wallace Huey

Many of us imagine that we need to practice a plethora of spiritual disciplines such as Meditation, Qigong, or Yoga so we can progress spiritually. But is this true?

Is there a way we can we work with our everyday circumstances to awaken spiritually? In short - can awakening be treated like an art form?

When we first start on the path of spiritual awakening, we imagine that to attain enlightenment must need some sort of intense discipline, a line of commitment that will take us to our goal. But although enlightenment involves traveling a spiritual path, this is only a metaphor for something infinitely free and beyond description.

However it is true that our life, along with all its challenging circumstances, has been given to us as a training for such a realization.

And I use the word realization quite deliberately, because enlightenment is not something we attain or a goal we reach, rather its something we realize. It’s something suddenly seen. This seeing can be momentary or lasting, however it is true that what we see, even if fleeting, is so powerful that it is life changing in every case.

So what’s involved in this realization?

Firstly I want to emphasize that enlightenment has nothing to do with becoming happy, free of problems or any other sort of imagined benefit.

Enlightenment is a powerfully destructive process - it burns away everything that is not real and true. And that is pretty much everything you are. Like any journey, the journey inward has its wonders and vistas, along with its sadnesses, and grief. The key thing is not to get enamored with any experience along the route, but rather to fully allow the experience and then move on. Life is here to challenge us, not to make us happy. That’s a very important insight to have as we engage in the journey.

The pursuit of happiness is just another desire that brings us suffering!

So how can we dance with life and become realized?

There is no how… but there is an ability to become increasingly skilled at flowing with the circumstances of life in a non resistant manner and as we learn this art, we are guided, as if by an unseen hand onto the path of enlightenment.