How Can You Tell If Someone is Enlightened?
By Wallace Huey
If you met an enlightened person on the street you could not tell that they were enlightened. They look ordinary. They do not come across as weird in any way. But you could tell they were enlightened as you got to know them.
An enlightened person is like a baby. So let's look at the qualities of a baby and use these qualities to explore what an enlightened person is like.
A baby is…
Loving
Defenseless
Flexible
Trusting
Free of conceptual thinking
Completely spontaneous
Without a sense of itself
So let's look at each of these in turn and then see from them what we can learn about an enlightened person...
A baby is loving
Why do we all love babies so much? Why are we drawn to them like a magnet? Its because babies are naturally so loving. We pick them up, hug them and talk nonsense with them just to see their responses. Babies are people magnets.
An enlightened person is similar.
An enlightened person is loving just like a baby. That’s why people are drawn to them. They do not need advertising and publicity. You feel you can be yourself around an enlightened person, because they are not judging you. You can have have innocent fun with an enlightened person, similar to how you can with a baby, maybe play hide and seek or talk nonsense just for the joy of it.
A baby is defenseless
When you are with a baby, you know you could reach out to strike them, or your could insult them - but you wouldn’t. Why? Because they represent no threat to you. Because a baby is defenseless.
An enlightened person is similar.
When you are in the company of an enlightened person, you feel remarkably safe. So you drop your defenses. You maybe tell them things you have not told anyone else. You trust them - you may even feel you can trust them with your life.
A baby is flexible
If the parents want to move out of town, the baby will happily go with them. If they want to go to a different holiday destination from last year, the baby will tag along. The baby has few preferences of its own, it is quite happy to go with the flow of life.
An enlightened person is similar.
When in any situation, an enlightened person is not overly concerned with what he wants to happen, but rather senses what naturally wants to happen in the best interests of all concerned. He then goes along with that - perhaps acting to facilitate events moving in this direction.
A baby is trusting
You can pick a baby up, throw him in the air, bounce him up and down. He will not complain, he will laugh and enjoy the experience. A baby trusts life and the people around him to look after him and to take care of him. He has no fear and is not striving to succeed out of a sense of want or lack.
An enlightened person is similar.
An enlightened person rarely works in a regular job. Because he is surrounded by people whom he loves and who in turn love him, he finds all his needs are met abundantly. The enlightened person trusts that through his network of loving relationships all his needs for his projects and also his personal needs will be provided for.
A baby is free of conceptual thinking
When among people, or on his own, a baby is not trying to work things out. He does not create concepts in his mind and then try and see if they are true or persuade others to agree with them. A baby simply exists, as himself and makes no apology for his presence or behaviour.
An enlightened person is similar.
An enlightened person lives in Presence. His is a life lived in the moment. He is well able to take what lies around him, in the form of ideas, resources and people and form them so they meet whatever are the needs of that moment. Although his life is always challenging, for him it is easy and effortless because he is a channel for the creative spirit that animates all of creation - a spirit that may use conceptual thought, but essentially lives beyond it.
A baby is completely spontaneous
A baby is who he is, free as himself. He does not censor himself before he acts, he has no inner control mechanism. When he feels like crying, he cries. When he feels like laughing, he laughs. When he feels hungry, he eats. When he wants to sleep he sleeps. A baby has no need to impose a discipline on himself. He is unpredictable and free as a bird. That’s what makes him both challenging and endearing.
An enlightened person is similar.
When an enlightened person acts, it is because he knows he must. When he is silent, its because that’s what the situation requires. You will never work out an enlightened person. You cannot predict his behaviour. He is a law onto himself, because he is completely spontaneous and authentic. His authenticity, although sometimes challenging, shines like a beacon in a world governed by falsehoods and self seeking behaviour. What is truly remarkable about an enlightened person, is that he always acts spontaneously even when his behaviour upsets others, some of whom may turn against him. His love is so great that he will risk his own reputation, welfare and benefit to have an authentic relationship with you. That is why, in a dry and cynical world, he offers a very rare and precious love.
A baby is without a sense of itself
Whereas the baby will have been given a name by his parents, the baby knows nothing of this. Nor does the baby have a memory of his past or aspirations for his future. This gives the baby an open and vacant little being. The baby exists completely in the now. The baby knows nothing of who he is or what he is. The baby simply is.
An enlightened person is similar.
An enlightened person’s sense of identity is vague, just enough memory to function in the world and just enough planning to catch the bus! Who or what he is, long ago ceased to interest him. Existence is where he lives and has his being. A blessed piece of life - aware and whole, full and empty, here and now. Beyond you and me. Beyond yours and mine. Beyond good and bad. Beyond suffering. Beyond all descriptive power.
Beyond most people’s experience of life on Earth.
This gives the enlightened person a beautiful ethereal Presence. You can sense there is something different about them that is impossible to describe.
So we can see that how a baby is in the world and how an enlightened person is in the world are very similar. And that’s what makes both of them so fascinating and attractive.
Further your understanding...
Why Do the Enlightened Have Very Different Needs?
You Come to Enlightenment Through Failure
You Know You’ve Arrived When Everyone Ignores You!
The Future of Humanity and the Birth of a New Golden Age
Link: The Goal That Does Not Exist!
Resource: The Path of Non-Resistance
Resource: The Wisdom of the Woods
Master any life challenge!
Pick the challenge that most applies to you...
And turn what is your most stressful situation into a breakthrough!
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