Some words carry more than just meaning, they also convey an energy. Often, one single word can mean many different things, depending on who you ask. One such word is ‘enlightenment’. Think about what it means to you for a moment. To be honest, I have not really thought about it too much. Maybe that is because I have not really been searching for its true meaning, nor have I tried to become enlightened. I suppose if I am pushed for an answer, I would say that enlightenment is true insight into the Self. Let me explain. As members of humanity, we all have one thing in common: we are clueless as to how others perceive us. Do you know what others think about you? Has someone told you what is being said behind your back?
The truth is that, since we are all energy beings, we know exactly how others feel about us, or what they say behind our backs. We sense it, we feel it in our bones. We are not all equally adept at hiding what our energy bodies shout out to the world to perceive, but everyone has at least a basic ability to read another’s energy body, sometimes even unknowingly. Another thing we have in common as humans, is that we are very good at lying to ourselves. The things others see in us, are the things we are blind to. It takes decades to unearth the ugly truth about ourselves. Our shadow side, our brokenness, our inner wounding. Others can see our shadow side – to them it is as clear as the light of day. Our brokenness plays out in the various spaces of our life, and the role it forces us to play, gives our audience a clear view of what is hurting inside of us. But audiences seldom care where the pain comes from, they only respond to how the role we play in the particular scene of their own lives, affect them. It is so very easy to be written out of the play of other people’s lives. And then we are left to face the one thing we are all aware of, deep inside. Our inner wounding.
Of course we can work on our shadow side and we can try to heal our brokenness. But tracing back our steps until we get to our inner wounding, is the true path to self-healing. Unfortunately that takes great courage. Mostly we slap on a really thick plaster or invest in a bandage early on in our lives, usually shortly after we become aware of this wound. And then we protect our wound, and sometimes change the bandage. But eventually, we realise that it is simply easier to pretend that there is no wound. The bandage becomes an accessory, and at some point it becomes a part of our whole, of our oneness.
If we are lucky, life knocks us around a bit until we eventually realise that the bandage has become frayed, and has never served any real purpose, other than to suppress the presence of a wound that has to heal. Only then can the work begin. And as we bravely set out into the shadows of our own psyche, we begin to see tiny points of light showing the way. We are guarded, guided, and loved, and so eventually we find our way out of the darkness, no longer afraid. Because we have travelled the path to face what originally led to our inner wounding. We let the Self walk out of the shadows, and we allow it to mend what was broken, unafraid to clean the wound that has remained hidden for so long.
And then, finally, as we look out onto a new world from the vantage point of our own healed space, we know that enlightenment is simply insight into the Self. Then we begin to exist in a space where we know ourselves so well, that no one else’s view matters, and neither does it matter what ‘they’ say. The Self and the space it occupies, become a safe harbour with calm waters, where quiet strength pulses from deep within.
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