Enlightenment - Fact or Fiction?
31/10/2008

By Franklyn Birbal

Can Enlightenment be truly discovered? What is this Enlightenment that people are talking about, what are its implications for the individual and humanity as a whole? Can it have any basis in Fact?

The English general use of the term means to the common usage of, “something that has really occurred or is the case”. Fact is also synonymous with truth or reality, as distinguishable from conclusions or opinions. This use is found for instance in the phrase Matter of fact, and in "... not history, nor fact, but imagination."

Or is it just another work of fiction “Fiction is the telling of stories which aren't real”. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative.

Enlightenment has been talked about through out the ages, it has been the goal or aspiration of many spiritual seekers. Some aspect of the spiritual being is seeking something and it doesn’t quite know what it is. The spiritual seeker can find them selves exploring their own personal reality in search of something greater than they think they are some true meaning to life.

This exploration can take the form of Meditation from any of the many traditions and new spiritual pathways. You could find your self, depending on where you live on the planet, working through the process of awakening in one of the many religions, living your truth according to how your religious truth sees the understanding of the phenomenal existence. Originally for most is an indefinable sense that there is a something hidden, a truth about this reality, and from this we seek another reality; an ultimate reality that can explain existence. Are we, however, sitting in the very reality you are looking for?

The word enlightenment has been through much pondering by many teachers and seekers, and some claim to know what it is. The word has grown to mean all knowingness, all power, or omnipotence, all seeing, hearing, after all this is enlightenment, the highest of the highest. These stories are purely the work of fiction.

They have no basis in fact, there is no person who has this ability and if they say they do run the other way as quickly as you can, for they are surely a charlatan, be ready to be taken for every penny you have, loaded on ultra expensive retreats in far of countries, sharing oneness.

What is true about the said in Enlightenment is much simpler than what is being said, for me Enlightenment is a subject that no one can really talk about, because for enlightenment to be there can be no you. It is supposed to be the embodiment of the unknown, in that case, there is no person who is fully realized or in Enlightenment, and thus in the end no guru to seek, no student teacher relationship to have.

It is a subject that has no ownership, that has no basis in fact, yet it is not a work of fiction. The true existence in its entirety can never be known, it is rooted in mystery.

Its very nature is unfathomable, and yet for “reason” arising from the unknown there can be a feeling of self, and it can and does feel like home as there is no mistaking that for those seekers that have fallen away enough to allow the deep mystery to be.

Ultimately an awakened being has no power of his or her own, is it rooted in mystery. They have no facts to give, accepted pointing to the amazing deep unfolding of what it is. And this is what we have with teachers, and from the point of view of awakening the unknown continues to embody for the rest of their life. They have experience, through creation all the movement mystery knows itself. It sees divine intention arising for creation in each and every moment, and through are window of humanness we can gleam are true nature by awakening through form, for some reason awakening happens, maybe apart of mysteries plan, a form goes to sleep in the experience of its self, then it awakens. It sees what is like to play this dance.

Science will never know, now matter how many theories they develop or have, they will only ever end in zero, the ultimate principal, they will say that the nothing is nothing, and they may never actually bear testimony to proving the existence of God. No made instrument can prove God, it is for each being to experience there own being, to find the one, the home of nowhere. We have our experiences, which are events in space and time.

Yet enlightenment is beyond experience. For how would we ever communicate to and share with the apparent other, if not through form. It is a non experience and cannot really be talked about; though it can be pointed at, which is different. Awakening does happen, at least it appears to, until we discover that even in awakening are but temporal, door opening on to a much larger continuing revelation, and even our own awakening can seem a little bit insignificant.

What, I ask, is more important than the awakening of the whole? True awakening can awaken you to a life of service, where the evolution of the whole is a much bigger awakening, as you realize your nature you naturally unfold into the awakening of the whole of the universal awakening, the awakening of humanity. So is there an Enlightenment? That can be known, or is it a work of fiction?

If there is an enlightenment, then the closest we may come to it is to collectively realize self. What remains after all is gone? Before all has begun. It is like looking, if we could ever experience it, straight into a black whole, with every event, experience and even the sense of self disappearing, as we try to drop into the singularity. What remains is that what we are? Before the first light is turned on. Are we able to see are self in the mirror?

Enlightenment is beyond fact and before fiction, There is no one who is enlightened. It is an absolute paradox and self aware mystery, my only hope is that this article gives fuel for the fire and may all teachings die a great death, let us burn asunder in a nakedness, and step through the door with empty pockets.

Falling free with total abandon.

With Love

Franklyn Birbal MIPTI Awake teacher and healer

www.Holistichealingarts.co.uk

Mobile 07960 999 461

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