What is Enlightenment?

Before I try to speak about enlightenment, I want to say that I can't say anything about it. It is beyond all words, concepts and interpretations. That's why Lao Tzu used to say, "Those who know, don't speak, those who speak, don't know." At the most, I can point in that direction.

Enlightenment is a state of Being in which you become completely non-judgemental and silent as you realize that you are not the doer of anything. You get the ability to perceive the world objectively, as things are. You are no more dependent on external reality to add some extra medals to your shoulders so that you can feel proud of yourself. A sense of contentment dawns upon you.

1. Change is the only constant: Life is a flux and here you cannot hold onto something. People would come, they would go. Happy moments would come and pass away. Similarly, sad moments would come and pass away. Nothing is bad or good. You have nothing to lose as everything is already falling apart and new things are created every moment.  The sense of continuity that you experience is false. You are dying every moment and are born afresh in the next one. 

2. Opposites support each other: Happiness and sadness are like the north and south poles of a magnet. You cannot separate them from each other. Both exist in harmony, although they seem to have contrasting features. Success and failures go hand in hand. You can't be successful if you don't fail and you can't fail if you aren't successful. Similarly, love and hatred are conjoined. Two people who seem to love each other today would hate each other tomorrow and would be seeking divorce. It's only those couples who grow in awareness that manage to come out of this play of opposites. Life is like a pendulum- it swings from left to right, right to left always. 

3. Silence and Stillness can make you Content: Have you seen a theatre screen on which a movie is played? Although the movies have endless emotions and plots playing up, the screen remains untouched. Similarly, on the layer of silence, noise is made and on the layer of stillness, movement is taking place. It is only silence and stillness that has the power to make you content because at the coe of your Being, you are that.

4. Source of Egoic I: Seek the source of your egoic identity. You are not your past memories or your future selves. All these are like the movies playing in front of you. Your real source is the Silence from which you are born and in which you will dissolve someday. Search into the deepest recesses of your being and find that place from where your identity is arising.