Ross Edwards: Coach, Author, FounderThis short text is an extract from Chapter 2 of my upcoming book, The Boundless Body, published with Collective Ink Books. Here I describe enlightenment, the ultimate fruition of the body awareness work I teach in the book, based on my 5 Levels of Being.
My goal is to help people become enlightened and inhabit the Source levels of consciousness, and to aid this process I will put forward my own definition of enlightenment based on the model I have just outlined. Though I am aware that this definition contains contradictions, I believe it is a sound working definition that will keep people doing the work required to reach those levels, as the ascension schools advocate. When they do, they may well realise that my definition is in fact a giant contradiction, and that their path was ultimately pathless. All the better if they do, I say.
I will define an enlightenment experience as a temporary glimpse of the Source levels. I will define enlightenment as the ongoing development and stabilisation of Source consciousness. I will also define an enlightened person as someone who has some level of stable Source consciousness. Essentially, the more deeply you embody Source consciousness, first the Original Face and then Allness, and the more broadly and deeply you embody it in your life, the more enlightened you are.
Notice I have defined enlightenment not as a glimpse or momentary experience, but as the continual imbuing of your awareness with the Source levels. We tend to put a lot of stock in the powerful glimpses or awakenings that last a few minutes, hours, days or weeks. These glimpses tend to show us realities far beyond what we are currently aware of, which is a powerful mechanism of spiritual growth. They fuel us, inspire us, and break down our attachment to our current knowledge. However, though they may excite us and guide us, we must not mistake them for permanent transformation.
When I began spiritual work, I was desperate to have powerful, life-changing experiences quickly, and I tried to force it through working hard. Though I was successful to some degree, and my resulting experiences provided critical guidance and humility, I also felt impatient and unsettled. My current advice to my past self would be to work steadily and diligently, and trust in the process. You have to put the cake in the oven to bake it, but you cannot force the cake to bake more quickly just by turning up the heat. An enlightenment experience is comparable to a novice athlete being given temporary elite-level abilities, an experience which would guide the novice towards elite performance, but which does not replace it. As Shinzen Young has said, “enlightenment is a natural process”: it is our birthright, and our job is to gently and diligently nurture that potential.