How Do You Know You’re Not Spiritually Enlightened?

This is a big question that requires a little bit of time to reflect upon, I know. Still, let’s consider that we might have already had the ‘spiritual awakening’ everyone talks about, but not be aware of it.

A quick google search for the concept of “enlightenment" reveals its broad meaning and a few ways or steps that can be followed to achieve it. Google tells me it means to have a “full comprehension of a situation". That is a bit vague, but if you play around and replace “situation" with different words, it makes perfect sense.

While surfing the Internet, I also came across an article that explained how to achieve the state of Nirvana. Here’s a summary of what I’ve read: be honest with yourself, kill your ego, forgive people and yourself, embrace your fears, meditate, pray or go on pilgrimages, detach yourself from worldly things, learn yoga and last but not least…Take psychedelics!

My reaction after reading that? Fuck, I’ve done it all (with the exception of psychedelics). The crazy thing is that I’ve done most of them intuitively, without really knowing or understanding why.

But, my realization that many of us might already be spiritually enlightened, happened before reading that article. It happened over a period of time, through questioning a lot of what I was seeing or was being told. I probably questioned everything I thought I knew at least once…The only thing I never really looked into was this state of peace everybody was talking about and badly wanted to experience.

I said to myself “Ok…How do I know I am not already spiritually enlightened? I’ve done it all and, at this point in life, I feel more at peace with things than I ever imagined would be possible. Of course, that doesn’t mean the work ends here. It just means what I’m looking for may already be inside me.”

That’s when it occurred to me that maybe this is what it means to be enlightened: to realize that you already are!?

Okay, okay. Such a mind fuck, I know. It also sounds like a total cliche but please don’t dismiss the possibility yet. The biggest gurus we praise so much, all spiritual masters whose teachings we follow (including Buddha himself) they’re all pointing out towards this direction. Many people have figured out and it turned their life upside down…And you know what? All those seemingly insignificant revelations you have are what makes all the difference, and this one is no exception to the rule.

I think (and I am taking complete ownership of this belief) that we are confused about what enlightenment should feel like. We’ve heard or read that people have had all sorts of crazy awakening experiences. Once again, exaggeration and unrealistic expectations come into mind. 7.7 billion people can’t follow the same path in the life, so guess what? 7.7 billion people will experience enlightenment differently too.

You go around in circles, trying out all these tools available to you (which are somewhat necessary) only to come back to yourself and discover everything you need is already within you. Damn…Talk about humans complicating everything.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”-Brian Tracy

Wise words, Mr. Tracy.

Before I end this post, I’d also like to share a story I’ve heard a while ago that links to this matter. A counselor shared it on his Youtube account but I do not know the original source of this story (I will assume Greek mythology?).

A while before humanity had the chance of populating the world, all the Gods got together for a debate. They were already considering creating men and women to fill the planet, but they had to sort out a few last details before making the last arrangements. The biggest, and by far most significant question raised during the debate was “How do we keep the ultimate truth hidden from humans?” The only thing that was going to separate men from Gods was the answer to this question. Having access to the ultimate truth would make men equally as powerful as his creators, which they obviously wanted to avoid from happening.

All of them took their time with their response. The God of waters was one of the first to speak up:

“Why don’t we hide it deep down in the sea? They’ll never get to it.”

All of them agreed, with the exception of the Littlest God, who said:

“They will eventually come up with the right technology to dig deep and find it.”

The Gods agreed and continued the debate which seemed would never end. At some point, the God of the mountains interrupted:

“Why don’t we hide at the top of the tallest mountain? They’ll never reach it.”

Once again, they all agreed confidently. The Littlest God, however, interrupted again:

“Oh, but they will, eventually…”

The Gods started getting frustrated and encouraged others to speak up if they had any other ideas.

“I do”, said the Littlest one. “They will always look externally, just like all of you assumed. So? Let’s hide it somewhere they’ll never look!” he said, enthusiastically.

“And where would that be, then?” the others asked doubtful.

“Isn’t it obvious? Let’s hide it within themselves!”