Enlightenment
Enlightenment comes by itself, not when you want.
What you can do, is to meditate: stop talking, sit or lay down comfortably, relax your body, close your eyes but stay awake, observe your breathing, body sensations, feelings, thinking, impulses, memories, visions, external distractions, continue into a near-thoughtless investigation, inquire the inquirer – and enjoy the whole process, for it is a pleasure and rest in itself. Alternatively, you can sit still and do nothing.
If you practice awareness of your body and mind during your daily life, meditation will be easier. And if you practice meditation, the awareness during your daily life will be easier.
Enlightenment will come, have no doubt. For it is natural, just as a flow of a river.
If river is obstructed, you cannot force it to flow, but you can do the work of removing obstructions, starting from dismantling dams, then removing big rocks, then smaller stones, and then finally cleaning the finest obstructions and litter. Meditation is this removal of obstructions, while resting in the process. What ultimately removes the obstruction is an inquiry into it with concentration.
Intellectual knowledge only, will not lead you to Enlightenment, for it does not have the eliminating power of insight, it cannot remove the obstruction, but it can morph it indefinitely. You may spend your whole life intellectualizing, and find yourself confused on square one in the end.
Usually, unless you experienced a sudden flash of Enlightenment, which tends to happen in critical life situations like near death or major loss of that which was the dearest, you start this cleaning without knowing there is a river, out of faith that there is. If there are many obstructions, it may take a while until the first sign of water flow appears, therefore you need perseverance to continue the work and faith to overcome doubt.
As soon as the first sign of water flow appears, you motivation based on faith transitions into motivation based on knowing, with ever increasing momentum. From that point on, the process becomes easier.
Eventually, the flow reaches a critical point and blows out all remaining obstructions. Pressure equalizes, waves calm down. Trying drops, questions evaporate. You will never see the world as before. No matter the door you came in through, the door out is the same. No matter where you joined the road, the end of the road is the same. Therefore – there is no need to care about the door out or the end of the road.
Photo: A view through the window, Drobak 2024, photographed by Aleksander Hansen.