enlightenment?

this is a thread on enlightenment in the Anusara tribe on tribe.net"


Kris said:

"The purpose of Life is both to awaken to our True Nature, and to serve Life by bringing more goodness, love, and beauty into this world. Spiritual awakening is the ever-expanding process of recognizing that our true nature is perfect, full, and lacking nothing. Spiritual freedom or enlightenment is not a fixed state of being. Rather it is an ever-evolving process of unfolding our beauty, goodness, balance, and perfection. Progress on the path of awakening is reflected in an increase in one's spiritual centeredness; wisdom; trust in the Divine's play; ability to loving honor the Divine in each other; and ability to celebrate the divine beauty in life."

- Anusara Universal Principles of Philosophy


then Kris also said:

I completely agree. However, one cannot deny that the hindu/yogic tradition represents that there is a point in one's sadhana that the practioner connects to the heart and that connection is then never severed. Further, I have definitely meet some very highly evolved beings, mostly Indian Hindu and Yoga gurus that give testiment to high states of liberation or enlightenment. The Sakti that was present in these various beings gave great witness that they knew what they were talking about. What are your views?

then I said:

I feel those highs states of liberation when I am not thinking about spiritual freedom or enlightenment and maybe not even in my heart necessarily. it is ususally at the climax/highest point of whatever form of yoga I am doing. Last night at a kirtan it was when we were in the middle of a bhajan and i was crying out for Siva. i am not feeling my heart or thinking about liberation or anything, the state just IS--it is only afterwards that I can even consider what happened. sometimes in an asana i become so open and tension-free that i will immediately start to cry and there is no me or other--just longing to know my true self, feeling something and surrendering to the fact that i have no idea about anything--letting consciousness move through this body. then once my eyes open and i am relying on my senses to conenct to my environment it goes away for the most part. it is only in the constant repetition of these practices i feel that i even have the tiniest hope of someday realizing my true Self. It is so easy to get thrown off course or to believe that something other than the science of yoga will take me there. and i try to remain humble that this can take many lifetimes and stay comitted to my practice. maybe there is no shortcut to enlightenment. though i am going to India at the end of summer with the intention that i will find myself in places that accelerate my spiritual growth and purify my dense body/mind further. who knows what will happen, but with only a skeleton of a plan, i am believing the rest will fill itself in. i honor the idea that by "serving life" and "bringing more goodness" this can expand my awakening, but it gets sticky because my ego is very closeby waiting to jump onto anything it can take credit for, believing that i am doing anything when grace is received in my life tends to strengthen my ego. My path is more through simplicity, gratitude, surrender and quiet, concentrated celebration- rather than obvious outward displays of something ecstatic. and i'm open to the texture and form of my path changing entirely as Ma sees fit. thanks for asking