“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities."
Deepak Chopra: “Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles”
I’ve read many articles and books on “enlightenment”, and I must be honest: I’m not completely sure what it is or whether
it can be completely accomplished in this life time. But I do know that because of Kundalini, I am journeying towards “enlightenment” and I believe in its possibilities. I relate very much to Deepak Chopra observation above about enlightenment as I continue to move towards greater light-heartedness and joy in my life, and being freed from worrying, about even death, since the renovation and restoration stage of kundalini.
Advanced Yoga has provided some interesting information on “enlightenment” which helped to explain the evolving experience flowing from Kundalini. Enlightenment, in yoga is broken down into three stages.
The first stage of enlightenment is evident with the rise of
“silence” in the nervous system. A characteristic of this deep silence is the awakening of "pure bliss consciousness" and a steady state of peace, happiness. This comes primarily from the discipline of meditation. In my previous posting, I spoke about the benefits of meditation and how this discipline has a profound effect on my life. In fact, in advanced yoga, meditation is a prerequisite to a healthy kundalini rising. I followed the discipline of meditation, not for the purpose of kundalini, but as a prayer practice that brought me close to God in a deep and experiential way. This practice over twenty-five years with increasing intensity resulted surprisingly in kundalini rising in 2005.
The second stage of enlightenment which results from kundalini is the rising of ecstasy from the three lower chakras
and its expansion in the nervous system. This prana energy accelerates the functioning of the nervous system and leads to deeper and more lasting experiences of pure bliss consciousness and deeper silence. The expansion and acceleration of this inward sensory experience stimulates greater flow of ecstatic prana which draws us into deeper realms of divine consciousness and deeper levels of meditation. It is a captivating experience as this divine flow heightened through practice, leading to an increased desire to enter and merge with deepening sensory experience. It is seemingly like falling into deeper and an endless abyss of ecstasy. It was in the years following my kundalini rising, with the increase in the flow of psychic energy, that I began to experience very deeply this pure bliss consciousness. The meditation and yoga practices that became a part of my discipline accelerated the flow over time providing the motivation to continue this path of development.
The third stage of enlightenment is the awareness and
expansion of a sense of unity with all things. I-ness or that sense of separateness from all things created by the ego become like veils, thinly covering the essence of life. We see ourselves now, not as separate, but as the essence of all things. We begin to experience a "joining" of this veiled existence with the ecstasy of pure bliss consciousness and a presence of the divine. The world has not disappeared; we can still act in the world, but our motivation is different than before when we saw ourselves as separate. There is a sense of spaciousness as the “internal observer” is seen connected with all that is being observed. Intellectually, this cannot be understood, but the experience gives a new understanding of this universal union. This has certainly been a great source of inner peace, unshakable security and an increasing source of ecstatic blissful union with the divine as I venture along this spiritual path.
At first we may experience shades of one or all three of these stages, but as we continue along the path, they become deeper and more prolonged. As they become deeper and prolonged, what before were only glimmers of a different experience become more enduring, more real, until eventually, they become reality itself.
The reality of enlightenment becomes increasingly who we are in our interaction with the world. As the self becomes more universal, our interest for the whole of humanity and for the whole of life also becomes more universal.
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