Samadhi is the last of the 8 limbs of yoga. When I began what I could call my spiritual journey, I thought that enlightenment was something to get, something to attain with the right effort. Something that's meant to make you whole and complete. But the more you try to be some perfect person, the more you realise you just can't be. Samadhi means to "stand inside of". So rather than looking for a deep spiritual connection to the divine in all the avenues we've already tried, it's a little closer than we imagine. Wherever you go, there you are.

We often think of liberation or enlightenment or bliss as a transcendent state from what is already present. A quote on this topic from Jack Kornfield, a great meditation teacher says "Although the experience is special, it does not happen to a special person. It happens to any of us when the conditions of letting go and opening the heart are present, when we can sense the world in a radically new way."

Spiritual progress is subtle and blossoms into unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, and radiance. But we often don't find ourselves resting permanently in that open state because we again and again get pulled into the small self of "me". We can't do anything to stop this, but accept that there is a True Self can than engulf the small self. Like sugar dissolves in water, the small self can dissolve into the True Self, transforming ignorance, identity, and emotions. There is something bigger than us that lives in us. Perhaps this may be a matter of belief in God, but I personally feel that it is just obvious when I look inside. So the when the ego is in charge, we get trapped. When the soul is in charge, we find peace.

I have always liked the quote "you don't see the world as it is, you see the world as you are." What is the lens you see the world through really like? Perhaps there is another quality to reality that you've missed because of being sidetracked on the illusions of false happiness. This is an underlying feeling that what we want to get is over there, not here. If only this... then I will be happy. If this wasn't in my way, then life would be better. But If the only time is now, and the only place you ever are is here... then what we seek is here and now all the time. So if we can't be comfortable being ourselves, we will find comfort nowhere. This is the practice. Being alive in the skin you have.

Yoga means union. Union is recognising and experiencing the joy or meaning within the suffering of the world rather than being trapped in the temporal world. The yoga sutras explains this state as an effortless and serene state of silence. So enlightenment isn't some blissful and wise state that some people attain but is a direct portal into being connected to our true nature in the moment. We usually just get in the way of ourselves.

Reflect:

Which moments do you throw away?

Imagine you are enlightened right now, what would you tell your un-enlightened self?

What inspires you about a figure whom you deem to be enlightened?