The Simple Secrets to Spiritual Enlightenment

By Jafree Ozwald

My first glimpse of what spiritual enlightenment is all about came to me in 1995, visiting a guru in Lucknow India. For 2 weeks I was sitting with a spiritual master named Papaji, who was offering his satsang gatherings to a crowd of 300+ people. I had been meditating religiously for 6+ months prior to this meeting, trying to find peace inside myself with my fathers suicide. I feel this daily meditation practice laid the foundation for the spiritual awakening that was to occur.

It happened in a flash as I stood up from sitting on the floor as Papaji left the room. In an instant the experience was like an atomic bomb had gone off throughout my entire mind, body and being. My mind and identity of who I was...was gone!  My sense of self was stretched beyond anything I could ever imagine or comprehend.

The profound silence I experienced for months after this inner explosion was what created the spiritual experience for me. There was no attachment to the mind. No real commentary on anything of this world. It In that moment, the mind literally stopped all analytical thinking and was no longer interested in being hooked into any opinions or judgments about anything.

My ego (self-identity) was obliterated and there was nobody left to judge anything or anyone including myself! There was only a small witness left, an observer of the entire Universal existence. I constantly felt like I was in a state of oneness with everyone and everything.

Thoughts still happened, yet "I" was no longer behind the steering wheel of them and they were not nearly as intriguing as this peaceful super quiet Presence inside. Everywhere I went was amazing, life was truly heaven on earth without being identified with this "me" but rather the unified one Being.

I later researched the experience to uncover that it was called a Samadhi experience lasted for the next several weeks to come and became the most amazing life transforming experience of my entire life.

Life has been completely different since that day. I no longer get wrapped up in the suffering that is created by the mind because I know who I am.  Yet, the mind is like a wild elephant who often tries to regain control. So I realize even though I've tasted Samadhi, there is still MUCH more to understand, experience, learn and integrate on a conscious and energetic level. I have my entire life to integrate this experience.

I could not choose, so I surrendered to existence. There was this "merging" of my mind and the physical reality all around me, and had this very STRONG knowing that I was free to do anything! It was the first time I felt that I had magical manifesting abilities.  I remember hearing something my father once said about "anything is possible". I felt the future was wide open to something amazing because there was something guiding me. It's amazing how the Universe always knows the bigger picture and has our highest interest in mind.

I find that any being who is fully liberated from all suffering is spiritual life and one could even call them "spiritually enilghtened". This person is free from seeking for happiness or satisfaction from the outer world, as they know the only thing that truly satisfies comes from the source within.  I don't believe one can actually arrive at any final enlightenment "finish line", as long as you are alive there is still room to evolve, grow spiritually and expand in consciousness. The Universe is an infinite playground and there truly is no end to the outer world as well as the inner.

In my experience of the spiritual path, as long as the mind is directed outwards, our energy continues to flow away from our center, our inner peace and stillness, where all real sustainable love, joy and real answers to life are found. It's only when we turn our attention to the source of our sweet calming spiritual essence on the inside, that we introduce the possibility of stopping this eternal egoic searching habit completely.

"Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary." ~ Osho

The reason there are not more spiritually awakened beings on the planet today is because people have forgotten how to relax, trust and enjoy their natural connection to Source. The most important direction we need to turn for answers is inside ourselves. The outer world will captivate us, and invite us to experience all it's tantalizing joys and sorrows. Yet, the most radical and enlightening path to liberation is not one that falls prey to being addicted to the outer world for fulfillment, yet discovers it easily and effortlessly within.

The mind is often very blind to the fact that it's the incessant searching the causes us not to see. Whenever we are not getting what we want, it's because we are in a state of wanting, needing or demanding and not coming from a place of allowing, accepting or receiving. As long as we continue directing our attention only towards the outer world, wanting this and craving that, we will be forced to retreat inside ourselves to reboot. Our bodies are designed to remain in a state of balance and healing naturally. 

It's the incessant stressful egoic efforting of the mind and attachment to our egoic desires which causes us to struggle, suffer, and eventually die in pain instead of having a generally calm centered spiritual existence.

If we want to experience enlightenment and fulfilling life, there must be an conscious awareness in each moment of where we are focusing our attention. We must get deeply curious every hour of our lives if we are bathing in the light of our being, fully aligned with our connection to that which brings us the deepest resource of joy, love, peace and bliss.

The spiritual enlightened state contains this healing feeling of a sweet surrender and full acceptance to the grand totality of life.  It is in the relaxation into this profound truth that we realize our true infinite spiritual nature, and become super powerful manifesting magnets that effortlessly attract anything and everything our heart desires.

One of the greatest truths I've found on the path is that this spiritual source of energy (who we actually are) is soooooo huge and all consuming that ultimately it doesn't matter if we get whatever our ego wants or doesn't want. The mind/ego will always be wanting something that it thinks will make us happy, complete or satisfied.  There is no absolute completion or ultimate satisfaction to achieve at in life, this is a never ending eternal journey we are on which is spiraling higher and deeper towards total liberation and complete ecstasy. 

When we look for spiritual enlightenment with the mind, we will miss it. The desiring mind cannot find it. The mind is what creates the block the enlightened state. The mind creates desires, so that when we DO get whatever our ego wants, we also are getting what we don't want as well.  When any big desire is achieved, we always get both.

For example, we meet our dream partner/soul mate and later find out they have an annoying habit that we cannot stand, if we buy our new dream car it also comes with an insanely high monthly insurance rate and costly maintenance fees. If we discipline ourselves with daily exercise and get super strong and fit, we may only later experience becoming super stiff and tight from not integrating calming deep stretching yoga exercises as well. The weekend drinker who loves to party, always forgets about the horrible hangover experience that will painfully consume his/her life the next morning.

There is no single payoff from achieving any desire in this world that does not also have a cost to it. Even if we think we've found our perfect dream life, there's always going to be some perpetual feeling of the gratitude of it all, to keep your mind happy, peaceful and at a vibration that can reach an even better life next year.  We all exist in the world of duality, male/female, black/white, daytime/nighttime, the opposites are everywhere we can look. 

Spiritual enlightenment is the joyous liberating realization that the ego will always get want it focuses on, and it will never be satisfied enough. It get what it wants, and then wants more. We cannot escape from living in between these two poles that are not fully contradictory, yet rather better understood as complementary of each other.  We are the rainbow spectrum in between the black and white extremes of the light. 

The spiritually enlightened being is at peace between both extremes. Getting and not getting. There is also total freedom of choice in each moment as to what is wanted to explore and experience. The spiritually enlightened being releases there is a chooser behind it all, who can decide to have the experience of avoiding things, clinging to ideas, or simply relax and let the natural movement of life's pendulum guide us along the way.

When one is spiritually enlightened, there is a constant appreciation for life just as it is. It doesn't matter if the ego is getting what it wants or does not want anymore. This feeling is one of the most spiritually enlightening and liberating experiences to explore.

When we realize that life is always, always, always going to deliver a win-lose experience with every desire we jump after, we start to relax about the whole game and drop into something deeper inside.

Initially, the first step on this ego-less path can feel like apathy. The mind starts thinking what's the point of life if we always get what we want AND what we don't want, and never ONLY just the goodies.  Yet, apathy also will soon fall away when we feel that the nature of desire is pure suffering (not having) and that finding peace with desire is the ultimate goal.

"Your essence, your essential unbounded joy, is so huge that it flows in every direction." - Nirmala  

Desires simply manifest them more easily when we are not attached to them in any way. The ride through life is also much more enjoyable along the way when we know the secret to being at peace with the mind and it's incessant desiring seeking habit. When we understand that every single time we achieve a desire we will always get both what we want AND don't want, we stop being so forceful, manipulative, and pushing our will on the world to making things flow OUR way. 

When your spiritual enlightenment is integrated, the ego has the power of a shadow. It follows you wherever you go, yet it has no real voice over yours. It has stopped being so greedy, needy, and full of selfish demands and clingy egoic agendas. This is when real freedom happens!

I find one of the best approaches to dealing with our desires is knowing that once we do get a desire manifested, we must be emotionally prepared to receive the opposing negative by-product as well. This doesn't mean we cannot celebrate achieving anything in life and be outrageous about it.  In fact, we must go fully into appreciation if we want to continue expanding our manifesting magnet power.

We must let go into our greatest joyful expression, not holding back on any level, while having awareness of the knowledge that soon there will be the mysterious flip side showing up, that brings everything back to even neutral balance.

"Life's problems may be complicated, yet the answers are always very simple." ~Unknown

My teacher once told me life is like a gambling casino where you always win whatever you bet.  If you bet $10, you get $10 back each time. There is always an even outcome, a perfect balance to life which makes everything fair in the end. Hidden inside every beautiful wave is a dark undertow.  Once we are conscious and aware of the nature of duality, our incessant craving and yearning for our desires to be met will subside for good. It is then that we will discover the most enlightening exploration of all. 

A life of perpetual relaxation within ourselves where we can enjoy the grace and ease of simply being alive. The day we discover how to remain relaxed into our true essence, our essential real nature, the greatest freedom and enlightening path will be revealed. For more insights into this, please read my blog post on How to Experience Spiritual Enlightenment.