“Do you want to know what enlightenment is?” the teacher asked. Instantly the room became pin-drop still as curiosity flamed up a few degrees. A few students nodded, while others found themselves too immersed in suspense to move or even change their expressions.

“It is very simple,” he said. “It is being in light. In-lightened. The more light you have coming through you, the more in-light or in-lightened you are.”

Inside, I felt a little “Aha” trigger go off.

It was one of those statements that when you heard it, it instantly made sense. It made so much sense that it made me feel like I already knew it. So I, along with other students sitting there that night, nodded my head. Nodded our heads as though we were somehow seconding the motion, or giving our teacher a ‘thumbs-up’ that he had gotten it right, as though we were doing some kind of peer review on his teachings, as though we had already known this before he said it.

But once you hear it, it kind of makes sense. Doesn’t it?

It is not so easy being a self-reliant and independent person. Try, work, struggle and try again. On and on, an endless cycle. Some people claim that work is fulfillment, and it is true that it can be just that. Whether that is something good for you, however, depends on your goals and perspective, depends on what you are looking to fill yourself with.

Another way of looking at this might be people some would label as irrational. They say their heads are filled with voices. But have you ever wondered where the voice you call your own comes from? How do you know whether the voice or voices you hear are yours?

When spiritual teachers talk about ‘emptying the mind,’ this can be a somewhat misleading expression. It suggests that there are no thoughts, nothing present. Emptying the mind is like taking a glass full of milk that has been left out on the table too long. The milk gets sour. So, we empty the glass and wash it out; this is emptying the mind of (s)our clutter. But it doesn’t stop there. We reach for a bottle of fresh milk, open the cap and let its’ cool liquid spill down our throat. This is the in-rush or through-put of living in the moment, allowing clear, clean thoughts to flow in and through us. We don’t think about drinking the milk; we just drink – and in the moment-by-moment drinking of it, we experience it – with little to no thought.

One way to get potable water is to desalinate it, while another way is to drink it straight from a fresh mountain spring. One way takes a great deal of effort to get from point A to point B; the other way is effortless – we simply drink it straight from the source.

We can’t drink an entire mountain stream. We sip some, some spills down our chin, and the rest flows downstream. Simply drink. Let thoughts flow in and out

It is not so easy being a self-reliant and independent person. So, stop thinking so much. Stop trying so hard. Open your mind and drink straight from the source.

It can be like prison - clanging cell bars, mundane routines, endless years spent in isolation. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life is a shadowy blur, indistinct, without purpose.

When problems are piling up on us, and stress and depression are strangling our energy, we can easily cave in to the consequences of feeling overwhelmed. Floundering, perhaps lost in hopelessness or cynicism, we can become physically ill. Not only does our body become out of balance, but so can our emotions, our thinking and even our spirit. Our voice can take on the ring of defeat, even mocking our own ideals. Alone in a crowd, we drift in a state of solitary confinement, each prisoner peering through their own bars at the next.

Withdrawing into a cell may not necessarily be a bad thing; our private worlds may be helping us learn a greater lesson. But in this state we can be uninspiring to ourselves, and quite possibly to others. And our behaviors, however isolated, can create their own causes and effects. For those effects, on ourselves and others, we are responsible.

There was once a young cook who helped prepare meals for the military garrison in his town. One day, after a great deal of thought, he decided to visit the local monastery. Upon arriving, he requested an audience with the bishop and declared his desire to become a monk. Several interviews with his potential superiors were arranged, which gave the young man’s family and friends time to assess his motivations. It was determined by both family and clerics that he was not being foolhardy, but was thoughtful and deliberate. Strictly voluntary, this particular monastery was known for its practices of isolation, contemplation and mediation. Once the cook was accepted into the order, his life became one of withdrawal. When not attending to the monastery’s gardening needs and chores, he spent most of his time in his cell. In later years, he withdrew from the monastery and found a cave, where he spent the rest of his life.

It can be similar when we withdraw into depression, fear, anxiety and stress. Like the young monk, we are making a ‘free will choice’ to enter these cells. Sometimes these journeys are contemplative, but there are times where we sentence ourselves to jail.

It is not unusual to feel smothered in the dark grip of these solitary, inner chambers. We don’t remember that we are masters of intention and creation. We overlook that when the cell door closes behind us each night, it is never locked. There are no prison guards or wardens. We are able to leave our self-imposed exile at anytime, just like the monk.

Sometimes, after many years, the monks, much like prisoners, can become reluctant to leave the security that the routine of a cloistered and guarded life offers. Withdrawal can become deeply ingrained, a way of living, a security blanket of perceived protection, cutting off integration from the greater world by making integration something to be feared. This can make it difficult to see the fruits and rewards of certain types of withdrawal. It can also make it difficult to stand up and let the inner light shine through – we have become too used to our familiar friend, the dark.

Pacing the floors of our cells of despair, we ignore the ringing sound of the prison door keys, rattling and jangling at our waist. Whether tossing and turning on the hard bench of self incrimination, or squatting and pounding on the cold stone floor of surrender and self-pity, we forget who it is that is making the choice.

But outside, the sun rises and sets every day. Perched forever in a higher perspective, the sun sees who is living in shadowed withdrawal, and who is living more openly, nakedly exposed on treeless plains. Neither approach has an effect on the sun; it just sees choices being made. And for all who live in its kingdom, the sun shines and glows without bias, forever giving its light and life.

A solitary sunflower stands in a field, straining through the earth and beginning to grow. Surrounded and infused by sunlight, it grows tall because it finds its purpose and peace by being nothing more or less than what it is – a sunflower. And it grows and provides life-giving seeds in the simplest of ways - by letting the sun shine in.

There are many paths

winding down rocky shorelines,

leading to a vast lake

called Awareness.

Quiet coves weave along its banks,

touching the calm and soothing waters

of understanding.

I have met a lot of people who have shared that they have something burning within them. “I don’t know what it is, but I am just constantly driven in my spiritual path. As I’ve grown older I’ve gotten more perspective on it, but I still don’t understand what it is. I don’t understand why it is there, and why it is so strong.”

This powerful drive is not limited to spiritual pursuits. We can feel the same burning, the same obsession, in art, music, poetry and more. So what is this thing?

At the far end of Lake Awareness is a waterfall. It channels eternity, and cascades downward in a silver stream, dropping a million miles to Earth. Far below, the power of that immense sliver of awareness thunders into our bodies, a pulsating presence, steady and relentless.

There are a thousand things we are aware of in our normal, everyday lives, things we take for granted. But on the other side of everyday awareness lies eternal awareness. In this realm we are much less familiar with the territory. We are so unfamiliar with the eternal dimensions that many of us wander around in the dark, bumping into walls saying, who am I, why am I here, is there a light switch, a door?

In normal life we effortlessly engage in routines that establish a facile approach to living. In the eternal realms, however, we are ignorant and clumsy hikers, stumbling and scrambling to find a foothold, scurrying around blindly, looking for some way to become oriented. Which way is true north in eternity, we ask, clawing in the darkness.

It’s an inner north. We don’t associate that steady inner presence with what it truly is - an umbilical, forever tethering us to forever. It is the fire of awareness, burning her eternal, unquenchable flame. Do you feel it?

Water wears down the stone

Sometimes it takes a thousand years to change the mind and improve the heart of a single man.

Each minute I live, is less time left in this particular body. It is a steady, dripping depletion.

I turn around and look, and glance at the trail of blood my life is leaving behind. Squinting, I wonder… Is my blood staining the ground, only to be washed away by the rain of time? Or, will it heal and create new life, perhaps become a life-changing transfusion?

It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul. Looking into the eyes of a stranger, I often have the sense this is someone I know. I can feel it in my heart, too. The more people I look at, the more familiar the faces I see. To see and to recognize, I now believe, is as simple as looking.

A self defense martial artist can often see the holes in a defensive position. This skill is learned by first realizing how many holes you have in your own self defense skills.

A good martial arts teacher, however, will teach more than this one perspective of defense. The student’s defensiveness will also be exposed. This is the kind of defensiveness where we put up mental and emotional blocks. If a student stays overly defensive about this aspect of their self, then that attitude will inhibit their learning and advancement.

So, let’s consider that our defensiveness is keeping us from seeing and experiencing the inexplicable that is occurring all around us, 24/7, 365.

If you follow your heart and cause damage, should you suffer or rejoice?

The icy cold north-to-south arctic currents of the Pacific Ocean often shroud America’s west coast in mists called inversion layers. Creating a persistent fog that can cause moodiness or even depression, only a few miles inland it can be a bright, cloudless sunny day. Stepping through the soft boundary that divides fog and sun is easy, but some of us spend our entire lives living in the fog, complaining how hard it is to see the Light.