I am not sure if this is a chronicle of enlightenment, or just me getting lost in intellectual fancy. But there is something here, something important.
The realization that in essence we are light, is one which one can test intellectually as well as experientially The feeling of “self” or “being”, is prior to any quality or identity, “I AM” precedes any adjective about me. Furthermore there is a something which thinks “I AM” unless letters are conscious beings, so we have an essence that is literally indescribable, before language.
This is the state of higher animals, they perceive feel, act, but they do not use language , they are awareness, but not conscious in the way humans are, or if they are, they haven’t yet deemed it necessary to communicate with us.
Following from the last blog, the practice of Yoga brings detachment of mind from experience and thought, the outer and inner worlds, revealing the self as light.
So we have an essence which is conscious light…so?
So, our experience and relationship with the world depends on how we self identify, on who or what we experience ourselves to be.
If I experience that in essence I am pure light, then as long as I continue to experience that , my emotional state and actions will flow from that experience. This may sound a bit cold, bloodless and I think that such a realization without a consequent compassionate engagement with the world, is of little value. The main thing, having realized and freed oneself, is to return to help free others, for in the end, the light which shines in others is the same light which shines in me, the same light.
There cannot be individual enlightenment, self and not self are concepts which disappear in the light, until all beings are enlightened, then I am not enlightened, we are light and the light is one.