Enlightenment The Search for Christhood By Charles David Heineke Charles David Heineke is an inspirational writer/editor, desktop and web publisher, and PC trainer who has been "on the path" for many years. His and his wife's inspirational writings appear on their website, Our Little Doorways to Heaven, and is also a member of our group here at HopeFromBeyond, nickname: "Ourdoorways" (Reprinted by Author's Permission) "Enlightenment is a journey of no distance, to a destination you never left." You don’t have to move in "metaphysical" circles for very long to start hearing about enlightenment. It seems that everyone in these circles wants it, but nobody seems to want it today. They’re always striving to achieve it someday. And someday never seems to come.
Long held in secrecy, the concept of enlightenment is taught to initiates and carefully kept from the masses. Jesus sought to end that through his example of an enlightened life. But his message was subverted into something far less useful for the people’s good and far more useful for their controllers�?good, through the deliberate, coordinated effort of those seeking to control civilization for their own agendas. It is time for all of that to end. It is now time for the simple truth to be told.
Contrary to popular thought, enlightenment isn’t an attainment of near impossibility, but simply an acceptance of who you’ve always been. The problem with "enlightenment" isn’t due to the difficulty of achieving some lofty but elusive spiritual goal. The seeming difficulty lies only in the fact that we’ve been taught that we’re unenlightened, unworthy, and unlovable. Yet we’ve also been taught the holiness of God, deemed far above our own demeaned status. So we’ve been given a vision of attaining a nearly unreachable star, for which we should heartily strive, when all the while our controllers continue our indoctrination in unworthiness—the perfect combination for keeping us reaching for the carrot of enlightenment yet never grasping it.
Fortunately, our status is merely a belief that we are unenlightened. Therein alone lies the basis for the seeming difficulty of attaining enlightenment. The answer to that dilemma is simple. Our beliefs can be changed. They aren’t immutable. We adopted them, and we can change them. And the belief that changes the whole picture is the acceptance of who we truly are—sons and daughters of the Most High.
If Godness created us, how could we be anything other than enlightened? Nothing we’ve ever done or not done, or ever will do or not do, has changed or can change who we eternally are. Only our belief to the contrary keeps us from living enlightenment, our natural heritage, as the offspring of Godness. Someone once put it very clearly: "If you think you’re not as close to God as you used to be, guess who moved!"
Living enlightenment is an easy and natural process for one who knows who he/she truly is. It takes no effort to be who you are; it’s natural and effortless. The difficulty stems from believing that you aren’t who you truly are, and then trying to live something you believe is nearly impossible to attain. It’s easy to tell the difference between a student of enlightenment and a master of enlightenment. The student strives to "walk his talk"; the master simply and easily "talks his walk"—he teaches what he lives day-by-day. The master will never teach you that attaining enlightenment is difficult. He will simply teach you to identify with your eternal Self instead of with your finite self. (Feel free to gender-substitute here, as enlightenment is genderless.)
The ancient statement “Enlightenment is a journey of no distance, to a destination you never left�?simply and eloquently explains the truth. Welcome home, traveler. Your journey ends where it began. You are, and have always been, the Christ, the only Son/Daughter of Godness. Enlightenment is your birthright. It’s always been yours, because it’s always been who you are. Don’t let anyone steal it from you again. You can’t not have enlightenment, but you can claim to not have it. And you can live a belief that you’re unenlightened, even while striving to "attain" enlightenment. Stop claiming unenlightenment, and simply begin accepting who you truly are, instead of accepting who you aren’t, and then live who you are. Nothing is required to attain enlightenment; it is simply a matter of being who you’ve always been. And you do that by giving yourself permission to be and to live the truth that is already within you. |