Eckhart Tolle suggests that the word "enlightenment" conjures up the idea of some supernatural accomplishment, and that the ego likes to keep it that way, but enlightenment is your natural state of felt oneness with Being.
Your Life Story Perhaps all you really need to do to become enlightened is to be reborn as yourself, unconditioned by your life story, which is whom you have been led to think you are.
Living in the past, or in the future, is not living at all, because only the Now really exists.
Everything exists Now, whether it existed in the past or exists in the future is memory or speculation.
What is happening Now, that is to say in the present moment, embraces all reality.
If you ask a person who they are they will reel off their name, their occupation, their age, their ambition and anything else relating to their life story.
They are largely conditioned by their experiences and ambition which is rooted in the past or projected into the future.
There is no Now.
No appreciation of what is happening or is available at this precise moment.
This, by and large, is the state of the population of the world.
They are lost in thought; unconscious and unaware of the one life that surrounds them.
The Voice in Your Head Most people are dominated by the voice in their heads.
That relentless and compulsive chatter.
That is to say they don't use their minds to think positively.
In fact they don't think at all.
Thinking is something that just happens to them.
They might just as well say that they digest, or breathe because their thinking is equally automatic, though not so useful!.
Occasionally you may encounter a person who walks around talking to themselves, and believe them to be quite mad.
But all they are really doing is vocalizing what the majority are doing anyway, which is being dominated by compulsive thought.
Thinking out loud instead of carrying on a useless conversation with themselves in their heads.
Repetitive thoughts over which they exercise little or no control.
Surely the purpose of humankind is not to evolve as slaves to an internal compulsive dialogue.
Thoughts that are burned deep into the unconscious mind repeat themselves over and over again, and stifle the only sane purpose of life - to live in harmony with the Now - in all that exists - the present moment.
Mindfulness - A Better Way We should not despair because there is a way out of the malaise.
If it must have a label it could be called mindfulness.
It could equally well be called Being or Presence, but it is best not to get too attached to labels that may result in growing the ego.
The present moment can best be described as Now.
Not yesterday or tomorrow.
Not five minutes ago or five minutes from now.
This realisation may unlock the first door to a brighter, happier, rewarding existence.
We are not relating reward to material possessions which can, but not necessarily, lead to object worship.
Idolatry is a dangerous game! Mindfulness Resources Some guidance may be a requirement of the uninitiated, and fortunately, it is there for the taking.
There are excellent leaders, such as Jon Kabat-Zinn and Eckhart Tolle, whose works are readily available in books, DVD's and other forms at affordable prices, and sometimes for free! It is true, for most people, that once they experience the glory of light, they avoid the abyss of darkness.
We are fortunate to live in an age when so much assistance is available from an expanding body of enlightenment.
You are invited to be reborn as your true self and join the millions engaged in this wondrous journey.