(This article excerpt was originally published in Lex Sisney’s “Ready for
Enlightenment? – An Insider’s Guide to the Biggest Trip of
Your Life.”)
My direct experience tells me that I am not enlightened. I am
enlightening. I am realizing. So are you. While you might
experience an instant and permanent transformation, I certainly
haven’t. My journey has been one of progression. I began at one
level of consciousness. At this level, I held a basic set of
beliefs about God, about life, and about myself. I felt a
certain way. As my journey progressed, I had blips and peeks
into higher levels of consciousness. I opened up to new and
higher realms. But these were only peeks.
Soon after I would fall off. Many times I fell off below my
base level of consciousness into states of despair. It was like
I was given a taste of heaven but forced to wallow in hell. At
one point, I surrendered and powered through these interminable,
lower levels of consciousness to reside at an entirely new
plateau. With this new plateau as a base, my journey of dips
and progressions continued, albeit much smoother and within a
much closer corollary than my old plateau.
Imagine a tall hotel. Viewed from a progression in
consciousness, I began life living in the cheap rooms in the
basement. I didn’t know my room was in the basement. I didn’t
even know it was cheap. My room was my room. I had no context
for other rooms. I had no visibility into the upper floors of
the hotel. One day, the hotel manager knocked on my door and
offered me a tour of the lobby and the nicer rooms in the main
hotel. Wow, this was a pretty cool tour. I had no idea people
lived in such opulence and grace. Here I was living in the
basement, with just a small light in the ceiling and a cold
hard bed. My tour out of the basement was both a blessing and
a curse. It was a blessing because it opened my eyes. A curse
because I couldn’t afford to live in the higher, nicer rooms,
yet and I was sent back to the basement.
Talk about depressing. But I had a vision of what was possible
and this was all the motivation I needed to work hard, practice,
and make my way to reside in the better rooms of the hotel
permanently. Life in the nicer floors of the hotel became my
new plateau. Occasionally, I’d get lost and wander down to the
basement. I didn’t like it there but I couldn’t figure out how
to get back to my new and better room right away either.
Eventually, through grace or from the help of a kind and
benevolent bellman, I’d get back to my nice room.
But one day, something miraculous happened. I was riding my
usual route on the elevator between floors when, like the movie
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it suddenly shot upwards out
of the hotel with powerful force. When it finally stopped, the
door chimed and I stepped off. I found myself in a strange but
somehow familiar new hotel.
This hotel was high in the clouds and connected by the elevator
shaft to my old hotel below. I had heard fantastic rumors about
such a hotel in the sky but they seemed far-fetched. Actually,
they never did it justice. Life at this new hotel is a total
blast. There are still variations in consciousness here.
“Good” days and “bad” days happen. But nothing that occurs here
is ever really overshadowed by the unbelievable view, the
delicious food, the soul moving music, the fascinating guests,
the world-class accommodations, and the brilliant service of
this ineffable hotel. But even here, I’ve heard rumors of
higher floors and better accommodations above. I can’t even
imagine. How do I get there?
One way you can accelerate your own enlightenment is to
consciously align your life with what’s most important to
you. Take the “7 Days to Align Your Life for Success” free
email course and get in touch with your inner core.
