What is Enlightenment?

I wonder how many people out there consider themselves to be enlightened? And I wonder how those people define ‘enlightenment.’

During a lunch discussion today we were talking about an excerpt from a publication where Sai Baba refers to the Sai Era and Golden Age, and how there will be a cleansing of the world and only those ‘awakened souls’ will experience life in the divine state. One of my friends was very concerned when I said I didn’t consider myself to be enlightened enough to make that cut. She immediately wanted to ‘boost me up’, making it sound like it was an esteem issue. I’m on a spiritual path, so I must be enlightened enough to be considered an ‘awakened soul’, right? Not in my book.

So, what is enlightenment? Is it reaching Unity Consciousness? Is it as simple as conscious evolution? Is it the release from the birth and death cycle? Is it the transcendence of material consciousness, space, time and karma? According to Webster, the definition of enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition is: a final blessed state marked by the absence of desire or suffering. Reading through all of the definitions of enlightenment in the various belief systems, is it really ever attainable?

For me, when the day comes that I can walk my path with an open heart, and sending out love is a reflex, a state of being, rather than a conscious decision, that’s my enlightenment. When I can let go of fear and anger and judgment and criticism, that’s my enlightenment. When I finally get it that my body is a temple, and I begin to treat it as such, that’s my enlightenment. If, at the end of the day, I was a better person today than I was yesterday, that’s my enlightenment. When I can hit the mark of clarity when I receive Divine guidance, that’s my enlightenment. And if that’s not enough, I guess I’ll be left behind.