Enlightenment
How can I know enlightenment?
You need to be clear that you already have enlightenment, but perhaps you haven't realised it. Maybe that is why some people are called 'Self-realised'.
If you are already enlightened, why haven't you realised it? The answer is that the noise of your thinking, your desires, your concepts of yourself and the world are like loud music covering up the simple melody that constantly plays as yourself.
One way of understanding this is to use the analogy of electricity in our homes. We can enjoy the electricity as heat, as sound, as televison pictures, as energy in a vacuum cleaner, as light, or as computer programs performing in various ways. Usually we are only aware of the manifestation of the electricity as light for instance. We are not aware of the nature of the electricity itself. The light emitted by the bulb in our kitchen is not the same as the light in other kitchens along the road or in the neighbourhood. But the electricity is the same.
The analogy helps us to see that our attention is usually filled with effects, end result. The 'electricty' within us brings about thoughts, emotions, sexual drive, physical sensations and mental imagery. But these are shifting changing things that do not last. Like the pictures on a television screen they come and go. But our fundamental nature is the electricity.
Obviously that is an anlogy, but we take our thoughts, our emotions, our sensory impressions, to be what life is all about. We may even identify with them to the point of believing our emotions or thoughts are who we are. But our thoughts and feelings constantly shift. What is it that knows these shifting thoughts and feelings?
When and if they do pause, there is a realisation of a self-existent consiousness that has been underneath the noise of thoughts and emotions all the time.
If this can be accepted, then it is understandable that the important question might not be, 'How do I attain enlightenment?' It should be, 'How am I constantly preventing myself from knowing what I am?'
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