My Private Journey Toward Enlightenment.
{Photo: wiccanwoman.wordpress.com}
By Ellen White.
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” ~ Lao Tzu
I was recently asked how to get to a place of enlightenment.
One of my recent articles inspired a success-driven professional attorney to question her life after reading my thoughts on creativity, destiny and higher-purpose living. So she asked me, “But how do you get there?”
Aaahh… what a painful question.
I got there after spending a lifetime yearning for it.
I have never understood how people follow a society-driven life plan without questioning it on a deeper level. My painstaking need for intense love, purpose, individuality and happiness has driven my entire life experience.
I do not live as others do — running around in Western-society-driven autopilot, following the protocol and institutions of life seen in our educational systems, love structures and families. Even the entire chase of social pursuit and activity seem forced to me.
Most people go through life keeping busy, with their heads buried in the sand while predictably aging through it all. I hear the same repetitive routine conversations around me discussed among different age groups. They all talk about the same boring things and follow the same mentality.
I never connected to that. While these conversations were taking place, I was busy looking out of the window, dreaming and envisioning a different life and perspective for myself.
I always felt a strong sensation inside that something else — a different reality — was in store for me. I could feel this yearning for a unique existence brewing deep in my core.
I tried hard to manifest it and took to the path of spiritual journey, practicing different rituals trying to manifest this inner quest for a miracle, while looking above and saying “Please help me find my true life.”
I spent time in deep thought, writing in my journal, staring at the ocean, sky and/or any scenic backdrop. Craving moments of a sensory connection to life that enabled a stronger inner vision of hope, love and destiny as I imagined it should be.
How do I explain this quest for enlightenment? How do the metaphysical activities that I am attracted to translate to the average working and family person who only understands the physical and tangible process of life? How do I promote my approach without seeming crazy?
When I describe the path I believe in, which is mostly based on an internal invisible sensation, people look at me as if I were speaking Chinese. Yet their eyes stare blankly, while mine are filled with depth and connection.
“Any behavior that is not the status quo is interpreted as insanity, when in fact, it might actually be enlightenment.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk
The experience of emotional struggle, coupled with a deep yearning for something else, has the power to take anyone there. But until there is a perception of lack, there may not be a strong enough desire to bring about another dimension to life.
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it were real, so he escapes the suffering.” ~ Lord Buddha
My path to there is about connecting to another dimension — to another force that understands me. My friends used to tell me I live in denial — naïveté, they called it — because I refused to settle for a mundane life.
The voice of the world always haunted me, telling me all I need is a “good responsible man” and a job that paid the bills.
“Happiness,” they said, “is only captured in a few scattered moments”, implying not to count on this immense vision of love or hope because ‘reality’ is just getting by as best as possible and surviving.
I pursued different jobs and relationships. Constantly wondering if this was as good as it gets, waiting for a feeling that matched the spark I felt inside. I looked at the way people moved in their lives — without emotion or passion, praying that I would not become one of them.
As I sat and pondered through my private journey, I could feel deep emotion inside of me asking for deep love from someone. A love so deep that it warrants screaming his name from the rooftop of a tall building. Writing love stories to him and talking to him before he even existed.
Telling him I will love him more than anyone could possibly love anything. Living and breathing to show another human being that being loved in this way is the only life worth living.
These thoughts and desires are what allowed me to shut out the rest of the world, because there was no way the world would support my beliefs. And so the rebellion within me moved me towards another doorway — the one marked Creativity.
Creativity that displays life differently, creatively, because my vision was not going to jive through logical mind.
Creativity was the only way to get past the fear. And many people do not even understand the concept behind creativity. They think it is a ‘drawing’ versus a perspective, but to me it is simply another way to look at life.
Believing in my unique creative perspective is what people now see as enlightenment within me. I passed the ultimate test of not giving up even at the expense of feeling like the world’s biggest fool. I passed up many opportunities of mediocrity until one day purpose found me.
And all my doubts faded away in the background.
And it no longer mattered what looks valid about my life to anyone else, because I live from the inside out — from an internal existence of authenticity, where I am the only one who knows what I dreamed of my whole life, and what now seems to be real on the outside.
At least as real as life can be.
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” ~ Lord Buddha
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Ellen White is a creatively-inspired writer and entrepreneur. She writes from a spirited place within where questions about life integrate with visions of hope and self-imagined destiny. She studied Journalism at University of Florida and is now a driven business owner seeking to share a passionate message in a world currently obscured in creativity, love and vision. She dedicates herself to inspiring people beyond the limits of mainstream understanding, and potentially leading them to probe in to what could be, if only….If only more could dare to imagine that dream where life was filled with grandeur possibility and emotional enrichment. This message is infused virtually online through her business OmSingles.com, a progressive and creatively-inspired dating website she co-owns with a partner.
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