Enlightenment: it’s not what you think…..

Enlightenment:  comes from the understanding/belief that ignorance is a state of being “in the dark,” and that the finding and applying new information can bring enlightenment.

1. According to The Oxford Dictionary – enlightenment is the stateof understanding something
2. When used within various religious or spiritual traditions or settings enlightenment is “The highest state (of mind/consciousness) available and/or that can be achieved”

Examples:

1. Someone is instructed on how to drive a truck or bake a cake: they now have access to new and/or extra information that increases/improves their previous abilities and potentials.
2. A disciple of a spiritual tradition is supplied with techniques that contain the potential to quieten the internal dialogue: i.e. excessive thinking thus producing a state of conscious awareness termed liberation or enlightenment.

Awareness and maintenance of the Chiron Wound as a process contains some identical functions to the process that is often times referred to as the pursuit of the state of self-realisation or (spiritual) enlightenment. There are those who would have you believe that the obtaining of this enlightened state is the ultimate goal and the prize for those who are choosing the path of the seeker and that once attained (this elusive prize) it is ours for the keeping – never again will we be afflicted by the burden of our humanness: very little of this assertion is accurate. Enlightenment – also called by other names: e.g. Nirvana or Samadhi does indeed have as its essence the promise for each of us to reach the internal experience of stillness/peace but this experience if and when attained/granted is part of an ongoing process: i.e. the moment to moment committed effort to be in a conscious state of being present – in the NOW – and it is always about choice: i.e. where we choose to put our attention. This is not to say that on occasion we aren’t in the enlightened or ecstatic experience – swept off our feet by the beauty of the world or by something that captures our attention without us making effort/choice: but in the main both the awareness of and the tending to our wound AND the pursuit of the state of enlightenment requires that we be willing participants. Before enlightenment raking and sweeping – after enlightenment – much the same.  

With regard to the Chiron Wound – our sense of woundedness has as its genesis the experience of suffering and it is the awareness and acknowledgement of this: the how it feels to suffer – that becomes pivotal element in the attending the wound and allowing it to teach us. We first need to own the experience, to acknowledge the way it impacts on the whole of our beingness and further to this the times when the suffering was/is most prevalent and having done this to integrate these experiences which can then be used to provide extra impetus in our push towards understanding and learning of lessons specific to our individual life path. And just as in the pursuit of enlightenment there is a requirement for committed effort: awareness to keep the focus on finding and maintaining a clear thoroughfare: danger can arrive should we instead put our attention on the search for obstacles. If for instance we over identify with our suffering: as Carly Simon would suggest in a line from her song I haven’t got time for the pain – “Suffering was the only thing made me feel I was alive” and by aligning with the suffering we make it our badge of honour, irrefutable evidence that we once had involvement in an occasion, an event that meant something significant in our life. And the problem becomes exacerbated if the suffering subversively morphs to become all-consuming obsession, where we fiercely defend our right to keep these feelings: high water mark – evidence of and testament to having been injured or betrayed – developing to become our way of being and relating, our whole identity and in so doing forfeit the opportunities on offer.

So in both instances we need some methodology – supportive measures to assist us – The Compass of Chiron has been designed for just such purposes.