Enlightenment

Enlightenment can refer to Buddha's experience under the bodhi tree, in which the experiential and cognitive dimension is ontological, viz a mystical insight into the nature of reality; or enlightenment can refer to an age (as in 19th century Europe) characterized by a rational consciousness based on a materialist philosophy. A related term, illumination, can refer to mystical gnosis, and suggest an occult philosophy. All these cases of illumination or enlightenment are based on a fundamental and universal experience of humanity: when the unconscious or subconscious releases, or is caused to release, a hold on a previously unknown and unexplored territory of the mind, then one "awakens" to new level or comprehension of reality.

Enlightenment or illumination may be the consummation of devotion and can occur suddenly, as a personal revelation bursting forth in the mind and consciousness, or as a gradual attainment. In either case it is reflected as a harmony of love and wisdom at a different level and beyond the intellectual and emotional functions of mind.

In Buddhism, total enlightenment is the mark of the bodhisattva, one whose consciousness is fully awakened. It is the awareness of the emptiness of the universe and an understanding of the true nature of creation. Complete enlightenment and awareness of the emptiness of all phenomena is satori – that which the Buddha experienced under the Bodhi tree and the basis of the whole Buddhist religion. However, before reaching such a stage there may be many steps on the way in which the individual may "taste" enlightenment. A brief experience – kensho – may occur when there is still far to go before total satori. The different degrees of experience of enlightenment do not differ in kind but they do differ in depth, richness and the insight they bring. Initial experiences may still have the flavour of observer and observed or they may retain the illusion that the phenomenal world exists "in parallel" with another reality. In true enlightenment there is realization of the unity of the absolute and the relative, emptiness and form, that all are one. There is the death of the individual ego, the experience of non-duality. This is also the samadhi of Hinduism.

Enlightenment experiences can occur in an individual or a group. When it occurs in a group it is usually on indication of the advent of the numinous, an intersection of the spirit with the evolving line of human development, and it may signal the birth of a new age.