enlightened...

We sometimes talk about enlightened people or unenlightened people.

For the sake of discussion we use these terms. And, on a relative level, such people could be said to 'exist', but only on a relative level.

On an absolute level there is no such thing as 'enlightenment' and there are no such animals as enlightened people or unenlightened people.

Believing that these exist on an absolute level is to imply that you are lacking something right now, that you need to 'attain' something that you don't have. But there is really nothing wrong with you right now on an absolute level of being and you don't need to attain anything on that absolute level.

You are already complete and whole on that level. You always have been and always will be, perfect, on that level. What we call, enlightened people are simply noticing something that, what we call unenlightened people, are not.

What is that which they are noticing? The people we think of as enlightened are noticing that simple awareness is the one reality that is ALWAYS present and never changes or leaves, ever. What we call an unenlightened person is failing to notice this fact.

Otherwise, enlightened and unenlightened people are just the same. There is no essential difference between you and the most 'enlightened' person on the planet today. You both have all the same parts more or less, all the same human faculties, all the same possibilities and potentialities.

It's not at all that one has something that the other lacks. One is simply noticing this constant presence of awareness and the other is not.

Noticing awareness is not an attainment of anything whatsoever. You do not attain awareness because you have ALWAYS been aware.

How could you NOT be aware? Even if you are feeling very unaware right now, there is something/someone who is aware of that feeling! Is there not?

Noticing awarenes, becoming 'enlightened', is not a gaining of any quality or reality that you presently don't have. It is a simple waking up to a fact that has always been true!

Francis Bennett