by Kirk Stefanski

Created on: June 08, 2009   Last Updated: June 11, 2009

What is the direct way to personal enlightenment? One author mentioned a sort of 'remembrance' or realization. Many authors and writers have in fact propounded such an ideology. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that statement. However... it tends to excuse a lack of further effort toward any state or condition of being fundamentally different from the one we ordinarily experience in day to day life. "We must remember we are already enlightened" is of no use to those mired in the suffering of daily mundane life. Where then, is the difference between us and a Jesus, Buddha, Matsyendra, Swatmarama, Gorakshanath and all the other enlightened sages and seers of past and present?

How did these people get to where they are? Through "remembering?" Perhaps their memory was a little more refined than ours. No... it seems as though the remembering idea is a construct of either of those unwilling to put forth spiritual effort and work, those who have comfortable lives, can't conceive of things getting better and are content with their current consciousness, or those who's true natures by virtue of their karma had been within such proximity that a revelation of omnipresent divinity was no further away than a thought (memory). Words like "remembering one's true nature"...while imbued with an accuracy of how things are, are often flaunted by those wishing to describe a reality of which they have an incomplete picture.

The ancient r'shis(seers), munis(saints), yogis and other adepts have long developed and recorded their methods for merging with the absolute. The state of union. This state is called yoga. Union. For thousands of years...men and women have sat...and let their minds dissolve into creation like oil paint. In the west one often talks endlessly of states of oneness, bliss, astral realms, and the regions of divinity but how many can sit still, unmoved and unmoving for.....3 hours? A yogi can. A yogi does not engage in needless speculation about what might lie beyond...or within. A yogi dives....not head, or mind....but self-first into the pool of reality to drink existence into and through themselves.

Of course, one usually can not go straight into meditation. Either the mind or the body or both give difficulty to the aspirant. The body aches, hungers or is too full of food; the mind wanders, dwells or creates imagery and does not rest. That's why for so long....to those seeking enlightenment - yogic sadhana (practice) has been prescribed. When according

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