The Strange Business of Enlightenment

One day, along this beautiful journey called life, I met a new friend.

—

We met in a dark university lecture room.

She was walking toward me.

I was walking toward her.

It felt strangely familiar.

Ancient somehow.

As old as life itself.

—

I have always been someone who senses people very quickly.

Their energy.

Their intentions.

Their inner state.

Even before they speak.

—

Back then, however, I didn't trust that part of myself.

My mind was full of morality.

Give people a chance.

Don't judge.

Be open.

Be kind.

—

So even when my body quietly whispered:

"No."

I would answer:

"Maybe."

—

Today, I trust myself more.

Back then, I didn't.

—

I saw her approaching and somehow knew:

This person is for me.

I just didn't know yet:

lesson or blessing.

As it turned out,

she became both.

—

She was beautiful.

Elegant.

Dressed entirely in designer labels.

I say labels on purpose.

One day I might write another essay about that.

But let's stay with the story.

—

Underneath her elegance,

I sensed something arrogant.

Something performative.

Something slightly dark.

What I understand today was probably insecurity.

—

I greeted her anyway.

She smiled.

We quickly realized that we were the only two people enrolled in the same program.

And somewhere along the way,

we became friends.

—

If I am completely honest,

she bought my friendship.

I know.

That sounds terrible.

But it is true.

—

Because if I had listened to my body,

I would have stayed politely distant.

Instead,

she came very close.

Not through her clothes,

but through the identities they seemed to announce.

And through an even louder certainty

about how life worked.

—

And I have to admit:

I was unbelievably unconscious at that time.

—

I was surviving.

Working two hundred percent.

Studying remotely.

Trying to build a future.

Trying to become someone.

—

I was so unconscious that during university breaks,

I smoked purple Vogue cigarettes,

feeling like a very independent and self-determined woman.

LOL.

—

She didn't smoke.

But she always came outside with me.

—

I was an open book.

I said exactly what I thought.

Actually...

I still do sometimes.

Only now, a little more consciously.

—

She quickly decided that I needed help.

On our second meeting,

she handed me a book.

—

"Read this."

—

I asked why.

But the title fascinated me so much that I no longer cared.

I already knew I would read it.

—

And that was the unofficial contract of our friendship.

—

It started with one book.

Then another.

And another.

—

Then came spiritual teachings.

Conspiracy theories.

Videos.

Podcasts.

Teachers.

The hidden truth behind reality.

The hidden truth behind people.

The hidden truth behind everything.

—

And I believed all of it.

Every theory.

Every explanation.

Every revelation.

—

My mind wanted to believe it all.

—

Because the mind loves explanations.

It loves the feeling that suddenly everything makes sense.

—

So she became a very important person in my life.

Although something inside me still whispered:

Facade.

My mind wanted to hold on.

So it did.

—

The story of this friendship could fill an entire book.

But let us stay with the point.

—

I genuinely became wiser.

The books fascinated me.

They always had.

These books simply went deeper than anything I had read before.

And yet,

sometimes when we talked about them,

I noticed something strange.

We understood everything differently.

—

Still,

I kept reading.

I kept learning.

I kept searching.

—

And my friend loved saying:

"There are sleeping people and awakened people."

—

Naturally,

she belonged to the second group.

And I,

apparently,

needed to wake up.

—

So I tried.

My ego awakened as a better-knower.

I started categorizing people too.

Sleeping.

Awakened.

Conscious.

Unconscious.

—

And perhaps there is some truth in it.

Some people are more aware.

Some people are less aware.

Some people question themselves deeply.

Others never do.

—

But none of this makes one human being more valuable than another.

Because we are all sitting in the same boat.

All loving.

All suffering.

All searching.

All trying to understand this strange experience called life.

—

The trouble begins when awareness becomes identity.

Because the ego loves hierarchy.

It loves feeling:

"I see something that you don't."

"I know something that you don't."

"I have arrived somewhere you haven't."

—

And slowly,

the search that was meant to bring us closer to ourselves

begins to separate us from others

and even from ourselves.

—

Because the goal of consciousness was never superiority.

That was always the goal of the ego.

—

And then came the next goal.

Enlightenment.

—

Everyone seemed to be talking about it.

—

One day, you will arrive.

One day, you will be free.

One day, fear will disappear.

One day, you will finally awaken.

—

And millions of people spend enormous amounts of time,

energy,

and money

trying to get there.

—

The hidden assumption behind the search is often this:

As I am right now,

I am not enough yet.

—

And that is why the search can become endless.

—

There is always:

another retreat,

another teacher,

another book,

another method,

another realization,

another identity that needs to be dropped.

—

The irony is beautiful.

And painful.

—

The more we search,

the more we quietly confirm:

I have not arrived yet.

—

Perhaps this is why some people spend decades searching.

The search itself becomes the identity.

—

I have met people who spent years trying to transcend the ego,

while the ego quietly became:

"I am someone who is awakening."

—

But I don't think the search is wrong.

I don't think teachers are wrong.

I don't think books are wrong.

I don't think even the strangest theories are wrong.

—

I am grateful for all of them.

Every book.

Every teacher.

Every conversation.

Every question.

Every strange idea.

Every detour.

—

Because every single one of them brought me closer to myself.

—

I think many of us need teachers

until we slowly learn

how to listen to our own inner teacher.

—

The search itself is often necessary.

The problem begins only when the search becomes our permanent home.

When becoming awakened quietly replaces living.

—

Sometimes the search for enlightenment becomes so fascinating

that we forget

why we started searching in the first place.

—

Not to become special.

Not to become superior.

Not to arrive somewhere beyond humanity.

—

But simply

to come closer

to ourselves.

—

The same happened with conspiracy theories.

Some of them may contain truth.

Perhaps many of them do.

I honestly don't know.

—

But I learned something important.

Any idea,

even a beautiful one,

can become a prison

when we begin living inside it

as absolute truth.

—

Because the mind loves certainty.

—

And fanaticism often begins

the moment curiosity ends.

—

So I kept searching.

For seven years.

—

Then one day,

on a bright, beautiful afternoon,

I was sitting on my sofa,

looking at the horizon.

The sea and the sky were touching each other.

Everything felt peaceful.

—

I had not worked for months.

For the first time in my life,

I was simply enjoying life.

I felt strangely free.

Light.

Relaxed.

—

Naturally,

I was also listening to one of my spiritual teachers on YouTube.

The video was playing on loudspeaker.

I listened to his words

while looking at the sea.

—

By then,

a lot had happened in my life.

But in that particular moment,

I felt deeply at peace.

—

And then it happened.

—

A wave of joy moved through me.

No.

A tsunami.

—

I jumped up from the sofa

and burst into tears.

—

I cannot fully explain it.

I don't think language is capable of holding it.

—

For a few seconds,

I felt as though I had become joy itself.

Pure joy.

Pure warmth.

Pure love.

Pure lightness.

—

For one brief moment,

I felt as though I remembered something I had always known.

—

Everything was one.

Everything.

—

There was no separation.

Only love.

Only joy.

Only being.

—

It probably lasted three seconds.

Maybe less.

Maybe longer.

Time itself seemed to disappear.

—

To this day,

I don't know exactly what happened.

—

I simply call it:

The light came to visit.

—

But do you know something interesting?

—

Nothing changed.

—

The sea was still there.

The bills still existed.

Life still asked for participation.

I was still human.

—

The experience did not move me into another dimension.

It did not remove uncertainty.

It did not exempt me from ordinary life.

—

It simply made something obvious.

Nothing new was added.

Something familiar was simply remembered.

—

We were never separate.

Not before.

Not during.

Not after.

—

Everything was already connected.

Everything was already one.

The light simply allowed me to feel it.

For a few extraordinary seconds.

—

And perhaps this is the strange business of enlightenment.

—

We keep trying to become something extraordinary

when maybe nothing extraordinary is required.

—

Maybe enlightenment is not becoming someone who no longer suffers.

Or someone who no longer feels fear.

Or someone who escapes ordinary life.

—

Maybe enlightenment is simply remembering.

Remembering what has always been true.

—

That there is no separation.

That life is already here.

That you are already here.

That nothing essential is missing.

—

The books may remind us.

The teachers may point toward it.

The experiences may allow us to feel it.

—

But none of them can hand us

what has never been absent.

—

Everything you seek

is already within you.

The journey simply helps you remember.

—

And then...

you still pay your bills.

You still work.

Or don't.

You are still single.

Or not.

You still experience heartbreak.

You still lose people.

You still wash dishes.

You still sit in traffic.

You still cry.

You still laugh.

—

The invitation was never to escape being human.

The invitation was to finally participate in being human.

Fully.

—

Because perhaps we are here precisely to experience

what light itself cannot.

Love.

Grief.

Longing.

Friendship.

Disappointment.

Wonder.

Touch.

Sunsets.

Cooking.

Writing.

Falling apart.

Beginning again.

—

Raw as life itself.

—

So if you are still searching,

still learning,

still collecting insights,

still hoping that one more teaching will finally complete you,

pause for a moment.

—

Maybe enlightenment is not becoming someone extraordinary.

Maybe it is finally relaxing

into being completely human.

Fully here.

Fully alive.

With nothing left to prove.

And nowhere else to arrive.

—

Because perhaps the light was never somewhere else.

Perhaps it has been trying

to experience life through you

all along.