You are about to wake up spiritually. You come from a condition of spiritual darkness to that of spiritual light. There are signs of spiritual awakening in you. When you are spiritually awakened you look for light to enlighten you as you continue with your life. You need and want a step-by-step guide to spiritual enlightenment. Here is what I can offer you if you are one of these persons who are in the situation of spiritual awakening but may not know how to go about getting spiritual enlightenment.
Step 1. Contact the Spirit of Enlightenment. The very first step you are supposed to do is to contact the Spirit of enlightenment. If you want spiritual enlightenment you need him who can give you spiritual enlightenment, no other than the Spirit of enlightenment.
And it is not difficult to contact him because he is always available. It is not like contacting an important personality, like a nation's president, who is too busy to attend to you. This Spirit is always available. It is you who may not be available. In fact he is always waiting for you to contact him.
How then do you contact him? This is very simple to do, but it takes discipline. Make yourself available to him by giving him a definite time and a definite place in your life. Choose a time during the day for him when you are least disturbed. If you cannot choose any time, then make that time. Some people have it best very early in the morning or late at night, but not very late. When I began this exercise the best time for me was from 6 to 6:30 in the evening. Thirty minutes of your time will do.
Concerning the place, again choose a place where you are least disturbed. It can be your bedroom, your office room, a chapel near you, or whatever. Some construct a small room where there are an electric fan, light and chair and no other furniture. In my case when I started I used a chapel. People usually do not disturb you when you are in a chapel.
Just sit there in that place during the time when you make yourself available to the Spirit. That is step one.
Step 2. Allow him to communicate with you. As you sit there just allow the Spirit to communicate with you. He communicates with you among many means through three main methods. The first method is by the inward word. As you sit there ideas will comes to you. If you have the intention of being available to him, he is the one already communicating to you through these ideas. Do not think that those ideas still come from your self through your brain. They are already the ideas of the Spirit. He is already communicating to you.
The second method is by the word in creation. Creation outside of you is used by the Spirit to communicate with you. This may be a beautiful flower you are gazing at on your table, or it may be the wall you are facing, or the mountain beyond seen through the window. The Spirit communicates through that item of creation. He may impress you about its beauty, its durability, its greatness.
The third method he ordinarily uses to communicate with you is by the word in some books. This may be a Bible, a Quran, a Buddhist or Hindu scripture or any other sacred book in any religion. Open it and read it as he impresses upon your mind the ideas from the book.
Step 3. Listen to him. Do not just keep on reading, or wondering at the flower, or hearing inwardly the interior word. Listen to the Spirit. In other words, listen attentively. Concentrate on what he is saying to you. Spiritual enlightenment is not a frivolous matter. It is serious business.
Step 4. Think about what he tells you. Then think about what the Spirit tells you. This is called by some as meditation. It is going over and over in your mind the ideas and words he tells you. Relate these words to your life, to your work, to your dealings with your family members, with your companions in work and leisure.
This is now the time for talking with the Spirit. Talk with him. If you follow the steps carefully you will no longer be talking with yourself, you will really be talking with the Spirit of enlightenment. Remember he is more interested in talking with you than you to him. There is no room for deception here as long as you follow the steps carefully.
Do not be afraid that another spirit is talking with you. This can only happen if you have a preconceived idea of what to think when you enter that place and time which you make available for him. As long as you are open to him, he will not deceive you nor allow you to be deceived by other spirits.
Step 5. Do what he bids you to do. Then, the next step is most important. Do what he bids you to do. It may be just to come back to that place the next day at the same appointed time. It may be to become more loving to your wife and children. It may be just to be more considerate of those people you work with. Whatever he tells you that you do.
Step 6. Record your experience with him. It is best to keep a written record of your experience with the Spirit of truth who enlightens every person in this world, no matter what her religion is. Write down some of the ideas he shares with you. It need not be extensive. It can be brief summaries of the ideas the Spirit impressed upon your mind. Some people call this journalizing or keeping a diary.
The advantage of having a written record of these ideas is that later you will be able to see the pathway or pathways the Spirit has led you along, as you read this. Then you can thank the Spirit. In this way also you will have some idea where the Spirit is leading you.
Another benefit you can have in writing down these impressions from the Spirit is that you can show it to a friend whom you trust and share with her the ways of the Spirit. In this way you help your friend and you also help yourself, because your friend may give you some comments about your journal.
Just write the date when you write the ideas. I usually write the day and date and then I encircle these so that it can be easily located in my notebook. Like for example today I would write as Th101021, meaning Thursday, 2010 of the 10th month of the year and the date is 21.
When I began this practice I used to have one notebook only for this purpose. Later on I have a big notebook for all the notes that I write and I put my journal as only one topic in my notebook. I entitle this portion of my notebook as Spiritual.
Step 7. Be faithful to these steps until they become a habit in your life. Finally, be faithful to this practice even when you do not feel doing it. In the beginning you may get excited. So many ideas will flood your mind. Later you may wonder that you do not feel going through the exercise and the ideas seem to be fewer and fewer. Just persevere. But do not force yourself. If you need to rest from the routine, take a rest. Later come back to it.
As you begin to be faithful to this exercise of making yourself available to the communication of the Spirit you will notice that your life is becoming well ordered and new and useful ideas come to you. You will be more and more enlightened.
The Spirit sooner or later will guide you to fuller and fuller enlightenment and you will be able to enlighten others also. That is the pathway of spiritual enlightenment.
Jose Bulao, a Carmelite Secular, wants to help you attain a higher degree of spirituality. He is a Carmelite formator, helping other Carmelites in their spiritual growth. Prior to this work he taught philosophy, theology or religious studies at Notre Dame University and Ignatian College in Cotabato City, Philippines. At present he teaches at De La Vida College, still in Cotabato City. To learn about the various aspects of spirituality and how you can benefit from these click this site
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