Paths Toward Enlightenment

While enlightenment often feels far away, it remains a central goal of many lineages of Eastern thought, including Yoga and Buddhism. Rather than pushing off enlightenment as a foreign idea reserved for few, I like to bring the idea of enlightenment and awakening into a more household, everyday light.

In the multi-lifetime journey toward awakening, there are two energetic paths: the path of fire and the path of water.

On the path of fire, we burn up our old habits, renounce earthly life, focus on rituals & meditation, and move past the physical body and worldly realities because they are limiting factors. Often this path has a goal or destination of Moksha, total liberation from the karmic cycles of death and rebirth.

On the path of water, we flow with the experience of human life. Rather than trying to ascend from the physical body, we embrace it. We live through the senses. We live a worldly life. Instead of focusing on meditation itself, we bring meditation into our everyday human reality. We embrace the sufering as part of our experience and strive to free ourselves from within the body rather than outside of it. The path of water has a goal or destination of Bodhisattva; a being with an awakened mind that chooses to remain in the karmic cycles until all beings become free from suffering.

Of course, there’s a lot of practice, discipline, surrender, self-study, and devotion to reach a state of enlightenment. I’m certainly not there, but I would like to continue in that direction for as long as this life may last.

May we all move toward peace, away from suffering, toward awakening — not for ourselves but for the benefit of all beings.