What is ?enlightenment?

MNS Rao from Warangal asks the defination of enlightenment? Veena Minocha answers his query.

MNS Rao from Warangal asks,Dear Madam, can you define for me what is ‘enlightenment’. And how do we know that a human being has become enlightened or not. Further to this, can I ask one important question, and that is, how will I know if I am going to be enlightened, or remain a normal soul, caught in the web of birth and death forever? After a person becomes ‘enlightened’, does he become God? If he becomes God then does he need to take human birth again and again?

Veena Minocha answers,

Dear Mr Rao, I will try to put forth a comprehensive view of the word ‘enlightenment’ for you. For it is not merely a word that we can take, and give a dictionary like interpretation of its semantics. “Enlightenment” is a deep concept, a spiritual state of the body and soul, put together, and cannot be explained in a few words.

According to the yogis, an enlightened person is one who has attained a state of samadhi, that is becoming 'one' with God consciousness, over and over again. You will see, that there can be many levels of samadhi, so also there can be many levels of enlightenment. In the theistic Hindu tradition, we call it self realisation, or God realisation. In simple words this means that the human being has realised that God is within him, that he is a part of God, and the enlightenment comes from knowing that that part of God that he is, is the dominant part of his personality.

This means that whatever he thinks, says or does, comes from the place within him that is pure and beautiful and true (satya), and that duality does no longer reign in his life. He has totally and completely surrendered himself to be in alignment with divine will. Buddhists would call this state as reaching the state of pure consciousness, where the human part of us becomes ‘shoonya’ and we have reached that nothingness, which is in fact all pervading God energy.