In the conclusion of a two days’ workshop on Negotiation, for a team whose job is collecting money from non performing assets, and people who have serially defaulted – everyday , many of the participants used the word, “enlightened” as a checkout word. Given the kind of stress they face, this word felt ..different – out of place.
I was a bit taken aback, and had to stay with the changed meaning of that word over the years for me. I became aware the word had many contexts and nuance. And so I got curious. I mean, what else !!
Somehow this word has, in the recent years become so ..grandiose, and pompous, I had forgotten the beauty of its simplicity. It is often used in a kind of alluded spiritual superiority. So and so is an enlightened being. Somehow it always created a distance from that person, atleast for me.
So What does it mean to be “enlightened” in an everyday way?
The word enlightened comes from the Latin prefix en meaning “in or into” and the word lux meaning “light.” Combine these meanings — “into the light” — and you’re describing what it is that characterizes an enlightened person: a sense of clarity and understanding.
Ok this seemed more tangible and ..oh!! Ordinary, phew.
One of my favourite philosophers, Immanuel Kant, writes and talks about Enlightenment, in his essay, in such a an elegant and beautiful way.
To the question, what is enlightenment, Kant answers in the first sentence of the essay:
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.”
Immanuel Kant
He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one’s reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. Kant argued that using one’s reason is considered dangerous by most men and women.
He exclaims that the motto of the Enlightenment is “Sapere aude“! – Dare to be wise!
Sapere aude is the Latin phrase meaning “Dare to know“; and also is loosely translated as “Have courage to use your own reason”, “Dare to know things through reason”, or even more loosely as “Dare to be wise“.
Sigh!! this does put a whole different spin on the Adam and Eve story, and how when they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge -became aware of their “nakedness” -and were asked to go out into the world, leave the “comforts” of the garden behind, live their own life and explore on their own. I grew up on a heavy emphasis on they were banished from the garden of eden. The unsaid, IF you don’t obey.
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I wondered why does it need “Courage” to be wise.
Perhaps because it needs being able to see, in the dark? Or see what lies there. And then be able to guide ones decision from that place, that can be scary. It would mean leaving the comfort for your beliefs, held tight for so many years, a life of “known” ,relationship and definition locked in certainty of a single definition.
Sales is difficult
Relationship are not easy
Saying NO can create conflicts
One cannot be honest always
We are hardwired into being like this only
Artists are not aware of “ground reality”
Capitalism is bad
Money divides
Religious difference is the root of all bad
Greed is good
etc etc etc…
To see, to accept and then to act from a “different” place ..yes it needs courage. And therefore enlightenment may not be for everyone all the time.
When this “enlightenment” – Seeing what is, happens, it can be quite daunting. Light can be blinding too.
It suddenly puts you in a “white room” a-la Matrix. Where there is Nothing, ( at least for that moment ) to project on to, nobody to blame, or hold on to. One has no choice but to let one’s own creative self and imagination be exposed and come forth.
Oh yes… Courage is needed. And so is faith. Faith in what is emerging.
I wonder, if enlightenment can be demystified and brought down to such everyday matters how much more “creative courage” can be brought forth, into people, into work, into our homes, society and relationships.
What if enlightenment was an everyday journey, of seeing things as they are and then imagining how they can be better. For no other reason but for its own deep creative joy.
An example…
In a client sensing interview recently, I was talking to a man who handles Lab grown diamonds factory, and his job is to design diamonds and over see it’s cutting and polishing.
He said a bit awkwardly, I am just a “technical Worker” and I don’t really understand all these big words. I just know I am very passionate about diamonds he said, in a very evident passionate voice.
What makes you so passionate, I probed. He paused… and sighed and had a faraway look in his eyes.. Then he said, in a very different voice, “Diamonds are ,like my children”.
It was now my turn to be awkward. I didn’t understand, so I waited.
He was far away.
When I hold the uncut diamond in my hand, I imagine what it’s future may be, where will it go, how will it look, what can be it’s highest potential, and how can I best shape it with my heart and hands, so that it can shine its BEST in the world one day, and I can be a proud father.
Wow !!! Awe. Silence.
We both paused. I had never heard anyone describe something so beautifully. I felt enlightened in that moment as I saw this relationships between a diamond and this man in a way, I had never seen or heard before.
Before this I knew what a diamond does to a man’s (or woman’s) future, this day, I saw the other way around. And it has now changed that aspect for me forever.
Something definitely changed inside me. and in the way I saw this aspect of the world
I catch myself sometimes, holding something and often wondering, what is the best possible future of this. Book, poem, Ideas, flower, model, process, anything.
Something quietens inside me then, as I stand in this middle place … as a possible bridge between this moment, the past and the future of this.
It feels like a sacred privilege.
This, breaking away of frames of perception can be scary and yet so beautiful if we have faith and the wisdom to surrender to the moment and all that is possible. It does call for leaving our immaturity behind and grow up
“Make no mistakes about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of the untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” Adyashanti
The Age of Enlightenment, or simply the Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness and the inquiry of such.
I feel relieved that enlightenment, was not just sitting under a tree. It also means seeing in different directions, while reaming in touch with the ground reality, at the same time. No wonder I like the slug so much
Who would have though a workshop on Negotiations would lead to such contemplations.
And yet , it is a negotiation, within. Between our various selves, and various selves of others and beliefs and seeing the win-win. Atleast pursuing the possibility of this.
Worth the enlightenment. Me thinks.
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