What Is Spiritual Enlightenment? Exploring the Path to Liberation and Mindfulness

Embarking on a path of spiritual enlightenment can be tricky, especially if it’s unclear exactly what it truly means.

To many, the definition is vague. Others claim it’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t been spiritually enlightened. The easiest way to discover and understand spiritual enlightenment on your own terms is by learning about and grasping the steps and values required for spiritual enlightenment.

Here, we will discuss spiritual enlightenment in depth, including the steps and values you should embody to achieve it.

Table of Contents

What Is the Meaning of Spiritual Enlightenment?

In itself, the word ‘enlightenment’ means to embody light and be aware of how you shed that light on others — both people and things.

Providing a straight definition is difficult because enlightenment can look and feel different for everyone. Instead, we are allowing you to navigate and interpret that yourself. We believe in self-awareness and an inner connection, but what that means to us might differ from what it means to you. Use this as an opportunity to learn and define spiritual enlightenment for yourself.

What Causes Spiritual Enlightenment?

The general consensus is that a spiritual awakening is what begins your path toward enlightenment.

A spiritual awakening is often referred to as a transformative experience that helps one shed one’s ego, become more aware, and question things one thought one once knew.

However, going through a spiritual awakening does not instantly mean you are enlightened. Instead, it helps you to acknowledge that you have “woken up” to begin your path toward a higher state of being, sense, and self. You are on your way to spiritual enlightenment.

Buddhists call awakening a “path to liberation” or a path to awareness. Most people who become enlightened, like Buddha, walk this path for years until finally reaching it. 

The Nine Levels of Awareness on the Path to Enlightenment

To navigate the path to enlightenment, you pass through nine levels of awareness. As you reach each level, you’re taking another step toward wholeness. 

    1. Initial Awareness: The initial questioning of the meaning of life and your place in the universe, where you realize that there is more to life than you can see and touch
    2. Determinate Awareness: Deciding to dedicate your life to the pursuit of enlightenment 
    3. Right Awareness: Gaining control of your body and habits so you can live by the principles of enlightenment 
    4. Bright Awareness: Beginning to become bright and remain bright all of the time, where your true self becomes stronger, and you develop wisdom beyond preconceptions and knowledge
    5. Holy Awareness: Developing spiritual powers and abilities, like healing or seeing into the future
    6. Non-Thought Awareness: Going beyond thought and entering a state of pure awareness, where you are no longer limited by ego, attachments, or past experiences
    7. Brilliant Awareness: Reaching full enlightenment, where you are completely awake and aware of your true self and connection to the universe
    8. Command Awareness: Using your enlightenment to help others, were you become a teacher and guide to those still walking the path
    9. Return of the Soul to Its Origin: Known as Chunhwa in Korean, where your true self or soul leaves your body and emerges with the divine.

What Does Spiritual Enlightenment Feel Like?

Spiritual enlightenment may feel different to different people. If you are not enlightened yourself, it may be difficult to imagine what it might feel like for others.

For many, spiritual enlightenment feels like the dissolution of the three egos—the id is the primitive and compulsive subconsciousness, the ego is our rational conscious mind, and the superego is our moral mind.

As you become enlightened, all three egos meld together, and you no longer have a distinction between them. This is said to be when your ego is whole, and you are truly aware of every part of yourself and your place in the universe.

What Steps Should You Take Toward Spiritual Enlightenment?

We’ve mentioned that enlightenment is a path you may have to walk for a long time before becoming enlightened, just like many who have become enlightened. This path may not look, feel, or be the same for everyone.

Because we all have a unique sense of self, perception, and experience, the path to enlightenment will reflect that and be different for all. However, there are general values and practices you can embody along the way.

10 Values That May Help You on Your Path to Enlightenment

Working toward understanding the basic principles of spiritual growth may help you on your path to enlightenment. Just as you can act with poise and confidence on your journey to becoming a successful person, you can act in an enlightened way even if you are not quite there yet.

By learning and living by some basic values and principles, you can begin behaving more enlightened, which may help you reach enlightenment faster. 

#1: Choose Positivity

Responding to life’s frustrating situations with sadness and anger will not help you change the situation. Instead, changing your perspective and being happy and positive rather than living in resentment can be helpful.

Science shows that your body releases three hormones — dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin — when you smile, so smiling even when you’re not happy can signal to your body that you are happy and, in turn, make you feel happier.

#2: Embrace Challenges

Most humans turn away from challenges and difficult situations as a natural response. However, you will see their benefits if you believe you’ll never be given a challenge you can’t handle, learn from, and grow from.

The more you overcome, the stronger you will grow.

#3: Nurture Personal Growth

Actively seeking to improve yourself daily can help you live a more meaningful life. You can establish a growth-oriented mindset, whether physically, mentally, spiritually—or all three.

Sedona Mago Center for Well-Being and Retreat offers a Sedona Wellness Retreat program so visitors may gain practical tools to help them become conscious creators of their lives. Here, we teach you about the principles of energy systems in your body and how to activate them so you can begin or continue to create healthy habits that help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. 

#4: Constantly Pursue New Spiritual Goals

Pursuing goals is great, but going after goals that are easily reachable and don’t have big payoffs doesn’t do you much good. Instead, pursue goals that will give you joy despite obstacles or outside motivations, then plan your path and start moving toward them.

#5: Acknowledge Abundance

Understand, believe, and accept that the universe will provide you with exactly what you need to reach your goals and become exactly who you want to be. By acknowledging this, you can step confidently toward your goals, knowing that you’ll be provided for.

#6: Accept Your Power

Many believe that their thoughts and emotions are out of their control. Once you acknowledge that you are in control and only have the power to change your life, this becomes easier to accomplish.

Sedona Mago Center for Well-Being and Retreat offers a Finding True Self program that allows visitors to uncover who they truly are once they are stripped of all their accomplishments, degrees, titles, etc. Surrounded by the natural healing energies of Sedona, we’ll help you find the power that is within.

#7: Trust Yourself

Believe that you can find the answers and solutions to any problems you face or things you desire.

Think about it. Every solution and creation began with a brain that was able to think in a new way, so if you want something new or different in your life, trust yourself to get you there.

#8: Take Good Care of Your Body

On the path to enlightenment, all three pieces matter — physical, mental, and emotional. Understand that your physical body was given to you as the vehicle on your journey and that taking care of it is important for you to keep on going.

You wouldn’t put harmful gas in your car and expect it to get you where you’re going safely, right?

Sedona Mago Center for Well-Being and Retreat offers a Revitalizing Detox Retreat that helps visitors learn about healthy eating, living, and state of mind, all while detoxifying them from negative energies, pollutants, and distractions.

#9: Imagine the Best Version of You

The world will accept the version of you that you put out there for them to see, so think hard about what this “best version” looks like, and you’ll begin to embody exactly who that is on the outside.

#10: Live for the Good of All

Rather than seeing the world through an individual and selfish perspective, you should begin to live in a way that benefits everything and everyone to live the best way possible.

Think of this as having a “servant mindset,” where you live for the humanity of everyone and everything, not just yourself.

Learn More About Spiritual Enlightenment and How to Spiritually Enlighten Yourself at the Sedona Mago Center for Well-Being and Retreat

Enlightenment means nothing if it’s only discussed and never practiced in our culture. By nourishing and cultivating your best human mind and soul, you can first enlighten yourself before working to create an enlightened culture. 

Sedona Mago Center for Well-Being and Retreat offers many programs to help guide visitors through spiritual awakenings, on paths of spiritual enlightenment, and more.  

Our non-denominational, non-profit organization is dedicated to changing the world one visitor at a time. We offer retreats, healing services, yoga, and more to help teach about different practices and lifestyles, including spiritual enlightenment and how to achieve what you’re after. 

Contact us today to plan your visit.