Acknowledge this album Satori from Flower Traveling Band.

What’s it with spiritual enlightenment? Why is it that people lose their mind over spiritual enlightenment, by whatever name it’s called, satori, nirvana, samadhi or holy union or whatever?

Does such a state exist?

Hindu scriptures say that one who has experienced spiritual enlightenment would not express it, and one who expresses it has never experienced it. Hindu scriptures are clear that one who talks about spiritual enlightenment is a fraud.

These days, we have self-proclaimed gurus with fancy titles not only talking about spiritual enlightenment but also guaranteeing it, as if it were their possession. Most of them have no clue to what they are talking about. There are enough Hindu scriptural references to spiritual enlightenment. These guys read about it. Some memorize the Hindu scriptural references in their original Sanskrit. They then start their business.

That’s all it is, pure business of spiritual enlightenment.

In Hindu scriptures, there are four statements called the great truths or maha vakyas. All these talk about the inner energy of our mind body spirit system. The Hindu scriptures say that in our inner energy state we are all divine. They say that our inner energy is the same as the cosmic energy. Realization of this truth, according to Hindu scriptures and Buddhist scriptures is spiritual enlightenment.

How do we get to this state of spiritual enlightenment?

Advaita or non-duality, the Hindu scripture philosophy, clearly states that we are one with the divine, that there’s no separation between us and this inner energy divinity and what may appear as separation is illusion or maya. The Advaita philosophy provides ways and means to reach this state. Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras provides the path to this spiritual enlightenment or samadhi, in his definition of the eight-fold path of Ashtanga Yoga.

Patanjali Yoga is not, as i spoke earlier, hot, cold, wet, dry or nude Yoga. It’s about the mind body spirit and inner energy. The self-styled gurus who give away spiritual enlightenment as candies and along with candies may have read the maha vakyas or Yoga Sutras, but to be sure, they have never practiced them. If they had, they wouldn’t talk about spiritual enlightenment.

If these gurus were indeed genuine, they would instead, as Ramana Maharishi did, direct us to self-enquiry and go back to silence.