blogenlighten

Here is a passage from my 2005 Bestseller, “The Translucent Revolution.”

Looking Beyond Enlightenment

There is an important distinction to be made between translucence and traditional understandings of “enlightenment.” Very few of the people I have talked to would seriously label themselves as “enlightened.”  At the same time, the overwhelming majority said that they were no longer seeking a state of enlightenment, although many had done so previously.  Most said they no longer had any idea what the word was supposed to mean.  This is in sharp contrast to the atmosphere of spirituality that existed even fifteen years ago, when most spiritual people were still following a guru, trying to win the cosmic jackpot.

Musician and songwriter Peter Makena and his wife, Aneeta, exemplify this change. They were both disciples of the controversial Indian teacher Bhagwan Rajneesh in the 1970s. (He has been known simply as Osho since a few months before his death in 1991.) Now Peter is less sure what the “E” word means: “ ‘Enlightenment’ used to have an elusive meaning, something like the Holy Grail. It represented a final end point, in my idealistic and dreamer-like search, of what human potential could be. Today my sense of that potential is more of a finger pointing, a hint, a direction, with no final product.”
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