Enlightenment, Spirituality & meditation
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Enlightenment & Spirituality? Do I really need to meditate? Am I ready? What’s holding me back? Honest talk w/ Mark Zaretti

Written by Mark Zaretti

If you know about the idea of “Enlightenment” then you probably want to be more spiritual.

Perhaps you are meditating but feel stuck like you’re not progressing.

Or maybe you’re not interested in and want to become more spiritual without it.

It could be that, like so many people, you’re just seeking more clarity about what is Enlightenment, , meditation, and how the soul, , and mind fit into this picture?

You can also watch this video on Rumble or YouTube.

When it comes to discussing Enlightenment and “What is Spirituality?” naturally there can be a lot of confusion. In fact even the topic of just meditation can seem complicated too. It was just such a question asked a few weeks back by a member of the public on the Live Show that provided me with a chance to explain things. In this article based upon the answer I gave in that live show I will reveal to you how enlightenment, spirituality, soul development, and meditation are all related. The answers may surprise you!

So Nicholas asks:

Does meditation have any place in spirituality?
(Seeking a closer relationship with ?)

And so what Nicholas is saying there, he’s seeking a closer relationship with God in brackets, because what he’s hinting at there is that, as we’ve defined in this live show and in previous podcasts and in the , that the simplest way of putting spirituality is that:

“An inner-desire that transcends intellect, a desire of the to be closer to God”

Would be a very simple and easy to understand way. Now it becomes more complicated because then you start saying, well,

“What is God?“

You know, BOOM! That’s a big question. But keeping things really simple, the clue is in the name “Spirituality”. It’s not ““, you know, and I’ve talked about mindfulness in previous episodes. But Mindfulness, the clue is in the name, it is to do with your “Mind”. Spirituality is to do with your “Spirit”. And it is your spirit that is the seat of ; it’s the seat of the beacon of light within you that is literally pointing you, showing you, or trying to show you, the way back to God.

And so your spirit desires to return to the source of your spirit, which is God. So that’s keeping things really simple.

So framing things in that way, then we can look at this question and say, well, “Does meditation have any place in spirituality?” So, similarly then, we should really define what “Meditation” is.

What is Meditation?

And most people, I think, will recognize meditation to be sitting down, eyes closed, not moving, being still. From the outside, most types of meditation will probably look very similar, unless of course people are paying, what is fundamentally, a lot of attention to the physical postures. So if they’re doing mudras, which is things with their hands to connect up different fingers to the thumbs and stuff like that. Or putting the tongue on the roof of their mouth, these kinds of things. Or they’re pushing their heels into their groin, these are called “Mudras” and the idea there is that you’re connecting up energy circuits in the body.

Now, connecting energy circuits in the body means you’re working with bodily energy fundamentally. I mean, people might talk about “Ida and Pingala” or “Kundalini energy”, but it’s all still centered around the body. And spirituality is, as we’ve discussed, the goal of trying to return to God. Or get closer to God. And God doesn’t have a body so anything to do with the body is eventually going to probably represent a limit, even if it is energy and not form.

So going back to what is meditation?, we’d say, well look, on the outside, it looks like it’s about sitting in and giving your attention on the inside. What you give your attention to pretty much defines the meditation. So if you give your attention to a mantra, which is a set of sounds that you repeat on the inside, then what you’re doing is A) you’re creating vibration within you, which may or may not be actually helpful. And B) you’re giving your attention to your mind, which is creating the vibration of those sounds within you, since it’s your mind repeating the mantra, or your brain to be more specific.

Similarly, if for example, you’re doing counting breath then you’re paying very much attention to your body and the sound of the counting or the cadence of the counting. Now it doesn’t mean that these things aren’t good but they’re not the same thing as, say, for example, sitting in stillness and actually meditating with light and sound. Notice I said with light and sound and not on light and sound. Because light and sound is a gift.
So light energy, the light of God, Which is revealed in a process which traditionally was called initiation.
So again, I apologize if this is new to you, I’ll put links in the description to all of these things, but I’ve talked about initiation and written articles about it. And talked about it in books and stuff.

What is Initiation?

But in a nutshell, it’s a process by which someone who is very spiritually advanced reveals spiritual light to a person. And that fundamentally is like a switching on. And with the revelation of spiritual light you are now able to meditate on something higher than you, or meditate with something higher than you.

And the keeping things really simple, what happens is that raises your spirit and your soul to transcend the awareness of your brain, or what people call mind and the awareness of your body. And eventually, over a long period of time, literally tens of thousands of hours of meditation over years, even decades, then there can be enough of a letting go through practice and desire, as in not desire down, but desire up. There can be enough letting go that you let go of all of the limits that you identify with. There’s no more you, and there’s a, if you like, a reunification or… It’s difficult (to explain), because the spirit was never part of God. It was made from God by God, but it was never God. But let’s just say the light of God guides the spirit. And that is what enlightenment is, it is when the spirit can go no further and transcends all limits including reality, creation, time, all of these things, so that it is as close to that which is one thing everywhere and has always been there and will always be
there, which is God. So, boom!

The Role of Meditation on the Journey to Enlightenment

Big, big topics! Where does meditation fit within this? Well, the spiritual journey on light requires the revelation of light. And this is something that I’ve done for a small number of people over a long period of time. And so I can talk from experience, having received it and having given it, that that side of things is real.
But I talked about the soul and the spirit, and the soul side of the journey has nothing to do with
meditation and everything to do with change. So the spirit is already all the qualities that are good, light, love, etcetera.

Soul Growth without Meditation?

The soul, if you like, is your potential, but that potential, it doesn’t get realized unless you make choices in . And through exploring those choices, you gain experience, and you experience importantly not nice things.

  • So it’s not about bliss.
  • It’s not about Nirvana.
  • It’s not about hedonism.
  • It’s not about satiating your desires.

You explore and experience good things, meaning you demonstrate goodness. And then you can break that down into all kinds of things, like forgiveness, compassion, kindness, wisdom, truthfulness, you know, being just, not being wrongful. You know, all of these kind of things. Anything that when you look at a person and you go, “That quality is good“, you know and the classics would be things like compassion and things like this.

Whenever you do the right thing, your soul grows.

And what is that growth? What direction or what parameter is that growth? Well, it is your soul grows in goodness and the different qualities that it can grow in through experience, we sometimes refer to soul qualities.

So, for example, if you’re in a situation that requires courage, then when you’re courageous, you grow in your level of courage. And your soul has grown not physically, not in size, but in its qualities. And so the soul journey is the journey to become more good.

And what’s the root word of “Good“? It is godly. Now, it doesn’t mean that we become God, but it means that we align more and more closely with the qualities of God. And so spirituality can be the spiritual journey through meditation, of going to the source, through the revelation of spiritual light. But it can also be the growth of an individual in terms of their soul growing to be more good.

Now, if you’re paying attention, one of those requires someone to intervene (by giving) initiation. The other one doesn’t. So the spiritual journey that is available to everyone is the soul journey. The spiritual journey of taking the spirit to the source, to God, it’s not you taking it. It’s God. Taking it is a gift (for you).

Is everyone ready for a spiritual journey?

And it’s not a gift for everyone. It’s a gift for those who are ready or where there is need. And there’s two schools of thought:

  • There’s some people that believe that everyone can do it. Everyone can. You just “Zap” them with the energy and boom, they’ll all get enlightened.
  • And there’s the other school of thought which is that “this is a very rare thing“; that this is a very precious thing, and it is totally a gift from God that we could never earn. That the only thing we can do is to respect that gift through the process of meditating upon it, upon the light, with the light. But we don’t earn it, we don’t earn the progress, we don’t earn the right to it. It’s a gift, total.

There has to be total humility. So when it comes to “Does meditation have a place in spirituality?” The answer is yes, and no. For the majority of people, the truth is “No”, because one of the reasons why I said that the spiritual side is a gift is if you haven’t worked on the soul side; if you haven’t developed those soul qualities to a level of maturity, then you’re not in the right alignment with good, with goodness, to actually benefit from being given the spiritual side of the picture.

Now, what most people make the mistake of is thinking:

“It’s all about sitting down and meditating,
and then that will make me good,
or better, or ready,
and then I can progress.” 😞

But it’s completely the other way around! You need to work on yourself (first). So the truth is that for the massive majority of people on the planet, and there’s no judgement in this, it’s simply the truth, then what’s being overlooked is the soul development in anticipation of the spiritual journey. And really, people might need many more lifetimes of working on their soul before there’s any potential to actually progress on the spiritual journey.

And this has taken me, when did I?… 1997, 98 is when I started teaching and got initiated. 2009 was when I attained enlightenment… It’s taken me until probably about 2015 to 16 to really get my head around this myself. So it’s not surprising that there’s a lot of confusion.

So hopefully that answers the question that, yeah, there is relevance (to meditation), but it’s not as binary as
people think. It’s not “Sit down, meditate, and you are spiritual“. Quite the opposite, actually. Spirituality happens in everyday life through the choices that we make and the reason why. In that picture, I’ve got the
picture of the book, “Spiritual Life Explained The Wake-up Call, the way back to God“. Is that book, out of all of them is the one that probably defines and explains what the spiritual journey from a meditative, soul, and spirit perspective are all really about.

Enlightenment Book

And how there’s a wonderful chapter in that book where it flips everything upside down and shows us that our body-centric views of the world have actually hamstrung us spiritually, and that we need to, well, we have the opportunity to, turn things upside down and see things the way they really are. And it takes a lot of the pressure off (life).

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

  • Spirituality is an inner-desire of the heart to be closer to God.
  • Spirituality is not intellectual (mind) it is driven by the spirit which guides us.
  • Most meditation is not spiritual, but rather exploring the body and other energies.
  • Mindfulness and mantras are focused on the mind, not the spirit.
  • Only a focus on spirit, in the presence of God’s light, can lead to God guiding you via your spirit to Enlightenment.
  • God’s Light is revealed in a process called initiation.
  • Most people mistakenly focus on meditation thinking that is the way to get ready (for enlightenment).
  • Every time you make a good & just choice in life your soul grows and becomes more godly.
  • Therefore soul growth happens in life (not in meditation).
  • Everyone can focus on soul growth.
  • A person is only ready for the spiritual journey, driven by the light of God, after they have grown their souls to a suitable level of Godliness (goodness).
  • The book “Spiritual Life Explained: The Wake-up Call” explains all of this and reveals the main mistake most spiritual people make.
  • Therefore the focus for most people, which would bring about the most spiritual change is soul growth, and for that, meditation is not necessary.

Useful links to things mentioned in this article

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