Is enlightenment a real thing? Is it something that New Christian believers should be searching for?
As a theological term, “enlightenment” is broadly associated with religions that originated in Asia (particularly Buddhism), and not with Christianity or the New Christian Church. Because of this association, our notions of enlightenment are liable to tend towards vague images of monks who have attained wisdom by meditating on mountainsides. And it’s noteworthy that when we think of “enlightenment” along these lines, we tend to regard it as something that is attained — as a transcendent state of mind that one either has or has not. We’re either the monk on the mountainside or an ordinary yokel: there is no in-between.
This pop-culture concept of enlightenment has little or nothing to do with Christianity. But enlightenment doesn’t have to be mystical or monastic. The word simply describes a state of receiving light. But not physical light: the light that we have when we’re enlightened is mental light — the light of understanding. To put it simply, enlightenment is a state in which our minds can see clearly. To be enlightened is to no longer be “in the dark,” to no longer be struggling with “foggy” thinking. When we’re enlightened, we see the objects of our thought in clear light.
So yes, Christian Scriptures don’t say anything about “attaining” enlightenment. They don’t tell us that we should wait to be endowed with mystical powers of comprehension. But in the Scriptures, the Lord has plenty to say about the difference between a mind that’s in the dark and a mind that’s able to see. Here's an example:
The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. (Luke 11:34)
Here's another:
… he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. (John 12:35)
In these passages, the Lord seems to be talking about physical light and physical darkness. The statement about walking in the dark and not knowing one’s way is certainly a reference to an external, sensory experience. But in other places He makes it clear that when He speaks of light and darkness, He’s using those words metaphorically. What He’s really talking about are our beliefs — that is, the things that our spiritual eyes either see or don’t see. He says: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46). Note how He says that He is the source of our internal light. He gives our minds the ability to see — He is the Light of the World (John 8:12, 9:5).
If light is the Lord’s to give, then “enlightenment” is a word for the state of mind in which we receive His gift of light. This is the Christian concept of enlightenment. To be enlightened is simply to allow the Lord to open the eyes of our mind — to allow Him to teach us, allow Him to show us what we hadn’t seen before. This, too, is something He speaks of in many passages:
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth…. (John 16:12, 13)
Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know. (Jeremiah 33:3)
It’s important to hold onto the connection between “enlightenment” and “being shown something.” Enlightenment can sound unobtainable, but everyone knows what it’s like to be shown things that they hadn’t seen before — both physical things, like patterns in artwork, and conceptual things.
When people help us see, we call that learning, and we consider it ordinary. For the Lord to show us what we hadn’t seen isn’t all that different. Enlightenment isn’t a mystical experience. Moreover, like any kind of learning, it’s gradual. It comes (and goes) by degrees. Enlightenment isn’t something that wise masters have and peasants like ourselves do not. It’s a process.
It isn’t a mystical process, but it is profound. The Lord wants to show us what we haven’t seen. Seeing things we’d never seen before is always a powerful experience. He wants to show us truths that are utterly unlike the things our eyes tell us to believe. The difference between seeing these truths and not seeing them is the difference between light and darkness. Imagine you’d been blind all your life, and not even known it, and suddenly received the ability to see for the first time. That’s exactly the experience that the Lord wants to give us — only it’s not the eyes of our bodies, but the eyes of our minds, that He wants to open. Being able to see what we hadn’t seen before is an astonishing gift. And yet, enlightenment is simple. As simple as looking at a truth and seeing it — just as our eyes look at clouds and trees, and see them.
So should New Christian believers search for enlightenment? Absolutely! But we don’t need to meditate on mountaintops to find it. If we want to see spiritual things, what we need is a willingness to let the Lord be our light. In the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we’re told:
… everyone, even at this day, who turns to the Lord alone when he reads the Word, and prays to Him, is enlightened in it. (Doctrine of the Lord 2)
