Enlightenment: Journey into Awakening (part 1)

By Kiara Windrider

There is nothing like being on a journey towards a far land, not knowing the way, not sure the destination exists, somehow knowing I am destined to arrive to God, yet aware also that the self that finally arrives is equally destined to disappear. What can I say about this journey, except to affirm that it only begins after it is over? What can I say about the self, except to know that I only understand myself when it is gone? What can I say about discovering God, except to marvel at all the continually changing infinitely beautiful expressions of God’s face, which is also my own face?

Ever since I can remember stories of holy men and women in the mountaintops and forests of India living in enlightened states of divine union have fascinated me. I looked to them with admiration and some envy, recognizing the longing deep in my heart to achieve a similar state of enlightenment, yet convinced I did not have the discipline nor stamina required to spend years in a cave hidden away from the world seeking this most precious of all pearls.

Many years have passed since that boyhood dream, and through all my travels and experiences of life, a part of me has always held on to that seed and guided my journeys. I have seen that my journey is not different from anyone’s journey, for underneath all our separate illusions of reality, there is essentially one soul, one mind, one consciousness – and the one longing to realize this within ourselves. As I share this journey of awakening, you will perhaps see that it is your journey as well. And more than that, it is also the journey of the vast unified consciousness that is the collective consciousness of this planet.

Perhaps I will begin this account with an incident, which jolted me out of complacency one beautiful sunny morning, when I was 16.

I was a student at the Kodai International School in the lushly forested hills of south India. One day a group of us went out to one of our favorite hikes, a beautiful winding mountain stream ending in steeply cascading waterfalls that dropped hundreds of feet into a gorge below. Two of us went ahead of the rest. Somewhat intoxicated by the perfection of beauty around us, we suddenly decided to climb down the face of the waterfalls. We had climbed several hundred feet when my friend lost his hold and fell. I watched him fall in petrified shock, and in the next moment continued to watch as I lost my own grip and followed after.

Fingernails bloody from trying to stop my fall, bouncing rapidly down the steep cliffside, I eventually realized there was nothing more I could do. I found myself surrendering to the inevitability of death. In that moment a great peace washed over me. I entered a time zone where everything slowed down, and in my next moment of conscious awareness I was standing in a waist deep pool of water on a ledge of rock jutting out from the cliff 200 feet below. My friend had also landed in the same pool. Though hurt and dazed, we were inexplicably, gloriously, alive!

In the months and years afterwards I embarked on a fervent quest to understand the meaning and purpose of my life. I studied and explored the teachings and practices of just about every world religious tradition that exists. After graduating from high school I spent several years staying and studying in various ashrams in India, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian. I won’t say too much about this journey, although it’s been long and interesting, because there came a point when I intentionally gave up all organized religion, realizing that much of it was too imbedded in the past, and feeling like I needed to find a path that spoke more directly to our contemporary human condition, while at the same time deeply connected with the Source of all things.

When I was 21, I received a scholarship for a college in the USA. Bethel College is a small college in Kansas, very deeply grounded in the Mennonite traditions of peace and justice.

Inspired by people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and becoming increasingly more aware of the political dimensions of Jesus’ministry, I began to realize that my spirituality had to extend into the marketplace, engaging with the political, social and economic realities of the world around me, changing not just individuals but also systems, affecting not only their spiritual, but also their physical realities. I ended up majoring in Peace Studies and International Development, and spent some years actively involved within the peace movement, struggling to create a better world through political activism.
Ever since I was young I had also been passionately interested in the environment. I hated seeing what man’s blindness and greed was doing to nature. During my years in college I became deeply connected with the Native American path, a path representing oneness with nature, and with the Great Spirit. I became interested in shamanism, in understanding the spirit that moved through all things, and in speaking directly with Great Spirit through nature and through what the Australian aborigines called the Dreamtime.
I yearned to develop the mystical connection with trees, animals, and nature spirits that the indigenous people all over the world seemed to still maintain. Over the years this led me to learn what amounted to a form of “channeling”, where I was able to attune to the consciousness of nature spirits, angels, ascended masters, and cosmic beings.