For it is the for that the metaphor is for.  This sounds ungraspable, though simple.  In some ways it could be more difficult for a mind to “grasp” (comprehend) – (the entomology, of course of the ‘comprehend’ word is half based on the Latin prehendere literally meaning ‘to grasp’) – than is the idea of one hand clapping.

These are thoughts – not exact, of course – that I was having while listening to the fine 1990 recording of Van Morrison’s song ‘Enlightenment’. ‘(Don’t Know What it is)’.  I tripped on this a bit.  Like my back yard, I can dig it.  Indeed.

I started to get into the nuance of just why and how we don’t know what it is.  Why is it ungraspable?

The flash of insight was delightfully sudden.  And simple.  Perhaps we put too much reliance and stock on the thinking of enlightenment as something obtained – either a gnosis kind of knowledge or an awareness obtained, a more awakened state.  Clap, hand!  Clap!  That indeed would be cool, you could ‘get’ an awakened state of gnosis by not ‘getting’.  That indeed leaves us where we always are:  not knowing at all what enlightenment is.  Yes!  That is how.

Yet enlightenment, perhaps, is a little bit more – or a lot bit different – from this.  Yes, that’s what it is.  Nothing is more or less, despite the thinking that makes it so.  It’s just something else.  Maybe enlightenment is not something gotten or obtained at all, but something one becomes to be – in a way.

Enlightenment is in some sort of way – or a multitude of ways! – a becoming of something unknowable, something like light in the metaphoric form.  It is a being spiritual in the spiritual light as spiritual light which is lightness and energy that can only be metaphorically known as light.  We may wave at the particles as they go by.  We may wave and particle.  We may exist in multiple states never observable as any state at all.  Who knows?

But one thing we can know.  Enlightenment is not something learned or obtained.  It is not an awareness gained or awakened to.  Try as you may.  Or even if you successfully don’t try at all!

But it is an eternal way to be.  Just be!  Be thankful!  Be happy! Be joy!  Be the metaphor for light!   Be the lightness of being!  Be creation!  Be! (And radiate!)