Enlightenment

Lighten up.

People often mistranslate the word 'guru.' They think it means 'light bringer.' Light bringer connotes that we have to seek and find light (fulfillment) outside of ourselves. From a Vedic perspective, this is off. It's also the source of much suffering and seeking. Here's how 'guru' is properly translated:

Gu=darkness

Ru=remover

Guru is all about removing darkness. What's the darkness? Stress, ignorance, and mistaken thinking. Your inner light, your fulfillment, is already within. It's simply being dimmed by stress. That's what our practice is all about: removing layer after layer of stress. Our lives are enhanced by allowing the best version of ourselves to shine through.

There's another way to think about the term enlightenment: we're lightening the load. Stress is such a weight. It's such a burden. Vedic Meditation is all about letting go of that weight; bit by bit. Through consistent practice, we literally begin to feel lighter.

And finally, enlightenment and lightening up is all about not being too serious. The only thing we're fairly serious about is getting to the chair twice a day to meditate. Once we're there, we are anything but serious. If we feel restless, we can wriggle. If we feel a wave of sadness, we can cry. If we hear a joke in the other room, we can laugh. We're practicing being simple, easy, innocent, and not too serious.

The more we practice, the lighter we become on all fronts.