What does enlightenment mean to you?

Enlightenment: the fine art of being able to stay sane, calm, aware and awake when everything and everyone around you should for all intents and purposes drive you completely insane, mad, feeling lost and alone.  It has been my experience that true enlightenment isn't for the faint of heart. It challenges you in your every waking moment. And just when you think you've got it, that you're one of the enlightened ones, that you can stay in your "divine" place when you're confronted with a challenge, you find yourself caught completely off guard and fall into the abyss of what is the reality of the human nature and it's ego.  My journey towards enlightenment has taught me that being aware of those times that I fall off the "enlightment wagon" is "Enlightenment", that it's the very nature of realizing my challenges and confronting my weaknesses that brings me closer to "enlightenment", finding and realizing the divine within me.  I believe there is only one true challenge I face daily and that is to stay awake in a sleeping world, and therein lies true enlightenment, what enlightenment means to me.


"Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength." ~ Lao Tzu 600 BC-531 BC)