There is in Christian mystical literature an understanding and a description, a recognition of what we could call enlightenment experiences. Evagrius Ponticus, one of the more intellectual, theological and philosophical of the Desert Fathers, speaks about meditation as the way ‘in which we come to see the light of our own spirit’. ‘In which we come to see the light of our own spirit’ – he is describing a stage of consciousness, a stage of the journey. We could say that it’s about seeing one’s mind clearly with-out self-analysis or self-reflection, without the intervention of intellectual thinking. Is it just about seeing the world differently? Or is it about the actual doors of perception that we have being cleansed, being purified, being transformed? And as they are transformed, as we perceive differently, we perceive, we see ourselves, we see the light that we have within ourselves. And that light is reflected then in our perception of the external world.
( Enlightenment by Laurence Freeman OSB )
