“What a great question,” I said with excitement. I was just about to read a quote from Eckhart Tolle's book “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.” I think it's one answer to your question.

Tolle says the more you make your thoughts and beliefs your identity and equate truth with thought the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Spirituality has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.

Consciousness transcends thought. It is the dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought. Your identity is no longer the “voice in your head” your incessant stream of thinking. Your identity is the awareness prior to the thought, the space in which the thought, emotion or sense perception happens.

Ego is the identification with your body, mind and emotions. Identification with ego results in a total unawareness of our connectedness with the whole and with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin and suffering. Heaven is not a location but an inner realm of consciousness.

As I pondered Tolle's words I realized he was talking about the path of the mystic. Mystics believe knowledge comes from within, seek God through direct contact and regards every person as a potential vessel for the word of God. Mystics focus less on texts, precise ritual, formal creed and adhering to a written code of conduct.

All the religions of the world have literalists and mystics and those that combine them. The Kabbalah is the mystery teaching of Judaism, Gnosticism and Esoteric Christianity embody the mystery teachings of Christianity. The Upanishads and Hindu Tantras are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism. Sufism is the esoteric side of Islam and Enlightenment is the mystery teaching in Buddhism.

The mystery teachings draw inspiration and revelation from the sacred texts of all religions. Names for Revelation include God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Christ, Yeshua, Allah, Great Spirit, Inner Light, Gnosis, Christ Within, Love and Enlightenment.

Curious about the concept of “awakening” or “enlightenment” I began to read what other authors had to say.

Jan Frazier says in her memoir “When Fear Falls Away: The Story of Sudden Awakening” there are three realms: outer events, inner response and deeper stillness. Deeper stillness is the realm of the enlightened. It is not subject to the outer world. When your inner response ceases to exist the outer reality is entertaining but without real substance and not as engrossing.

She says enlightenment is the capacity to swim below the waves of life. When the great waves roll in she dives below where they don't tumble and crush.

The stream-below-the-ordinary is real. It runs in everyone and its not dependent on the outer world. When she goes below the stream of ordinary consciousness she suddenly knows with startling clarity what to do.

Adyashanti says in “The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight talk on the Nature of Enlightenment,” that “Full awakening comes when you sincerely look at yourself, deeper than you've ever imagined, and question everything...Enlightenment has nothing to do with what you add unto yourself or whether you're more or less happy. Enlightenment is, in the best sense of things, a destructive process: it's the crumbling away of truth. “It's asking, 'What do I really know for certain?' and being open and sincere about what we find...real awakening happens when the seeker and the seeking are dissolved. When we're no longer fueled by “what do I want” and “what don't I want.” The hallmark of true awakening is the end of seeking. There's no longer a need to seek love, approval, success, money or even enlightenment. We realize the entire structure of our personal world view and a personal self is nothing but a dream in universal mind. True enlightenment is the experience of Spirit completely uncorrupted by illusion, conditioning and contradiction.

Michael Beckwith says in “Your Soul's Evolution” we were never born and will never die. There are four stages of consciousness: Victim, Manifester, Channel and Being. In victim consciousness things happen to us. We believe we have little power or control. As the Manifester we take responsibility and make things happen. As a Channel we surrender our will to a higher intelligence that functions through us. Being Consciousness is the manifestation of enlightened living. He says, “The reason you've incarnated is to reveal the glory of the Divine as you and you alone can.”

“A Course in Miracles” says we have a choice between two parallel "worlds." One is physical and the other spiritual. We can look at the world through ego or through spirit. One is external the other internal. Since God is all love all knowing and all powerful the concept of separation is an illusion. Everything in the universe is God. We are God's “body.” Time and space do not exist. In eternity there is nowhere that is not God. Everyone and everything is interconnected.

When we identify with spirit we know we were never born and we will never die. There is only birth and death when we identify with our body and ego. The Mind of God leads to truth, the mind of man leads to illusion. When we judge another we judge God and ourselves.

“A Course in Miracles" says right mindedness listens to the Mind of God, merely overlooks and forgives what never happened. Wrong-mindedness listens to the ego and makes illusions. Where we saw evil and darkness we now see light and holiness. There is no need for help to enter Heaven for we have never left. We see a kindly world and walk in gentleness.

Daily prayer, yoga, quiet time in nature, writing and studying scripture is helping me to live more in the NOW. Having a balance between my alone and people time enables me to identify less with my thoughts, release fear and become more aware of the space behind my emotions, sense perception, stories and the “voice in my head.” My life has become more contemplative and monastic.

My inner work showed me how all spiritual practices are ways to uncover and discover our inner spiritual core that is perfect, whole and complete.