Enlightenment is your business if you are a monk practicing yoga

Life, like many others, is understood in terms of light in the yogic tradition. Yoga practise can help you achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment is a condition in which you have a continual brightness in your emotions, cognition, and how you feel about yourself. A real Kundalini experience leaves you feeling more luminous, forgiving, and tolerant, as well as more compassionate. Yoga views the human body/mind system as a dynamic series of currents of mental, emotional, and physical energy that act similarly to rivers of light.

An enlightened being is not always someone who has chosen to leave the earth. It might be someone who is balanced, clear, and enjoying life to the fullest, with adventure and potency. Every tradition holds the belief that every human being is capable of reaching their full potential. Many individuals say that when they get near to experiencing this experience subjectively, it seems like endless dazzling light. The goal of yoga is to unite awareness with this light so that you can fulfil your greatest potential. Yogis have been trying for this condition for thousands of years, so it may appear to those of us living in the contemporary world that it is an unattainable aim. Everyone, however, has the potential to strengthen their connection with the light and reach their own enlightenment.

What exactly is enlightenment?

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, created the phrase "self-actualisation" to describe to the condition of reaching one's life potential – what may be considered modern-day enlightenment. Of course, this experience progresses from the uplifting sensation you receive when you have a great idea or an "Ah-ha!" moment to mystical unity with God.

What is crucial to remember is that this is something you may aim for at any time. That doesn't imply wandering around in a trance, unable to relate to the outside world, but rather being in a state where there is continual background radiance in your emotions, mind, and how you feel about yourself.

Even a small bit of this makes life a lot more enjoyable. So, whether you are entirely dedicated to your spirituality, wish to delve into that light, or simply want to be happier, progressing to this condition is a good end. When we see enlightenment in this light, it becomes a state of growing lightness that is infused into daily life.

On a practical level, this lightness, or unlimited possibility, may manifest itself in quite mundane ways. A stressed-out marketing professional, for example, travels abroad and leverages the heightened condition she achieves in her yoga practise to fulfil her new business goals. Or a middle-aged guy achieves such calm via meditation that his connections with his family become more harmonious.

On a practical level, achieving this sensation of lightness might even make doing the dishes simpler. Wash each dish as though you were revealing the light of your own bright self or someone you genuinely love, and notice how much lighter you feel.

There are five levels of consciousness.

• The physical body
• Qi or Prana
• Emotions
• Mental dispositions
• Connectivity (oneness)

Yoga begins with the basic realisation that we exist on five layers of awareness, which are five bodies of light, the first of which is our physical bodies, which include our muscles, bones, cells, and everything else that makes up our physical structure.

The second layer is known as a subtle energy body, which holds our life force and controls how life energy moves through the body. The Chinese refer to this vital energy as "qi," while yogis refer to it as "Prana."

The third layer is our emotional domain, which can be both powerful and disempowering. Emotional empowerment makes you joyful and inspires you. When you are experiencing disempowering feelings, you generally have reactionary thoughts and feel horrible about yourself or others. If someone yells at you and you react by yelling back, you are having a disempowering emotional experience.

The fourth layer is the mental arena of discriminatory ideas and attitudes. This layer is balanced when your ideas about yourself and others are motivated by admiration and respect. You feel supported by the cosmos and participate in activities that assist others in realising this as well. This layer, when out of balance, may wreak havoc on your life. When you believe "I'm no good" or "I'm a victim of life," for example, you tend to encounter situations that confirm those negative ideas.