We all know that life involves work - that it can be difficult - a form of spiritual weightlifting. Life tests and teaches us, tempers our spirits. Difficulties are how we learn and grow, and we need to appreciate that. The concept of achieving self-mastery is less important to me than the effort, the quest. A man named Shoma Morita, M.D. once said, "Effort is success." Maybe that's why St. Augustine remarked, "Lord, I pray not for a lighter load but for stronger shoulders." Everyday life can give us stronger shoulders.

Q: Your new book is called Everyday Enlightenment. Is the "everyday enlightenment" that you've written about the same as or different from the ultimate spiritual realization described by the world's wisdom traditions?

DM: I would say they are different. The practice of enlightenment I give at the end of my book involves conventional enlightenment - enlightened behavior - self-mastery. Not the same as the ultimate Realization described in the spiritual traditions. However, I recommend this practice as a constructive way to spend one's time, one's life, while waiting for the Cosmic State.
There are two great schools of thought operating in our world, it seems to me. And they've been operating since the time of the ancient Greeks and long before. There's the Idealist School and the Realist School. The churches, for example, tend to be more idealist. The Catholic Church isn't wrong in its dictums; it's just idealistic. The Church is there not to compromise or be run by popular opinion, but to draw us to our highest ideals. To tell young people to "just abstain from sex until married" is perhaps ultimately best-or at least until one is in a mature and committed relationship. But do we actually live this way? Few of us, I can tell you. So at the same time as we might offer advice or guidance in accord with our highest ideals, it may also be realistic to educate them about safe sex and contraception rather than pretending it's not going to happen, and make sure they have access to condoms in case they do engage. As the Arabic proverb goes, "Trust in God but tie your camel."
Some people hold to the idealist view that we should wait for "genuine enlightenment," the transcendent Realization of God. That's fine, but we may wait lifetimes for that and not pay a great deal of attention to what we're doing in the meantime. When I refer to practicing "everyday enlightenment," I'm speaking about actually consciously asking, "How would an enlightened being act in this moment?" - then behaving that way. Someone might ask , "You suggest that I pretend I'm enlightened?" I would respond, "Yes. Pretend--like a shy young boy pretending he's confident and asking a young lady to dance--like a terrified soldier who pretends he's courageous while saving a comrade under fire. By "pretending" - by behaving as if we were enlightened beings, we find our breath relaxing, our body relaxing and opening, our faces smiling - even though our internal reality might be bummed out about something. We might have depressed emotions and still smile at someone or do a kind deed, because that is what an enlightened being might do in that situation. Of course, we need to avoid acting out a caricature of "enlightenment" like the Kwai Chang Caine character on the Kung Fu TV series. It doesn't mean we deny our reality or fool ourselves, nor is it a form of pretense. Saying "I am enlightened" doesn't make one enlightened any more than saying "I am a pineapple" makes one a pineapple. Enlightenment doesn't mean always acting blissful or talking in a certain way. That would not be realistic.
Although "everyday enlightenment" is not the same as Enlightenment in the ultimate sense, it's a good practice to adapt our bodies and minds, to prepare them, to make them more transparent, to become a servant in the world while we're waiting for our insides to be filled with light. I think this provides a very meaningful practice-that we can, in any moment we remember, play the role of an enlightened being.
Although it may sound presumptuous, I suggest that the "practice of enlightenment" as described in my book is the highest practice any human being can do, because it incorporates all other practices one might do. If you are meditating, for example, yoiu can say, "How would an enlightened being meditate?"-and meditate that way. It's based on the fundamental presumption that we can control (and are responsible for) our behaviors.
One question I ask people is: "Would you rather live with an enlightened being who acted crazy or a crazy person who acted enlightened?" I don't offer an answer, but suggest that it is a very interesting question to consider.

Q: One of the things we've observed in the course of our exploration for this issue is that individuals who have attained either self-mastery or enlightenment always seem to emanate an extraordinary degree of confidence, a sense of being unbound by limitation. In those who have "mastered themselves," that confidence seems to arise from the discovery that they have the power to break through seeming limitations and do things they never imagined they could, the discovery of an overwhelming sense of "I Can." Whereas in enlightened individuals, it seems to arise not from the discovery of their own personal power but from the deep, mysterious and life changing realization of their essential unity with the very ground and source of all existence that you alluded to before-a realization not of "I Can" but of "I Am." What do you see as the difference between the confidence of the self-master and the confidence of the enlightened person?

DM: Well, I would say that one kind of confidence is conditional and the other is unconditional. One type of self-confidence involves the smaller self; the other is confidence not in self but in Reality or God or Spirit working in, as, and through the "self." Enlightened Self-Confidence is not based on a great self-image or confidence in one's capacities, but in an ultimate trust in whatever happens, and a complete unconcern over whether one is liked, because one rests in the knowledge that one is loved. No, not that one is loved, but that one is Love. Most of us want to feel good about ourselves, want to feel self-esteem and self-confidence. In fact, most of our "search for enlightenment" is motivated by wanting to feel good in some ultimate sense.
My years in athletics taught me that even if you are unsure you can accomplish something; even if you are filled with self doubt-if you work toward it and discover that not only can you do it but that you have done it, you may generalize this realization to other challenges in life. You may reason, "I really didn't think I could accomplish the last task, but I did; maybe I can meet this next challenge as well."