While Moksha and Nirvana are the concepts that existed centuries ago in ancient civilizations, the most recent term which helps us to understand the Ultimate Goal of life - Peace and Happiness by attaining Liberation from misery and sorrow, is 'Enlightenment'. Formerly, it was known as inlighten meaning 'to illuminate'. Originating from the translation of a German word Aufklärung, the term 'Enlightenment' denotes 'the full comprehension of a situation'. Enlightenment as a global movement triggered mankind to make a move in the direction of eradicating the darkness of ignorance and be enlightened with the Truth. While this effort started many centuries ago, the term 'Enlightenment' was formally made into a movement by philosophers only after the advent of 15th century. The thinkers and philosophers consolidated all rationalistic thoughts and created a philosophy that encouraged freedom and independence of all kinds, primarily to put an end to suffering.
While Moksha originated about 5000 years ago, and Nirvana about 2500 years ago, Enlightenment is an infant that came into existence around 500 years ago. People across the world, belonging to various religions spanning through the continents, were still miserable and religion told them to pray to God to be liberated from misery and sorrow. As they tried to do so, education evolved and people started contemplating about so many religions and scriptures. People wondered how there can be so many Gods and where could heaven and hell possibly be. Thus, came about the belief that Liberation from misery and sorrow will come from Enlightenment by getting awakened to the Truth. It will only be possible if we overcome the darkness of ignorance and we get illuminated. Today, many people around the world believe that the goal of life is Enlightenment, a state that would liberate them from the misery that is born out of ignorance.
In the western world, the concept of 'Spiritual Enlightenment' had become synonymous with 'Self-Realization' and overcoming the ignorance that humanity lived in over the centuries. Enlightenment destroyed all the myths like going to heaven or hell. A glance into history shows that all the ancient religions of the world experienced a downfall at this point in time, either due to the deterioration of the original message propagated by the faith or overcoming of the religion itself, by a different religion.
To understand how 'Spiritual Enlightenment' came about, one needs to have a fair idea about what exactly was taking place around the globe that resulted in the dilution of original faiths and the emergence of the ambiguous and questionable forms of various religious practices. These religious practices brought about a lot of confusion to mankind instead of guiding it towards the Ultimate Goal of life – Peace and Happiness. The effect of Enlightenment was such that the suffering humanity started enquiring about the truth behind so many religions. It wanted to know the reality as to who can help end its misery. Enlightenment, at the spiritual front, emerged as an outcome of the religious struggle across the world. The objective of achieving freedom from misery and sorrow got overshadowed.
Hindu Faith, also known as Sanatana Dharma, was established 4000 to 5000 years ago. It is so ancient that its origins are lost in the midst of prehistory. Many sages who were associated with the original Hindu Faith, lived around 4000 BC. Hinduism has no historical founder and its authority rests upon sacred texts, known as the Vedas. It is believed that these texts which form the very basis of Hinduism, were received by the saints directly from God through meditation and realization and these were passed on to the future generations by word of mouth. These are the most ancient religious texts which dene the truth of the Hindu Faith.
But while Hindu Faith advocated Moksha, the Liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth as the Ultimate Goal of life, it got transformed to Hinduism that started a belief system of worshipping innumerable Gods and following endless rituals and superstitions. The caste system which undermined the poor as untouchables led to the downfall of the otherwise primary religion of the masses. Hinduism continued to believe in some principle concepts like Karma and Moksha, but due to the large mythological inuence of Gods and Deities, the original Hindu Faith disappeared into insignicance.
The reason why the original Hindu Faith transformed to Hinduism might have had a positive intention behind it. It was very difcult for the masses to believe in a nameless and formless God. Thus, the sages around the post-Vedic period introduced several Gods that one could pray to. Each would fulll the respective objectives. There was a God of Wealth, just as there was a God of Knowledge. It started with one God, went on to the trinity – the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer; and then ended up with countless Gods with each village having their God, and each family believing in their own personal God. Over time Hinduism lost its popularity and there was the birth of Buddhism, and other religions.
A Hindu prince, Siddhartha Gautama, fed up with the rituals and superstitions and the power of the priests, renounced his kingdom and family and went in search of the Truth. It is ironic that what he realized was the original Hindu Faith itself which had now become diluted over the many centuries. He cleaned up the myth from the truth and called the Ultimate Goal - Nirvana, instead of Moksha. He presented the Hindu Faith with a different perspective and coined the term Nirvana for Liberation.
Buddhism that arose in the Eastern part of ancient India evolved as it spread from the Northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent through Central, East, and Southeast Asia. Today, Buddhism exists, just like Hinduism, in various parts of the world. Buddhists believe in chanting and achieving Nirvana, a state of bliss, just like the Hindus believe it to be Moksha. Unfortunately, Buddhism like Hinduism also lost its authenticity by its dilution. Many monks who considered themselves to be Buddha and Bodhisattvas, lost sight of the original message of the Buddha. The decline of religion was not just limited to Hinduism and Buddhism. Religions all over the world were becoming more powerful and because of Enlightenment, people in all these civilizations started questioning the authority of religion.
While Hinduism and Buddhism were centered in the East, what was happening in the other parts of the world in the ancient civilizations? In India itself, Jainism emerged as a dominant religion in the Indian subcontinent. Its followers believe in the Tirthankaras, whose dening characteristics are marked by asceticism and self-discipline. The most known Tirthankara Mahavira, around 6th century BC, is said to have advocated his followers to live a life of Tapasya, deep austerities of the body that were very difcult for a common man to follow.
Looking beyond the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, religions around the globe were as complicated if not more. An ambiguous system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. Ancient Egyptian religion was centered on the Egyptians' interaction with many deities believed to be present in, and in control of, the world. Rituals such as prayer and offerings were provided to the Gods to gain their favour. The Pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt, were believed to possess a Divine power by virtue of their position. This resulted in the decline of the original religious practices in ancient Egypt and made way to the spread of Christianity in the region.
In the area around Mesopotamia, modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan, Judaism was the foundation for all other Abrahamic religions. It was born as the oldest form of monotheism which later branched out into Christianity (1st century AD) and Islam (7th century AD), the two major religions of the world today. The founder of Judaism was said to be Abraham, although it was made famous by Moses in the Ten Commandments. Judaism received criticism because its theology and religious texts describe a personal God who has conversations with important gures from ancient Israel like Moses and Abraham.
Ancient Persia or modern-day Iran, around 1500 BC, saw the birth of Zoroastrianism. The ancient Indo-Iranian religion, known to natives as Mazdayasna, served as the state religion of the pre-Islamic Iranian empires for more than a millennium. Extremely inuential over the development of the Abrahamic tradition, it was the state religion of various Persian empires until the Muslim conquest of the 7th century AD and it survives in parts of Iran, India, and Iraq to this day. This was not very different from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In China, Confucianism was created by one man, Chinese politician, teacher, and philosopher Confucius in the 5th century BC. Though the most humanistic and least spiritual in essence, Confucianism does provide for a supernatural worldview as it incorporates Heaven and the Lord on High. Also, in and around China, Taoism was practised along with Confucianism. Taoism can be traced to a work attributed to the mythical Lao Tze, said to have been a contemporary of Confucius. This religion evolved from a strand of traditional Chinese folk religion, and makes mention of masters and teachings from long before it was codied, including the god-like Yellow Emperor, said to have reigned about 2500 years before Christ, and the 'I Ching,' a divination system dating back to 1150 BC. Confucianism rose to the position of an ofcial orthodoxy during the Han dynasty. It absorbed the metaphysical doctrines of Yin and Yang. With the fall of the Han, the dynastic model, Confucianism fell into severe decline.
In Japan, Shintoism was the only religion until the arrival of Buddhism in the 6th century CE. From then on Shinto faiths and traditions took on Buddhist elements, and later, Confucian ones. Some Shinto shrines became Buddhist temples, existed within Buddhist temples, or had Buddhist priests in charge. Today, the faith is a unied account of ancient Japanese mythology, marked strongly by Buddhist inuences, and is followed by the vast majority of the country's population.
What do all the ancient world religions tell us? People were tired of religions that promoted myth, followed rituals and superstitions. As the world evolved with the 'Spiritual Enlightenment', people started asking questions to know the truth because not just the Hindu Faith but the whole world found itself in darkness. Centuries passed but there was no glimmer of light.
There was a time period in European history that started around the 5th century AD until around the time Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492. This time period is known as the 'Middle Ages' or the 'Dark Ages'. This was the time when the world witnessed the fall of Imperial Rome and due to the severe loss of cultural, technological and historical wealth of the Roman empire, this time period resulted in ignorance. Simultaneously, this time period is also called as the 'Age of Faith' because of the rise of Christianity and Islam.
In the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church became very rich and powerful. People gave the church 1/10th of their earnings in tithes. Eventually, the church-owned about one-third of the land in Western Europe. Because the church was considered independent, they did not have to pay the king any tax for their land. Kings in France, England, and Spain consolidated their power and set up lasting governing institutions. The French monarchy slowly began to expand its authority to have control over more of the country in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Haven't we all heard the sad incident when the poor were hungry and had nothing to eat and the queen supposedly said, “If they have no bread, let them eat cake.” Because of the misery experienced by people in the Dark Ages, a new movement was born. It questioned the authority of the king and the church. While the priest and royalty lived a life of luxury, the poor were led to suffering and misery. This movement became known as Enlightenment. Not only did it cover the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries but it also became a global movement linking all the continents although having different names.
The Enlightenment Era, also known as the 'Age of Reason', was a philosophical movement that took place primarily in Europe and, later, in North America, during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Its participants thought they were illuminating human intellect and culture after the "dark" Middle Ages. The term 'Enlightenment' was popularised in the Western world and has been understood as having a sudden insight into a transcendental truth or reality.
Due to this awakening, the world witnessed the emancipation of women and the abolishment of slavery. People started questioning the authority of the religious institutions and asking for scientic evidence behind every ritual, every practice unlike in the Dark Ages. Enlightenment is the Age of Reason. People started questioning monarchy and in 1789 the French revolution took place due to widespread discontent with the French monarchy and the poor economic policies of King Louis XVI. The theory of 'natural law' was a vital part of the Enlightenment as what constitutes “right” and “wrong,” is the same for everyone, and this concept is expressed as “morality.” It also talked about freedom of speech, religion, and trade. Skepticism of religious dogma - where monarchs were placed in positions of power by the Will of God and were not subject to earthly powers. Even the king was above law – but enlightenment refused it. It questioned the logic of this practice.
In the Age of Reason or Enlightenment started the tradition of early eighteenth-century British Deism. They believed that God exists but the universe proceeds according to natural law. These deists, while maintaining individual positions, shared several sets of assumptions and arguments. The most important position that united the early deists was their call for "free rational inquiry" into all subjects, especially religion. Saying that early Christianity was founded on freedom of conscience, they demanded religious toleration and an end to religious persecution. They also demanded that debate rest on reason and rationality. Deists embraced a Newtonian worldview, and they believed that all things in the universe, must obey the laws of nature. Without a concept of natural law, the deists argued, explanations of the workings of nature would descend into irrationality. This belief in natural law drove their skepticism of miracles. Because miracles had to be observed to be validated, deists rejected the accounts laid out in the Bible of God's miracles and argued that such evidence was neither sufcient nor necessary to prove the existence of God. Along these lines, deistic writings insisted that God, as the rst cause or prime mover, had created and designed the universe with natural laws as part of his plan.
With a background of all this confusion, coupled with the Enlightenment movement that was born in the world, where was the world heading to? Due to the fact that written history was barely a few thousand years old and religious scriptures of all religions did not have any concrete explanation to what they preached, modern man found it preferable to chose Reason over Blind Faith. Man did not change his aspirations over the centuries. He still wanted peace and happiness but he was not willing to follow a scripture that did not agree to his logic. He wanted to overcome ignorance by nding answers. He wanted Enlightenment.
Therefore, what exactly is Enlightenment all about? It is awakening. It is overcoming the ignorance that we live in. It is questioning every ritual and superstition. It is eradicating darkness from our life. Just as the Buddha was enlightened, we all have an intellect, and we can all attain liberation and enlightenment by transcending our mind.
Whether it was called Moksha by the Hindus or called Nirvana by Buddha or it became known as the Enlightenment Era, all the three movements had one goal - the goal was to be liberated from misery and sorrow and live a life of peace, joy, and bliss.
Enlightenment is all about using our power of reasoning and distinguishing the truth from the myth. From time immemorial man has been gifted with a Mind and Ego 'ME,' which is his biggest enemy. The goal of human life is to transcend 'ME' and overcome the illusion that we live with.
The cosmic illusion makes us believe that this world is real and therefore we suffer. We swing from regrets of the past to fear of the future because of our ignorance. We live in darkness not realizing that nothing is ours. At death, we see nothing goes with us just as when we are born, we bring nothing with us. When will we overcome this ignorance that makes us suffer?
Enlightenment, therefore, can be summarized as a modern-day movement that was born several centuries ago as a result of man's belief in blind faith and dogmatic religion. Unlike Nirvana which was the product of the Buddha and Moksha that was a message from God to the ancient sages, Enlightenment was a realization by humanity that suffered the ills of the various religions that people followed in different parts of the world.
Enlightenment was the answer. It is a path that would lead us to our Ultimate Goal. It will make us realize the truth, but how is this path different when compared to Moksha and Nirvana? Let us compare the three.
Centuries passed, but the darkness did not end,
Ignorance remained to only extend.
There was no Peace, there was disillusionment, Till
the world found Enlightenment. 