Spiritual Enlightenment is the experience of our true nature - our essence - and a simple way to explain this is through the liberation from our own mind. This means for the brain to get out of its own way and for the mind to become liberated through the change from thought identification to mere thought observation. That which is observing your thoughts is your true enlightened nature.

   To explain this, a mirror is often used as a metaphor for the mind, or consciousness. Our mind is an empty mirror in which thoughts occur as reflections. We are the mirror. Our thoughts, as reflections in the mirror, are our subjective self, or ego. By observing our thoughts we can see that these reflections come and go in the mirror, but when we watch closely we find something behind these reflections that is clear and stable. This is the mirror—our true nature. 

   Knowing our true identity, we can observe the reflections as they change from pleasant to unpleasant thoughts and back again, but since we no longer identify with the reflections we have now become liberated from them. This simply means that we are no longer controlled by our thoughts.

   We now control our thoughts, and can select positive and happy thoughts, instead of negative and unhappy thoughts. This is enlightenment and freedom from our thoughts, which leads us to the essence of our nature. This was what the Buddha taught, and all his 84,000 teachings can all be condensed into one line: Recognize your essence.[i]