When men hear the idea of Enlightenment they picture it as
the revelation of information about matters  exotic and completely unknown to
ordinary humanity, whereas what it really does is wake up a person to
the obvious that is all around them;
its other version of men living in a state of sleep in fact says nothing other than
that men’s minds are for some reason programmed in a wide range of subjects,
to ignore the obvious.

To employ the classic mystical backdrop:
living in a state of darkness and captivity is to be (or at least, seem to be)  --
oblivious to the obvious,
and to experience The Enlightening Liberation is simply to become unconditionally aware of the obvious, regardless of your ever changing personal circumstances.
The literature popular on this subject over the last thousands of years gives another story, insisting that what those privileged priests privy to The Great Mysteries,
those semi divine rulers initiated into The Secret Metaphysical Brotherhood,
and the worthy individuals who either achieved,
or were chosen by the gods to receive Enlightenment,
gained was supernatural knowledge of matters transcendental;
entertaining tales no doubt, but the reality of the idea
that there is knowledge not commonly utilized by men
(which, interestingly enough, is as old as the recorded history of men having ideas)
is something else  --
it cannot be said to be: “something else altogether” for the knowledge held by those whose brains actually experience (in a manner that proves sustainable)
that anomalous condition labeled: Enlightenment, Awakening, and Liberation,
is not, as the fascinating yarns would have it --
knowledge of matters at all removed from the everyday life of everyday men.

The fabled accounts say that Enlightenment brings men knowledge about
the gods and other supernatural matters;
an awareness of man’s metaphysical mission, and the secret explanation
of why he strays so far therefrom (and on like that),
but the (quote) secrets known by a man whose nervous system undergoes this
quite extraordinary experience-come-mental-alteration
have nothing whatever to do with such subjects;
the actuality of the thing labeled, Enlightenment is the conscious activity of the brain being unnaturally aware-of and attuned-to  --  the obvious.
The transcendental, magical, supernatural, mystical, and in all respects,
other-worldly state of consciousness that comes from the neural experience/alteration called, Enlightenment is nothing more or less than a personal,
non debatable consciousness of the obvious in life and in the life of man.

All men speak constantly of them seeing the obvious:
“That idea is obviously incorrect.”  --  “Their beliefs are obviously insane.”  --
“Such actions will obviously result in disaster,” (and so on),
and to the quite normal, sane minds in the majority of mankind
which make such statements with such frequency as to render them unnoted,
the obviousness of what they say, they take as incontestable,
but the obviousness their minds speak of all concerns matters
which have an existence only IN the mind,
as (quote) sincere as they may be in their comments,
the obviousness of which they say they are aware is (apparently oblivious to them) about the soiled condition of Cinderella's gown;
the way this is observably programmed to play out in ordinary men’s mental lives
is that they are made to act as though the truth about the world of intriguing ideas,
and dream scenes their mind has created can be (according to a man’s intelligence,
or [quote] spiritual-development) either: obvious, or hidden from him,
as though either possibility is factually applicable to questions concerning the dress of fictional characters, or descriptions of the settings in which
they are imagined to dwell.

Undoubtedly does the mind part of the human brain love (in its free time)
to be entertained  --  by everything from movies, to books, to religion to gossip,
and such (for ordinary minds) is what makes that time bearable,
and seemingly built in to this arrangement is that routine minds
never make a clear distinction between the obviously physically-extant, essentially-significant, and by any definition: real  matters they think about
which are clearly the raison d' être FOR the nervous system developing
the conscious operations in its brain that results in thought,
and all the other matters which do not fit this straight forward description,
but when men are asked about this, they confidently deny it,
and say that they indeed DO make constant distinction between things real and unreal, (such as): if he is a Muslim he will say that Allah is obviously real, and that the Christians’ God is just as obviously not (and so a Liberal about Conservatives, Capitalists about Communists, etc).
The obviousness conventional minds are made to say they see
is a characteristic they have conjured up to attach to imaginary matters  --
plain and simple (to the enlightened mind).
 

So: there you have it (if you want it):
there is without any question, a physical reality to the experience called: Enlightenment, Awakening, and Liberation,
one in which the conscious operations of the person’s brain, through some non standard flow, or combination of the brains electrochemical activity,
produces an unnatural awareness of matters obvious,
which to ordinary minds are --  or at least seem to be  --  anything but.
The way the life of man is currently set up and running,
his thoughts MUST ignore many things that are obvious;
if all men’s minds dealt in the obvious, civilization, with all of its unique, physical, survival-related benefits would not be possible;
for man the species to operate optimally, by taking full advantage of his
singular ability to think about things in addition to being able to act on them,
his mind must overlook much that is obvious, so as to dream of how they could be,
if man but made this or that alteration to their preexisting, natural arrangement,
and within this majority (the norm), men’s minds have no practical need to make
an ongoing distinction between this type of neural activity,
(abstracting the physical world), and mindlessly passing their free time
in weaving entertaining fables in which man is the only figure who counts;
it is only a few humans whose nervous system wiring and programming varies from the species’ norm who have an interest in this matter, and one sufficient to drive
a few among the few into such lifelong efforts, gropings, speculations, stumbles,
and discoveries as to result in them eventually having that most unusual experience
in their nervous system (most clearly reflected subsequently
in their consciousness’ awareness of life and of itself)
of their minds becoming aware and knowledgeable of  --  the obvious;
that by itself is the totality of being Enlightened, Liberated, and Awake to
what is really going on with life,
and someone will say: “This all sounds quite nice, but I don’t get it  --
what is it that is so ‘obvious’  --  that I and ordinary men do not see?”  --

One man who frequently wrote on the matter of the liberating-enlightenment
says he plans to someday show how the following contemporarily popular ideas
are unwittingly related thereto:
road-rage --  repressed-memory  -- stewardship-of-the-environment  --
bipartisan cooperation  --  co-dependency  --  undisclosed-resources  --
lethal-injection  --  blunt-force-trauma  --  unresolved-issues  – deficit-spending  -- cost-overruns  --  deregulation -- private-sector-participation  --  culture-wars --   military-intervention --  recovery-program --  support-group  --  suspicious-package --  few-side-effects  --  not-all-buyers-will-qualify-for-the-special-lower-rate  --
coverage-may-not-be-available-in-all-states  -- level-playing-field  --
more-questions-than-answers  --  normalization-of-relations  --  defragging-your-files --
conflicting-philosophies-of-life  --  a-dreary-new-era  --  now-we’re-paying-the-price --
completes-the-work-on-the-same-day-when-possible –  abusive-relationships --  to-spend-more-time-with-the-family --  collateral-damage  --  feelings-of-ambivalence, and: free-home-trial.