What is the source of enlightenment?
It’s a question that’s been asked in many forms, over the centuries. What is it that helps us truly see? Not just look—but see things as they are, beneath the surface appearance. Whether it’s the nature of the people around us, the significance of what we own, or the stories we tell ourselves about current events… There is often a deeper truth waiting to be found.
Now, outside religious tradition, some might talk about higher truth in terms of insight—self-awareness, intellectual clarity, moral vision. Perhaps you’ve experienced something like it. Feeling lost or stuck, until a shift in perspective lets you breathe again. That change in how we see the world—how we think and feel—can be liberating.
I recall working with a client who was struggling with depression. Trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts, excuses, even self-deception. But over time, he learned to test those thoughts. To question them. What emerged were more grounded, rational ideas, based on evidence. He began to accept responsibility for daily decisions—stay in or get out of bed in the morning, shave or not bother, take risks with taking too many tablets or keeping to the correct dose. And in that, there was a glimmer of a higher truth: that he had agency. That his life had some freedom —if he chose to see it.
One of his guiding values, as we spoke, was the importance of faithful relationships. Another was a belief in the soul’s immortality. These weren’t abstract ideas for him—they shaped his understanding of life and death, and they helped him to live with intention.
Swedenborg called some religious ideas “appearances of truth”—truths seen through the lens of our understanding. For example, the idea that suffering is always punishment. A tempting thought, perhaps, when life feels unfair. But it may obscure a deeper truth—that misfortune can strike the innocent, as the Book of Job reminds us. And in suffering, we are faced with a choice: to harden, or to soften. To grow bitter, or to grow wise.
So some ideas are stepping stones. We cling to them for a time. Then we outgrow them, or see further.
Many spiritual traditions suggest that higher truth comes from beyond the self. The Hebrew scriptures speak of divine wisdom, far above ordinary thought. Swedenborg—an 18th-century mystic and theologian—believed that enlightenment comes not just from knowledge, but from harmony between what we know that is said to be true and what we love that is good.
In other words, truth alone doesn’t enlighten. Not unless it is joined by goodness. Not unless we live it, not just learn it.
Swedenborg wrote about the source of enlightenment as a spiritual sun – one he saw when in an altered state of consciousness —non-physical, but radiant. Its light representing divine wisdom; its warmth, divine love.
It’s a striking image. The idea that truth, real truth, shines not with cold certainty—but with the heat of compassion. That wisdom isn’t just in the head, but in the heart.
To be enlightened, then, is not just to know—but to warmly care.
Think of a judge in court. There is the letter of the law – e.g. statute, previous court decisions. This is what he knows to be true. But an enlightened judge has a deeper sense of justice—of fairness. This is what is good. It leads him to consider the spirit of the law and what is fair and just.
Or consider the enlightened parent who guides a child. The rules may seem restrictive, but they are, at heart, expressions of care. And so they are administered wisely. The words are the form; the love, the substance.
Think of the Golden Rule that exists in some form or other in all spiritual traditions.
- Do to others as you would have them do to you (Christianity)
- What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man (Judaism)
- No one is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself (Islam)
- Do not do to others what would cause you pain if done to you (Hinduism)
- Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful (Buddhism)
- Regard your neighbours gain as your own gain and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss (Taoism)
Those who grasp the Golden Rule not just in thought, but in spirit, act fairly even when no one is watching. In this way whatever faith they follow, their understanding of higher truth can be enlightened.
Copyright 2025 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of The Great Questions of Life
