Enlightenment in a broad sense means that a person has found answers to the main questions and has stopped spiritual search. This is "an integral and complete awareness of the nature of reality" (quote from the works of Turchinov). Although the term originally comes from Buddhism, it is essentially applicable to any teaching.
Today, enlightenment is often understood as a whole religious movement, and not a specific concept. And, of course, there are quite a few of them. Books on this topic can be easily found on the shelves of any bookstore. Often it is precisely the detachment from any religion that is emphasized, and the position of a separate teaching is taken up - transparent and understandable, as opposed to others. Thus, new interested parties are attracted, tired of the "confusion" of classical religions. Therefore, the ideas of enlightenment are logically becoming very popular in the post-Soviet space, in Europe and Western countries. But when studying these directions, when I found myself in India, I found that the modern trend for the most part (there are exceptions) is based on the ancient Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta.
There are as many approaches to Advaita Vedanta as there are schools. While preparing for a trip to India, in one of the books telling about the spiritual search of the author, I learned about a certain Ramana Maharshi, whose teaching is self-inquiry. It seems to me that this example is the most successful. The focus here is not on blind faith, as in most religions, but on the use of a "scientific approach." There is only one research question: Who am I? There is no manipulation here, and the result depends only on the person, and only he can decide whether he will satisfy him or not.
It is assumed that a person in the course of self-investigation will come to the fact that he will discover the non-existence of everything with which one could identify or identify himself. Moreover, it turns out that he himself does not exist. There is only One Consciousness. Achieving this “state” was enlightenment.
Mooji (a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi) suggests using the observer detection approach as a tool in this self-inquiry. It is assumed that the entire mental process can be observed from the outside, that thoughts are born by themselves without the participation of a person, as if he was watching a movie or listening to the radio. The next step is to discover who is watching on the observer. The cycle continues until enlightenment occurs. All this can be called meditation - observing the mind. "Mind" is considered as the main obstacle to enlightenment, and it all comes down to knowing its nature.
A “realized” person perceives reality as something that happens by itself, as a “divine game”. His heart is filled with endless, causeless love. More precisely, he does not acquire love, but becomes love himself, now he is both the source and the primary cause.