The Question...Religious or Enlightened?

Recently I've pondered the question for myself...do I want to be considered religious or enlightened? The answer for me leads to another question...to be accepted or not within certain groups of thought.

I have pondered through the many paths of discovery on my spiritual journey as to how I identify myself and how others choose to recognize me. In this quest for my own truth I have become less and less identified with any one label. The more I step back away from the group analogy, I ponder more independantly. Personal investigation of truth for me has led me down many of the old trails of religious persuasion to be a part of one way of thinking or another. I have learned that thoughts are a powerful and controlling thing. The next question is...what conclusion do I want to be led by? The challenge for me is; to understand which thoughts are authentically mine and which ones are the shared manifestations of anothers dream. Am I having a shared experience of someone else's dream or am I my own dream manifestation? Do I want to religiously follow the steps of another or do I want to experience the unlimited myself?

The question that follows that thought is; what does it mean to be enlightened and can I get there? I've pondered certain statements over the years that convinces me that others also must have felt these same uncertainties. Statements like:

"To Be or Not to Be..."
"Many are called...Few are chosen" (or maybe few choose?)
"Be true to thine own self..."
"Ruin is the road to transformation..."

These words are just a few of many that have crossed my path to cause me to step back and question the idea of following anything religiously. I have had a drive and thrist all my life to touch the unlimited understanding that we all have equal access to the enlightened state of being. I also feel within my heart that there is no single instruction of how to get there because we all are unique and gifted individually. We all can be still in the presence of "Source" to recognize truth, is my understanding. The very essence of our existence is truth itself.

I don't think I am alone in this pondering of these questions and I think that is why today we all are evolving towards the destiny of enlightenment at a rapid speed. As to how and when we will know it, is all in the choosing to be in the very moment of all that there is...life itself is all there is and to detach from the illusion of what seperates us will bring us into who we really are. Life leads us to another question?