Some cultures are supportive of the mystical experience and admire people who are awakened and enlightened. In India, for example, the awakened state is recognized, admired, supported, and encouraged. Not in the United States and other Western Countries. That's why Westerners go to India seeking spiritual experiences. In the United States such seekers must seclude themselves in monasteries or drug communes.
In Unitarian Universalism there is no recognition of the awakened state and no cultural support. The closest UUs come to recognizing, acknowledging and admiring people who have awakened, or aspire to awakening, is the UUs appreciation of the transcendentalists and admiration for people like Thoreau and Emerson and Browning.
Awakening, enlightenment, can be considered to be an advanced evolutionary leap in consciousness similar to what Maslow called "actualization" on the pinnacle of his pyramid of needs. Awakening is a transformation of the self-system which encompasses an awareness of and love for and experience of the seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism's "interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." UUAWOL ministries calls this stage of human spiritual development "cosmic consciousness." It is exemplified by the person who asks the hot dog vendor to "make me one with everything." When the person asks the vendor for his change, the hot dog vendor replies, "change comes from within."
The mission of UUAWOL ministries is to sanctify the world by helping people become holy. This state of holiness is the same thing as awakening or enlightenment. It is the function of religion to help people become holy and we UUs do it by facilitating a covenant to affirm and promote our seven principles. This state of cosmic consciousness is definitely attainable for those who would see it. It says in A Course Of Miracles that gradual awakening occurs when people are clear and focused on their purpose. The purpose which should be chosen is to always do what Love would have me do. This requires surrender to the Divine will of the cosmic consciousness or sometimes called the Tao.
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