N-lightenment

Something in you already knows.

Fear – the Main Obstacle to Awakening

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The Main Obstacle to Awakening and What to Do About It

A wonderful question that many spiritual seekers have. “Does a change of this sort mean jumping off a cliff and losing everything? I’m scared of drama and terrified of irrevocable shifts.” Just last night at Satsang someone asked a very similar question. “Will abiding in this deep peace mean that the life I have worked so hard to create will fall apart?”
 
I think many people have deep questions like these. It is natural and maybe inevitable. The nature of the egoic separate self-identity we call “me” is actually created of fear. Much of this is repressed so we’re not aware of it. But as the door to awakening comes closer, we begin to become aware of the true nature of the ego, and that is fear. So this is a very deep and important question. And I’m happy to honor it.
 

Answer

Thank you for this question as its authenticity relates to many people who have the same question. This is a very deep and honest question. Just last night someone in Satsang asked this very same question. I thank you for expressing it. I feel your heart in this. So it also requires a deep and honest answer.
Yes, it does feel like we’re jumping off a cliff and risk losing everything. That is the initial fear of surrender. And, yes, we have to be willing to do that, to jump off this imaginary but very real feeling cliff and to risk losing everything, to surrender everything. That’s why it takes great courage. Eventually we just have to do it. Jump off the cliff, surrender absolutely everything.
 
This is not a place for careful, cautious stages. Surrender is a very bold move when the very nature of the separate self is fear. And it is. So the fear of doing this is natural and inevitable. The separate ego self identity is made entirely out of fear, fear of not surviving. And to surrender fully, we are saying, “Yes, even this. Even death.”
 

What We Lose and What We Gain

This all sounds like very bad news. It is what the ego is afraid of. The good news is we give up everything, we surrender everything, we lose everything, including ourself AND as a result, we GAIN everything. We have only really surrendered our attachment, an illusion. What we gain is reality. We gain the world. We gain relationships that were never possible before. We gain peace. We gain love. We gain a complete uninterrupted contentment, gratitude and joy. We gain freedom. We gain life. And we gain our True Self.
 
What we lose (illusion) pales in comparison to the unlimited magnitude of what we gain. So this news is very, very good. But you can only know this when you take the leap. My words are only encouragement if you take them that way. I’m saying, “Jump in. The water is fine. It’s wonderful.” But you have to jump. I can’t do that for you.
 
I know it’s terrifying to take that leap. Every awakened being has done this. And all have experienced this terror. It is part of the nature of waking up. And this terror is a big obstacle. Some never pass through it. In my case it was experience the terror and do it anyway. Not initially. I backed off many times. But finally, I took the leap. And then another. And then another. Eventually I realized this fear had no reality to it. I only realized this because I tested it again and again and what I feared never happened.
 
I gave up all my talent as an artist and creative person. The result turned out to be more talent and creativity than I ever imagined possible. I gave up my relationships or ever having a relationship ever again. The result was the flowering of all existing relationships and new relationships beyond anything I would have thought possible. Everything I gave up came back to me in abundance. How could I know this? I didn’t. I just surrendered.
 
I gave up a limited, vulnerable, separate self identity and realized This, the unlimited, infinite, beyond all possibility of identity. Nobody who has ever awakened to Truth said, “I wish I didn’t do that. Is it possible to return to illusion again?” No awakened being has ever said that. Nobody ever will.
 
It’s worth the leap. It’s worth all the struggle and seeking and suffering that helped to open this door. Even a single moment of this great presence is worth a thousand lifetimes. I know the fear, My Friend. And I know what happens when you leap anyway and discover for yourself what happens. Nobody has ever said all that went before was not worth This. Thank you for the wonderful question that so many also hold deep in their hearts.

Is Life a Dream?

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dreamAs spiritual seekers we enjoy listening to or reading theories of awakening and enlightenment. We want to believe there is some sort of step-by-step plan we can follow and understand with our minds. That’s the way we’ve learned everything else in our life. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that it hasn’t really worked, at least not yet. But there’s always the hope that the next thing will, or perhaps it will if we’re a little more diligent in following the path we’ve already learned. At some point in this process at least a few of us will realize that it’s not working and it probably won’t.
 
This is rather disillusioning. If all these spiritual books and teachers can’t help me, what can?
 

A Much Simpler Approach

Let me suggest a much simpler approach that perhaps we’ve missed. And very likely we’ve missed it on purpose. 🙂
 
The reason that all these wonderful new spiritual theories and step-by-step practices haven’t really worked is that they’re all based on thoughts. And thoughts are not the solution. They’re the problem. Not thoughts themselves, but our belief and attachment to them.
 

The Zero Point

Let’s call freedom from all thoughts the “zero point”. It doesn’t mean there are no thoughts, but no thought is believed in, no thought is attached to. Thoughts have zero importance.
 
In spiritual terms this zero point is often called Samadhi and sometimes Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss).
 
Ramana Maharshi has said, “When the Self is realized, the world disappears.” This is an interesting comment and very true. And there is a simple explanation for it that has to do with how we perceive the world. We perceive the world through our thoughts about the world and the objects in it. Our first experience of this zero point is often the apparent disappearance of the world and all the objects in it. All objects we were previously seeing appear to have disappeared into a pure light. This may sound frightening, but it is anything but. It is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
 

An Experiment in Perception

Years ago I spontaneously discovered a little experiment. After years of meditation and a practice of letting go of attachment to thoughts I called “don’t know” mind, I discovered I could look at any object and, layer by layer, surrender every thought I had about it, name, form, color, function, connection, etc. When this was complete for that object, that object would at first become very blurry and then disappear completely into the background. I could no longer see it. As soon as a single thought about it reappeared it would immediately snap back into sharp focus.
 
This was fascinating to me so for a while I experimented with this with many objects in my perception. What it taught me was that I could not physically see an object as something separate from everything else without thoughts about that object. Without thoughts I could not separate an object from the background it appeared in front of. Without a thought, that object ceased to exist to my perceptions.
 
This also explains why the entire world and all objects cease to be perceivable at the zero point, Samadhi, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. As Ramana says, “When the Self is realized, the world disappears.”
 
If you have not yet experienced this, then this will only be another thought to you. This is why all words are only useful as pointers, not Truth. Hopefully these words can point you to a little expansion, a little less attachment to and belief in words as Truth. And also a little better understanding of what your perceptions (sight, touch, sound, smell, taste, etc.) are made from, as well as a little better understanding of your thoughts and feelings and even sense of self.
 

All Matter is 99% Empty Space

Let me add here that physicists have long known that what we see as solid matter is actually 99% empty space. Hopefully this will give you even less confidence, attachment and belief in what you see and believe as reality. That is certainly what the experience of the zero point, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, awakening or your True Self will do for you. It will leave your mind forever free of mental knowing. And this freedom is bliss. It is peace. It is unconditional love. It is True Knowing. It is Presence to what is in each moment.
 

Integration

The initial experience of this freedom from thoughts, what we call awakening, is so radically different from everything we have ever “known”, which we now realize was just a thought-based waking dream, that it takes some time for integration. Some rush this integration and too quickly develop thoughts and theories about what it is. They let their initial discomfort and unfamiliarity with being in a thought-free state of complete not knowing trigger them back into a thought-world, although now it is a “spiritual” or “awakened” thought-world. But this is still a thought-world. It is a new dream, but it is still a dream.
 
There is another option.
 
Obviously remaining fully in the zero-point / Samadhi is not going to work for functioning in this material plane. Without perceiving objects, we cannot function with them. So that is not really an option, at least not for long. We might call the practical second option a Middle Way or as I like to call it:
 

Living Awake

In Living Awake we are fully aware that our thoughts are not reality, are not Truth. They are just thoughts. In this way we live free of thoughts. We are fully aware that all our perceptions depend on these thoughts and so none of our perceptions are real. The world we perceive is an illusion, a dream depending entirely on thoughts. I understand how disorienting this will seem to those who still believe their thoughts and perceptions. What is there to trust? What is there to depend on? Nothing in the dream. But for one who has experienced the zero point, Samadhia, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, the True Self, this is a life of complete freedom.
 

Living In The World But Not Of It

This is what it truly means to live in the world but not of it.
 
The world will always appear as a dream because of the way our brain and perceptions function. Reality can never be understood with the mind, thoughts or perceptions. When this is realized it is accepted. When this is accepted the dream no longer affects us, no longer causes any problems or suffering. Living Awake is living free.
 

Practical Applications

I understand that very few people have experienced the zero point as described above. And of the few who have few have spent enough time to fully integrate it. Of those who have not yet experienced this, there is a great deal of misunderstanding, attempted and believed mental understanding and flat out fear and resistance to letting go of the thought-world that completely.
 
Yet there are very practical applications for this understanding in every stage of consciousness and attachment.
 

True Healing

True and miraculous healing happens as soon as someone lets go of their attachment to the thoughts that create their suffering. It’s not something people are used to doing. But it is far less challenging than it might seem. I have helped many people do this with amazing results. It is only necessary to work with someone who is already free of thoughts.
 

Byron Katie

You can see how well this works in The Work of Byron Katie. Simply questioning these thoughts already gives some freedom. The more this freedom is experienced the more insight arises from direct experience about the true cause of suffering and freedom from suffering.
 

Presence and Mindfulness

As soon as anyone is free of thoughts, they are instantly fully Present. It might be said that Presence, mindfulness and being free of thoughts are the same thing.
 

Short Moments

It’s not necessary to experience full zero point. Even a short moment of freedom from thoughts is healing.
 

The Mantra

The most powerful mantra I know of is “I don’t know.” If understood and accepted fully this mantra brings instantaneous freedom. We have been carrying an enormous burden of layers of thoughts. Each year of our life we have added to this burden. We call it knowledge. The simple understanding that these are nothing but thoughts, and that thoughts are only representations of reality, not reality, can free us instantly from this burden. The freedom of this mantra “I don’t know”, fully understood and accepted, is amazing.
 
Do not worry. We don’t lose this knowledge. It doesn’t vanish. All we lose is the illusion that this knowledge is anything more than layer after layer of thoughts. In this realization and acceptance, we are free to experience the truth of life as it is without the heavy filters of thoughts that were in the way and prevented us from experiencing it. We were taught that the more knowledge we had the closer we would come to Truth. Life shows us that the opposite is true.
 

Thoughts Are Not the Problem

It doesn’t mean thoughts are not useful. They are. This is how we learn. This is how our culture was and is created. This is how we form our personal separate identity. The problem is that we believe these thoughts are more than thoughts. We believe they are reality. We believe they are Truth, just as we believe what we perceive with our eyes is reality, not a dream created with our thoughts.
 

The Dream

All spiritual seekers have heard that life is a dream. Perhaps now you are beginning to understand what that means. It’s not life that’s a dream. It’s our thoughts and perceptions of life that are a dream. It we want to truly experience the miracle of what life is, we only have to let go of our belief in and attachment to all the thoughts we have about it.

Deep Presence and Knowing God

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deep-presenceI use the word Deep Presence here because many people think that they know Presence and know what Presence is. And this is actually impossible. All knowledge of anything, including Presence, including God, is dragging the past into the Present and this makes the true knowing of Presence impossible. Presence is not in the past. God is not in the past. It is always alive in this moment. Anything remembered from one second ago is the past. Presence and God only exist in this eternal moment and nowhere else. You, your family and the world also only exist in this eternal moment and nowhere else.

It is very important to understand and accept this truth. For most people not only Presence and God, but themselves and the world too, are only thoughts. To understand Presence, God, themselves and the world, they seek more knowledge believing that this will help them. Unfortunately this only moves them further and further away from what is always alive and new in every moment. Instead of Presence, God, themselves and the world, they only experience thoughts, knowledge and beliefs about these things. They only experience the past, not what is real. The real can only be experienced in this eternal moment, in Presence.

To experience Presence, we must shed all knowledge of Presence. We must shed all knowledge of everything. If we drag the past into Presence it is no longer Presence. One good tool for doing this is to repeat “I don’t know what this is.” about everything you perceive, think or feel. This helps erase the attachment to the past. You must do this with the complete understanding and acceptance that this is entirely true. You don’t know what anything is. Your knowing, no matter how profound or how attached you are to it, are only limited thoughts. And these thoughts are all from the past, not Presence.

In Presence, you are like a new born infant experiencing the world for the very first time. Everything is fresh and alive and new. And you don’t know what any of it is. It is a continuously unfolding miracle. That is the experience of Presence.
You don’t know what you are. Any knowledge of you or the continuation of a self story is also just the past. This idea of you cannot experience Presence as it itself is the past. In Presence this idea of you dissolves completely.

Knowing God

When you dissolve, what is here, what is always here in Presence is God. It is not separate from anything you experience. The word God is not necessary either. Nor is the word Presence. All words can have the attachment of the past in them, past knowledge, past experiences.

“I don’t know what this is.” Erase. Erase. Let go. Let go. In every moment continuously let go to this eternal Presence. Enjoy the continuous unfolding of this miracle. You don’t need to know what this is. Let it be what it is without trying to understand or interpret it. It cannot be understood or interpreted and still be what it is. Allow life, allow reality, to unfold as it is. As soon as you attempt to grab hold of it with some interpretation, understanding or knowledge, it is no longer real. It is no longer Presence. Just let it unfold as it is. It is always benefiting you. If you are truly Present, you will experience its absolute perfection. So let it be. You cannot add anything better than what is already always here. Let go. Act as you are spontaneously inspired to. You don’t need to know why. Just trust. Just be present. Just be.

In the human world, being Present is extremely rare. My friend Steve says, “Presence is the least visited place on earth.” But if you can find someone who is Present, hang around with them. Be in their Presence. Soak in their Presence. It will trigger your own Presence. If you can’t be with them in person, it is possible to do this with spiritual teachers on the Internet through YouTube videos and even books and writings. Both Mooji and Eckhart Tolle are very Present beings. And, even better, BE that rare person who lives in Presence and help others visit this least visited place. Perhaps, if you do, it will no longer be such a rare experience for humans.

The 5 Myths of Ego-Based Spiritual Teaching

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5-mythsExploding the 5 Myths of Ego-Based Spiritual Teaching

David Hoffmeister, a popular teacher of A Course In Miracles, was speaking at an event. A member of the audience asked, “You’ve been speaking for two hours and you haven’t said a single positive thing about the ego. What can you say positive about the ego?” David turned to him and said simply, “The ego wants you dead.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not the answer he was looking for. But that’s the question most of us have. We want something to support and reinforce our ego, our sense of self-identity. Our entire life is based on this. So when we enter a spiritual practice, we’re actually looking for the same thing. Only now we want an enlightened self-identity. And, unlike David Hoffmeister, there are many spiritual teachers who will promise us exactly what we want.

The problem is there is no enlightened self-identity. Enlightenment is the end of the ego, the end of the illusion of self-identification. That’s why promising enlightenment AND the ego is a myth, an illusion. It’s not both / and as these teachers promise. It’s one or the other. It’s Truth or illusion.

Zen

I’ve been feeling very grateful lately for my many years in Zen practice. Zen is a very simple and incredibly focused spiritual practice. Its ONLY focus is enlightenment. And this focus evidently pays off. Over the centuries there have been many enlightened Zen masters.

Zen is a very challenging practice for most of us in the beginning. There is no support for the ego at all. We may have an incredible realization during meditation and take it to the teacher. The teacher will simply say, “Let it go. Go back and sit some more.” No support for our brilliant realization. No support for our brilliant realized ego. Just “Let it go. Go back and sit some more.”

Kensho or Satori are names for powerful spiritual experiences that break through our normal conditioned consciousness. When we experience these amazing breakthroughs we feel that we’re finally enlightened. The first thing we want to do is tell our teacher and have him realize how enlightened we are now. We rush into his room. And what does he say? “Let it go. Go back and sit some more.” There is absolutely no support for the ego anywhere in Zen at any time. Zen is a practice of enlightenment. And enlightenment means freedom from attachment to the ego.

Powerful Spiritual Experiences

An awakened master understands that there are many powerful experiences and breakthroughs on the spiritual path. But these are not enlightenment. These are just very powerful experiences. There are many spiritual teachers today who believe they are awake because they have had one or more powerful experiences. But this is not awakening. This is not enlightenment. These are just powerful experiences. They did not have a wise enlightened teacher who could see this and tell them to “Let it go. Go back and sit some more.” They didn’t have someone to tell them, “You’re not done. You’ve just peaked through the door. Keep going.” And that’s unfortunate. The result of not having a wise and enlightened teacher or friend available is that there are many “awakened” teachers teaching who are not awake. They’ve just had a few powerful experiences. The ego self-identity has not yet been uprooted. While there is still any attachment to an ego self-identity, there is not awakening. And when a teacher teaches from this place of ego self-identity, the teaching cannot be from Truth. It cannot be from awakened consciousness. It will just be the ego teaching its ego version of spiritual truth, which will always just be more illusion, even if now it comes with spiritual names.

The 5 Myths of Ego-Based Spiritual Teaching

And that, my friends, brings us to the 5 popular myths of ego-based spiritual teaching. They are myths because they do not come from awakened consciousness but from ego consciousness. They do not come from Truth, but from illusion. To the ego, they seem very logical, obvious and true. The ego does not understand awakened consciousness. Coming from illusion, the ego cannot understand Truth. And this makes it quite challenging to be an awakened spiritual teacher, but quite easy to be an un-awakened spiritual teacher. An un-awakened spiritual teacher, someone still living in ego consciousness, speaks exactly the same language as the majority of people also living in ego consciousness. A similar way of seeing the world, the awakened teacher no longer shares.

I will do my best to share these 5 popular myths encountered in much of today’s spiritual teaching hopefully in a way you can understand.

Myth 1 – You can do it.

You hear this a lot in spiritual marketing. “You can experience bliss.” “You can attain abundance.” “You can attain love.” “You can attain enlightenment.” This is a primary myth because the truth is you cannot attain anything. There is not even a you to attain anything. Your entire self-identity is a myth. In fact your self-identity is the primary myth that keeps you from awakening and keeps you living in illusion. Bliss, peace, love, complete contentment are all realized as soon as the separate self-identity is gone and not before.

Awakening is freedom from this myth of a separate self, not catering to it.

Doing Without A Doer

You may have heard the phrase, “doing without a doer.” Things are done but there is no separate doer doing them. In this way life and doings flow effortlessly and perfectly. This is the awakened way. You may have experienced a book, poem or painting flowing through you effortlessly with no experience of a separate you doing it. In fact it’s very clear the separate you could not possibly create anything this beautiful. You might have experienced this in sports where suddenly everything flows perfectly and you observe the body doing things it’s never done before. It may sound strange, but anything done by the personal self is done far better without it. That is living awake. It’s not logical. The ego consciousness doesn’t get it. But it’s very real and can be directly experience in our life.

Myth 2 – You need balance and integration.

When you hear spiritual teachers talk about “balance” and “integration” these are code words for “I’m still attached to my separate self-identity and I’m afraid to let it go.” As the teachers themselves are not awake, they’re not aware of this either. These teachings are very attractive to those who are also still attached to their separate self-identity. As this includes most of humanity, these teachers and teachings can attract a large audience. It sounds logical and makes perfect sense to ego consciousness. That your separate self-identity, “you”, don’t even exist makes no logical sense at all. Such is the challenge of true spiritual teaching.

Generally such teachers had some powerful spiritual experience and were frightened by it. Once briefly seeing it was possible to live without the separate self-identity, they became frightened of losing it, so they attached to it even more strongly than before. And this fear became part of their teaching. It doesn’t come from awakened consciousness. It comes from fear and attachment. They also teach the importance of being “more fully human”, which again is code for “I’m afraid of losing my separate self-identity.” And of course the ego consciousness loves this because it protects it from the danger of waking up, even though this is, on the surface, what it appears to be asking for.

Myth 3 – If you remain in a state free of separate self-identity, you’re not fully human.

This depends on your definition of what it is to be fully human. If it means experiencing anger, fear, jealousy, greed, despair and other negative emotions, then it’s true. Sometimes these teachers will hold up these negative emotions as something to maintain and encourage as being fully human. A being living in awakened consciousness no longer experiences these negative emotions. Only a separate self-identity is capable of experiencing suffering. Awakening is freedom from suffering, as all spiritual teachings through the years have shown us.

Yet an awakened being free of separate self-identity is far more fully alive, far more open to all of life without resistance or attachment. Such a being lives in a continuous state of profound peace, unconditional love and complete contentment independent of circumstances. To me, that is fully human. Living in an illusion of separation and suffering is not human, even though it’s so common in humans. It’s illusion.

Myth 4 – You can’t live or function without a separate self-identity.

If you’ve ever met or seen anyone who is awake, like Mooji for instance, you’ve seen someone living and functioning perfectly well completely free of a separate self-identity. These un-awakened teachers claim that without a separate self-identity you would be “living in a trance”, “unable to function”, “be a robot”, etc. There are plenty of YouTube videos of Mooji. Take a look. See for yourself.

I live in this freedom. I don’t think any of my students or friends would say I’m living in a trance, unable to function or a robot. It’s another myth created by the ego to scare you away from waking up.

Myth 5 – You can embody the divine.

An awakened spiritual teacher once told me, “To say I am God is the most humble thing any human can say because when you say this there can be no you.” Embodying the divine means there is no you. As soon as your separate self-identity is gone, everything is fully here. And that is the divine. You embody the divine by getting out of the way.

The divine has always been here. Truth, love, peace, contentment, everything has always been here. Enlightenment has always been here. It is only your belief in the primary illusion of a separate self that is standing in the way. Once that’s gone, everything is realized. You are awake. And, yes, you can live like this. In the traditions of the awakened masters it’s called “dying before you die”. The separate self-identity is gone. The body lives and carries on as an expression of this infinite awakened consciousness.

What you are is infinite and eternal. It is far too much to create an identity out of. It is free of identity, free of attachment and resistance, free of concepts and suffering. That’s what being awake is.

Living Awake

When we live awake our purpose and function in life becomes very simple, focused and obvious.

  1. Stay awake and don’t fall back asleep into the limited dream of a separate self. Continue expanding ever deeper into awakened consciousness, which happens naturally without any effort or anyone to make an effort.
  2. Awaken all sentient beings. That means to help sentient beings recognize their own pure awakened nature. Pure awakened nature is in every being, sentient or otherwise. There is nowhere it is not. This is done through skillful means. Sometimes it is teaching through writing or speaking or simply sharing a transmission through deep silence, what Buddha called the “lion’s roar”. Sometimes it is simply a smile and eye contact as you pass someone on the street or a kindness given to a stranger. Spontaneously and without any effort, in awakened consciousness you are a blessing wherever you go.

Not everyone or even most humans are ready to realize their true pure awakened nature. Attachment to illusion is still too strong. In those cases a simple smile and silence may be teaching enough. That is skillful means, the appropriate action arising spontaneously in the moment to offer the highest possible benefit. Freedom from a separate self-identity makes this possible. It allows the infinite to move through the body / mind without the obstruction of concepts and separate self-identity.

To live awake, we no longer live our previous self-centered life. Everything becomes very simple. We live a life of complete service because there is no longer the illusion of a separate self and other. We are no longer a part of the community of life, we ARE the community of life. 🙂

 

Seek and Ye Shall Not Find

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seeker-conundrumWe’re all seeking something. Until we’re not. As long as we’re seeking bliss, peace, unconditional love or spiritual enlightenment, we’ll never find it. Seekers are not finders.

We get this idea that we can find bliss, peace, love and spiritual enlightenment the way we find other things in our life. If we’re seeking a new car, we go to a car dealership. If we’re seeking a new house, we go to a Realtor. If we’re seeking an education we go to a university. If we’re seeking a meal, we go to a restaurant. We’ve been conditioned to believe that seeking and finding are connected. As long as we keep seeking eventually we’ll find.

Teachers and Retreats

So if we’re seeking enlightenment, why shouldn’t we go to a spiritual teacher, an ashram or monastery? Why shouldn’t we pay a thousand dollars for a week-long enlightenment retreat? Surely for a thousand dollars we should be able to get enlightenment. Unfortunately the only thing lighter after this retreat will be our wallet.

Seekers Remain Seekers

When it comes to bliss, peace, love and spiritual enlightenment, that’s not how it works. Seekers do not become finders. They simply remain seekers. You may have noticed this already in your own seeking. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s only by giving up seeking, by giving up what is being sought and by giving up the one who is seeking that you actually find what you’re seeking.

Enlightenment Is Not a New Car

If you want a new car, you can find a variety of cars at a car dealership. But bliss, peace, love and spiritual enlightenment are not cars. You cannot simply go to a spiritual teacher or attend an enlightenment retreat and get enlightenment. You may get a very superficial and temporary taste of peace, love, bliss or enlightenment. And that’s usually what’s being sold. That keeps you coming back for more. It’s a good business practice. But you won’t get the real thing. You can’t get the real thing in this way. If you got the real thing, you wouldn’t need to come back again. Your seeking would be over.

Your Car Is the Only Car That Exists

Imagine that you want a new car, but the only car that exists is the very one you’re driving. There are no other cars. No other car exists. You have the only car in all existence. Your desire for this imaginary non-existent car is your seeking. Can you imagine the suffering and frustration that comes from seeking this non-existent car? It doesn’t exist. How can you find what doesn’t exist?

And yet, thanks to your illusion, you fail to realize that you’re driving the only car that actually does exist. So you have an existing car, but you’re seeking a car that doesn’t exist. That’s exactly the situation of spiritual seekers.

You’re seeking something imaginary that doesn’t exist. Your idea of bliss, peace, love and spiritual enlightenment are just ideas. They are not reality. And yet true bliss, peace, love and spiritual enlightenment are always right here. They’re not what you imagine them to be, nor can they be what you imagine them to be. That’s because they’re not thoughts; they’re real.

When you let go of all thoughts about peace, bliss, love and enlightenment, when you let go of all thoughts about you and what you are, when you empty your mind of all illusion, you realize that peace, bliss, love and enlightenment are right here and have always been right here. You have never for a single moment ever been apart form them. Even in the depths of your greatest suffering, everything you were seeking has always been here. Your illusions and all that seeking have simply hidden it from you. That realization is the end of seeking. You are now a finder. You have returned to a Home you never could have left.

You didn’t do this through seeking. You did it through the end of seeking. You did it through the surrender of illusion and openness to what is always right here now. You not only found enlightenment, but you saved a thousand dollars in the bargain.

Surrender – the Key to Awakening

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surrenderToday, on three separate occasions, I heard some popular spiritual teachers speaking about surrender. There was something deeply off about it, not in alignment with spiritual Truth. That’s the reason for this post. As important as surrender is to the spiritual path, it needs some clarity.

Each of these teachers were speaking about surrender as something to avoid fully embracing. They were teaching about balance, a popular spiritual teaching today. This was in regard to students who have been abused by certain spiritual teachers. They felt that it was because they had fully surrendered to these teachers and didn’t use enough discrimination. Their advice was to seek a balance between complete surrender and personal determination.

Wisdom and Common Sense

On the surface this sounds like wisdom or even common sense. You don’t surrender your autonomy, independence, or judgment. You don’t surrender your self. There are many popular spiritual teachers who teach this. “Surrender is good, of course, but only up to a point. There has to be a balance.” You’ve probably heard this before – the balance of the Divine and the human.

It’s Safe

Of course the ego loves this. It’s safe. It’s not dangerous. It avoids the danger of dying or extinction. What appears to be wisdom, practicality and common sense, is based entirely on fear. And fear is the source of the ego, illusion and what keeps us from waking up. So what seems like wisdom to the ego is actually just another strategy to avoid waking up. Because waking up is the death and extinction of the egoic separate self. It’s not that it no longer exists. But it is no longer believed, no longer identified with, and to the ego that’s death. It’s the death of the illusion of a separate, independent self.

Some Clarity About Surrender

That I heard three different popular spiritual teachers speak about this at different times on the same day made it clear that some clarity was needed.

I’m certainly not advising anyone to surrender completely to these abusive teachers. They are also not awake. Awake beings do not act in this way. That is the ego. An awake being no longer experiences a separate personal identity. That illusion has been fully surrendered. In this way the type of desire and need that these abusive teachers exhibit cannot happen. There is only acting in the highest benefit of all, because there is no separation from all.

What We Surrender To

First, we have to understand what we surrender to. We don’t surrender to a person, whether it’s a spiritual teacher, a guru or a zen master. What we surrender to is Truth. What we surrender to is the Something More that is beyond all thoughts, concepts and beliefs, beyond all persons. This may and does appear in awake spiritual teachers. But it is not them. It is Truth expressing Itself through them. And that is what we surrender to, fully and absolutely, with no reservations, resistance or attachment. How do we know it’s Truth? This same Truth has always been in us. There is a resonance. Truth speaks to Truth.

What We Surrender

In addition to knowing what we surrender to, we also need to know what we surrender. We surrender everything. We surrender our identity as a separate self. We surrender our thoughts, knowledge and beliefs. We surrender our perceptions of the world, ourself and others. We surrender all attachments and resistance. We surrender the world and ourself. We surrender everything. Clearly this is not very popular to the ego. Many spiritual teachers have still not surrendered themselves in this way and this completely. They prefer balance. Surrendering is never going to be popular. But it is the only way we can awaken. There is no other way.

Truth Outshines Illusion

Some awakened beings have such a powerful awakening that Truth completely outshines all illusion. This can happen in a single night as it did for Eckhart Tolle and Ramana Maharshi. It’s rare, but it does happen. But this too is surrender. It just happened completely in a single day. All thoughts, concepts, beliefs, the world and the self identity were surrendered in one moment because their realization and experience of Truth was so powerful it completely dissolved all illusion.

Usually It Happens in Stages

Most of us need to do this in stages. It’s not a problem. We do this step by step, continually surrendering more. And as we do, as the surrender is deeper and more complete, we experience all the rewards that come with surrender, so we continue.

At some point, we’ve surrendered everything and Truth is revealed as always having been here. It was simply covered up by what we were afraid to surrender, by our attachment and resistance.

Fear

Fear is why we don’t surrender. The egoic self identity is based in fear. Our attachment to it and its survival is why we don’t truly awaken. We may experience moments of freedom, as many spiritual teachers have, but then the fear returns and we “play it safe.” We seek a balance between being awake and being asleep. It sounds good to the ego, but this balance is an illusion. This balance doesn’t exist. We either fully surrender the illusion or we don’t.

Spiritual teachers who have abused their students create a great deal of harm. Maybe the worst harm they have done is to increase the fear in seekers. Even these three popular spiritual teachers seem to have fallen victim to this fear. This is why they’re not awake. They’re not fully surrendered. And their advice encourages their students to also remain afraid and avoid waking up.

It’s Not Rocket Science

Awakening is not rocket science. Although to hear many teachers talk it seems to be. There are so many practices, approaches, philosophies, theories, teachings and explanations. But it’s not nearly as complicated as all that. Most of these complicated theories are simply more ways to avoid surrendering. It really comes down to surrender. We surrender the illusion to Something More, to Truth. Fear is a great obstacle. But if we’re truly determined to live in Truth, we surrender anyway. Not to a person, but to Truth. Yes, it takes some trust. This Truth cannot be seen, named, described or even imagined. Yet it is very real, infinite and unchanging. It’s the only thing that is truly reliable in this world or any other. And you CAN directly realize and experience it. Right now and always it is more intimate to you than your heartbeat. The only price of admission is your full and complete surrender. You pay everything and in return you get everything. The good news is you’re only paying with illusion, what is temporary, what cannot last. And for this you receive what is eternally True. It’s a highly beneficial exchange.

The one who doesn’t want to surrender completely is also an illusion. This is the main illusion that you surrender. It is the one seeking balance. The surrender of this is the final step before awakening to Truth. You cannot walk through the gateless gate of Truth dragging this illusion of a separate self. That has never worked.

Surrender

Surrender is essential. There is no other way. You can surrender easily, effortlessly, willingly and even joyfully. Or you can succumb to fear and resist, fight and struggle. The second approach is what most of us do. That’s why surrender and awakening seem so difficult and are so uncommon.

Satsang

In Satsang, surrender is happening too. But there is less struggle, less resistance. You’re with others who have surrendered or are in the process of surrendering. It doesn’t seem so bad. Everyone is happy and at peace. The teacher, if he or she is awake, fully surrendered, seems to be an embodiment of freedom, peace, love and joy. How bad can it be? Of course not bad at all. In fact, there is nothing more precious in all existence.