The separate self is nothing more than thought. It’s no more real than that. Realizing that a thought you used to believe in is not true and, in fact, never was, there’s a profound sense of liberation in remembering directly who you really are.
On the You Are Truly Loved: Enlightenment Forums, one of the topics of discussion is the idea of how there is no controller. Another level of understanding recently came to me and so I’m going to share what I wrote in the forum post here as a blog post as well.
From the typical enlightenment perspective, the separate self / conscious mind / ego / “me” surrenders control and allows existence / God to guide the physical expression of what is. The “me” is not in control and doesn’t make the decisions. Heck, there isn’t even a “me” who is in control of thoughts! Ideas simply pop into awareness.
From the Law of Attraction perspective, EVERY idea arises from the Higher Self. Not one idea you can have originated in the limited conscious mind. It originates in the Higher Self. (More information here.) The physical you is not in control and doesn’t figure out how anything works. That’s not its role, at ALL!
So the physical mind relaxes and lets go of needing to figure everything out, lets go of figuring out the “how” for the future.
When the mind tries to figure out “how” and plays a role it’s not designed to, suffering arises as the physical self feels overburdened with lugging the baggage of all the stuff it’s not designed to carry. The body begins to feel stressed out and exhausted.
Surrender is basically a way to let the various aspects of yourself play their proper roles and so you’re being your WHOLE Self. All parts of the Self work together performing their intended tasks.
So when we say surrender to God, that’s simply another way of saying let go of figuring out how things work with your mind and allow the superconscious non-physical “mystical” knowingness that may come in the form of the Higher Self or spirit guides or guardian angels or what-have-you… all of whom communicate via synchronicity and intuition, let all of those higher dimensional aspects of God play their role in guiding the physical aspects of us.
Yet we understand that at a deeper level, it’s all us anyways for it’s all One. You are that. It’s all you.
So, the physical you is not in control. There is no controller here in 3D physical reality. There is no doer. There is simply action being done.
Check out these quotes and see if they make a little more sense now.
The Urban Monk recently featured an excellent post discussing a healthy perspective on personal development and spirituality.
One great point that he brought up was that since people are in different stages in their evolution, they will perceive things differently. It’s totally natural.
For example, a guru may tell you that you can never be hurt or damaged and that no matter what happens, you will always be okay.
The thing is that this statement is based in the understanding that who you truly are is the consciousness/awareness/love/beingness/spaciousness that is your true nature.
If you are still identified with the physical body and mind, this won’t make much sense.
Here is a perfect example of this, originally posted here:
For the last 2 years of his life Ramana Maharshi suffered from cancer and experienced great physical pain, but even towards the end he maintained the same tranquil poise and self same radiant smile. When he was suffering from cancer in the arm a disciple ran away crying because he could not bear to see his master in pain. Ramana only smiled and spoke to a disciple nearby.
“Duraswami is crying because he thinks I am suffering agonies! My body is suffering but I am not suffering. When will he realize that I am not this body?”
The disciple in this story is still identified with their mind and body and thus it seems like someone actually can be hurt. Heck, just taking a quick look at our world today, it would seem pretty obvious that people are already hurting. Look at all the pain and suffering around the world.
Yet even though there is pain in the world, there is no “me” in pain. This is the odd part that the mind can’t fully grasp.
A danger, however, is that it may not necessarily be wise to blindly accept the belief “you can never be hurt” right off the bat just because someone says so. Imagine what would happen if a psychopath accepted this idea and ran around the world killing others under the premise that they could never hurt anyone in the first place and so whatever they did wouldn’t matter.
See what happens when the ego subverts spiritual truth for its own personal gain?
The human ego is a master at doing this. Sometimes its tricks are overt. Sometimes its tricks are sneaky. As long as there is an ego there in control, it will distort everything it hears. Every single time. This is the problem of dealing with things on a mental and conceptual level. This is why it’s so important to begin dropping all beliefs and concepts and find the truth that remains.
Yes it is true that you can never be hurt, but it’s just as critical that you understand what the word “you” in that statement is referring to. It’s referring to your true nature which is beyond the effects of this world. There is no separate you and thus there is no one who can be hurt.
Again, for this to truly sink in, it must be realized on a level beyond the mind.
It can also be helpful to recognize that every belief you have is a distortion of Truth. It’s not good or bad. It’s just the way it is.
Short answer:
YES!
Long answer:
Sort of…
Awakening is a radical shift in identity, not the literal killing off of an ego. It is a letting go of any mental self-concept. It is a letting go of any place where ‘I’, as a separate self, as this and not that, am centered, revealing one’s true nature as actually being simultaneously everywhere at once and omni-present, and thus nowhere in particular.
As Davidya so wonderfully put it, there’s the experience of the separate self popping out of existence upon awakening.
Upon awakening, there is still the ability to think. Thoughts may arise. Thoughts are just recognized on the spot to be illusory and not actually true and so they are treated with a sense of lightness.
Any thought that could arise such as, “Whoops, I shouldn’t have done that” or whatever else, if it’s actually believed in as if it’s literally true actually pulls a “me” back out of the awakened state. As the enlightened state matures, one progressively loses the ability to truly buy into any belief, thought, or opinion as if they were real because they all become more and more obviously illusion. Thought is just thought. Period. It has no more reality than that. Thoughts are neither true nor false, for that is perception. Everything is what it is. Period.
One doesn’t lose the capacity to think altogether. See, the mind is a tool that can be used to solve math problems, plan building layouts, visualize a certain idea, etc. It’s a tool that can positively serve us, but it’s not a place to go and find truth or a true sense of identity.
Thoughts may arise in the same way that the sun rises or cars drive by. Egoic thoughts and otherwise. They just happen. They’re just not identified to be part of a separate self. There is no separate self. There’s no identity wrapped up around ‘this’ versus ‘that’ any more than you currently identify with the air all around you. It comes and goes, but it’s not the ultimate essence of what I am.
The ability to discern between chair and building and potato chip and edge of cliff still exists, but this recognition is secondary. It takes a backseat to the Essence of All That Is, the underlying unity of Spirit that takes the form of all things. The so-called individual things are recontextualized and intuitively realized to simultaneously all be the same One non-thing.
Opinions still exist, but they are recognized to simply be the opinion of a personality raised in a specific environment, during a particular time, with a certain set of experiences… they’re just opinions that are in no way more right or wrong than any other opinions. Opinions are in no way literally true. Buying into them simply creates the experience of them being true, but it doesn’t make them inherently true.
There is no real separate self who owns or takes credits for these opinions as if they’re “my opinions.” Opinions simply exist, unless they don’t.
The ego, along with its thought patterns and ability to “suck awareness in” the way a movie can “suck you in,” all still exist.
In fact, as long as the body is alive, an ego is NECESSARY. The ego will not and can not die until the body dies. Period.
Someone once asked the enlightened sage Nisargadatta Maharaj if the ego still arose in him and he very casually responded that of course it does, but that he sees it at once as illusion and discards it.
At any point even after enlightenment, there still exists the possibility for identification with the ego to happen and for “unenlightenment” to occur. This is a very painful experience but it still is, nevertheless, possible.
Even if the mind totally disappeared, there is still the ability to create something from nothingness, including the mind. So there is still the possibility, however remote or improbable it may be, that a “me” could arise again from Allness.
“Enlightened people” have not literally killed off the ego, but rather realized their true nature as the indescribable everything and nothing and no longer identify solely with the ego, its thoughts, or any of its false concepts of a separate self. That’s all. There is no longer any identification with this as opposed to that.
So… who are YOU?
…you sure? 
Babies are born without a solid sense of self. The ego gradually develops in them.
For example, you can watch them when they’re still very young and they’ll be lying down watching these hands mysteriously wave around in the air.
Slowly a realization will happen within them. There’s an internal shift that takes place. Gradually they’ll begin to realize, “Oh wait, these hands are actually MY hands. They’re part of ME!” 
It’s not like they heard some adult explain to them that they and their hands are one and now they believe it or that they read some scripture that’s been around for thousands of years. The baby made a revolutionary discovery, an natural and unforced discovery.
Enlightenment is kinda similar. There’s this spontaneous realization that happens when all the people and things and even the empty space around you that you used to look at floating around and think was separate from you, something shifts inside and you realize, “My goodness, that’s all ME!”
Some people call this “grace.”
It may be something difficult for the mind to accept before the realization happens. It can sound as ridiculous as trying to convince yourself the sun is blue. It’s clearly not! Looking around, Oneness makes no sense. Even if we start looking at things from a quantum physics perspective and realize it’s all one single connected energy, it still looks like there’s many separate things in this world from our limited physical perspective.
It isn’t until this internal shift of awakening happens that it becomes stunningly apparent that everything is One and that you are that.
It can certainly help to know this ahead of time because even believing in Oneness has its benefits. The true realization happens on its own anyways when the time is right. Indeed, the fact that you’re hear reading these words shows that you’re well on your way. 
There’s this experience that sometimes happens when a person aims for enlightenment, and I’ve seen it happen within me as well. The person sees enlightenment as the ‘goal’ and the ego as the ‘obstacle’ to overcome. It is identification with the ego that is the ‘problem’ holding them back from enlightenment and thus they may come to the conclusion that because they are identified with the illusion, they aren’t seeing the Truth of reality. They’re doing something wrong. Their perspective is distorted by the veil of the mind and they feel somehow incomplete. This can lead to feelings of guilt, resistance, and not accepting one’s current level with the knowledge that there’s something better available.
Yet the thing is that in order to go beyond the ego, you must first accept it fully as it is.
The ego is not a mistake. It’s not something to overcome anymore than childhood is an obstacle to be overcome on the way to adulthood.
Like childhood, the ego is simply a stage along the journey.
Rather than seeing the ego as a problem or challenge to overcome, see it as a stage along the journey.
Life, like all of Creation is a Process. Even when you reach enlightenment, you haven’t reached the end, believe it or not. There is ALWAYS more. Always!
You are an infinite being. There is always more to you. Check out the definition of infinity.
Even the universe itself is constantly expanding and so if you were to suddenly realize that you were the entire universe, in the next nanosecond the infinity that you were just a moment ago is now even MORE!
You’ll never get it done. You’ll never reach the end, for there is no end to infinity, not even enlightenment.
Accept where you are without resiting where you are. Where you are right now is the exact perfect spot for you to be. How do I know this? Because that’s where you are!
There are no mistakes. If you weren’t meant to be in this exact place at this exact moment, you wouldn’t be.
With this understanding comes a lot of release and letting go of the idea that you need to rush rush rush and get somewhere other than where you are now, a relaxing into this moment of allowing things to be as they are.
And ironically enough, it is this allowing of things to be as they are in this moment which is the most powerful platform upon which you can springboard yourself to the next level!
After all, enlightenment is not about becoming something new or attaining something you don’t already have. It’s simply coming to realize who you truly are in this moment. That’s it. There’s nowhere to go.
So Love this moment. Love what is. Love everything about your life and in your experience for it is truly perfect as it is.
People talk about having a “spiritual awakening” and being a “conscious being,” but what does this really mean?
Awakening and consciousness are words that attempt to define the undefinable, so it’s only natural that there will be numerous definitions and descriptions of awakening and consciousness. Not only this, but the word means different things at different points along the spiritual path so not everyone is always talking about the same thing.
Some people use the term “awakening” to mean that I am awake and not being currently controlled by the ego. If I’m Present in the Now, I am awake, but this is only one stage in the process of awakening.
I actually use the word “awakening” to mean something very different. In my vocabulary, it is synonymous with “enlightenment.” It means to realize your true nature, not just intellectually, but to actually BE it. It is a radical shift of identity that involves the direct realization of the nonexistence of the “me” that I think I am. It is the direct experience of Oneness and Infinity/Nothingness as One’s actual Reality.
Let’s take a look at several different stages of awakening.
The following is not by any means an all-inclusive list, but it does highlight some of the common stages along the path to enlightenment.
That ego, tsk tsk, it’s one sneaky little guy.
What roles and characteristics do you identify with? The individual self that we call “you”?
Are you a happy person, a sad person, a confident ego, a doubtful ego, a good self, a bad self, a smart individual, a dumb individual, a worthy being, an unworthy being, a funny ego, a spiritual ego?
What characteristics do you identify with?
Often times we get this idea in our head that one characteristic is somehow inherently more valuable than another such as it’s better to be a celebrity than a blue-collar worker or whatever. Due to various talents or abilities, we may then feel that one person is somehow more superior than another.
This pattern even happens in spirituality. People get this idea that if I’m spiritual, I’m somehow better than those who aren’t. This is nothing more than pride rearing its ugly head.
If there’s one thing people can’t stand, it’s to feel inferior to another and to have people feeling “holier than thou.” If someone says, “I am awesome,” that doesn’t mean that you are not. Since you and I are truly one, you are awesome too!
Yet the mind often gets this idea where if someone says something like, “I am God,” that must automatically mean I am not and they must then be superior to me, even if they explain that we are Gods also. It’s great to acknowledge the awesomeness that exists within us, but adding a sense of superiority is not so hot.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with pride, and it is a higher level than shame, for example, but as the saying goes, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Why? Pride is dependent upon external conditions. Thus the inflated ego is vulnerable to conditions beyond its control and can be knocked off its pedestal into shame. Read More …
