Enlightenment. It’s basically your vibration raising up to the point where your consciousness has a broad enough perspective to realize that everything is “connected,” that everything is One.
It’s like progressively taking off the blinders of limitation.
Now, along with the realization of Oneness comes a natural application of actions stemming from Oneness. We could say that these actions operate on a higher level of consciousness than actions which stem from the illusion of separation.
Typically, though, the actions feel quite ordinary. They’re common, natural, and plain. It’s not about walking on water or anything, but simply being yourself, your true self. As the saying goes: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
There are many many ways to apply the principles of Oneness in our everyday lives. Keep in mind that there is no right way, no correct way, no guaranteed way, and no definitively proper way of acting that can be turned into an external set of rules, guidelines, or laws to be followed. It must all come from within, arise spontaneously, and be a natural expression of the Oneness that you are.
That Sneaky Ego
Any external rule, when it’s not backed up by the consciousness from within, can be turned around to be used by the ego.
You tell people “Thou shall not kill” and their egos will turn it around, find a way to justify the exact opposite idea, and engage in holy wars.
Face-palm.
You tell people to Love one another and the ego jumps in trying to own others, bringing in energies of neediness and lust, totally missing the true meaning of Love. Perhaps they try to control others and override their free will because “they know better.”
Whenever you have an external mental “rule” to follow, the creative ego is ALWAYS able to spin and misinterpret something for its own selfish purposes.
From Beyond the Ego
With that said, can you think of some heart-centered actions you could take that might be representative of actions that stem from Oneness?
Off the top of my head, there’s:
Loving others as yourself
Uplifting yourself and uplifting others
Being yourself to the fullest extent possible
Not taking fears seriously
Allowing yourself to be a whole being, guided by your Higher Self instead of your limited physical mind
Replacing ideas of segregation with understandings of shared humanity
Accepting others fully as they are, the way same Creation accepts us fully as we are
Recognizing that all experiences are valid, for they all generate self-validating realities. No experience is inherently better or worse than any other. They simply have different consequences.
Sharing food, shelter, blood, time, attention, or even a listening ear with those in need
Becoming enlightened
Helping others (more of yourself) awaken to their true nature
Recognizing yourself as Love, realizing there’s nothing but Love in the universe, and thus automatically Loving all others unconditionally
These are many of the ways I’m applying it, and I’m sure many of you are already using many of these ideas as well and many more.
I’d love for you guys to help me add to this list. How else do you find your relationship with others changing now that you are coming to understand that everything is One?
Alright, let’s get straight to the point. How do you actually do this? How do you get enlightened?
There’s so many gurus we can follow, all of whom give similar instructions, but they’re all variations on a theme. What’s the best path? The fastest path? The path that’s most appropriate for me? Is there even a best/fastest/right path at all?
How do you get enlightened? Let’s strip away the fluff and look at the core instructions on exactly HOW to do it as instructed from a variety of teachers:
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.
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.
I would like to introduce you all to my wonderful friend Marie Levit.
For those of you familiar with the book series Conversations with God by author Neale Donald Walsch, Marie has the same conversations with God, as does her daughter Lou. Marie’s first book, Healing God, picks up where Neale’s books left off.
For example, for those of you who are familiar with Neale’s book What God Wants, the message is that God needs nothing from us, despite what many religions have told us. Marie’s message adds to this, suggesting that God needs everything from us. A bit more on this God as everything/nothing will be touched on later in this post.
If you’d like to see two sample chapters from her upcoming book Healing God, you can read about What God Desires and God’s Messengers. (At the time of this writing, her book is with the same publishers who printed Conversations with God. It has been approved for publication and I’ll let you guys know when it is available for purchase!)
Marie Levit
The main reason I write this post today is because not long ago, Marie realized her Oneness with God and she’s shared her experience. With her permission, I’m going to repost her story here and share it with each and every one of you.
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.
Are you attempting to rid yourself of your ego? To become ego-less?
Well, as long as “you” exist in physical manifestation, you will always have an ego. It’s as simple as that.
The ego’s fundamental role is to give you the ability to exist in the physical reality you chose to be born into by creating separation where there is none. The ego is what allows us to differentiate between a this and a that where there is only One.
It is what allows Jesus to heal this person’s legs or that person’s eyes. It is what allows the Buddha to sit under this tree to meditate or teach that group of people. It’s what allows you to know that that food needs to go into this mouth when this stomach starts growling.
The purpose of spirituality is not to rid yourself of that ability altogether, but to recognize that you don’t have to allow a negative ego to unconsciously control your actions. This happens when we mistakenly identify with the separate self, the little voice in our heads, and think that it ACTUALLY IS us.
Enlightenment is about a radical shift of identity, about the realization of your true nature.
Enlightenment is about integration and realizing that you are All That Is. There is no part of All That Is that is rejected, including the human ego.
Light does not overcome darkness by rejecting it, but by transmuting what used to be dark into light, rendering darkness “dead” in a metaphorical sense. When you realize the moon is made of rock, you don’t have to kill the belief that it’s made of cheese, as if there was a battle in the first place. In a similar way, the light of Truth and the realization of Oneness automatically overrides the incorrect belief in a separate self, one of the main lies of the ego. You don’t attack and attempt to kill a lie. You simply bring in the presence of Truth.
The ego is simply a tool, a conduit. It’s what keeps the physical you where you have chosen to be focused into here in this physical reality. As long as you are in physical manifestation and have a unique personality, you will always have an ego and that’s totally okay. That’s how it’s designed by Creation. Even enlightened people have physical bodies.
So Love your ego, just like you can Love every other aspect of All That Is, of Creation.
The process of self-inquiry by asking the question “What Am I?” is about dissolving the ego’s grip over you, about shifting your sense of identification from what is Illusion to what is Real.
Identification with the ego and the separate self can “die” the same way you can let other mistaken beliefs fall away and “die.” The ego you have and the ability to subsequently differentiate between a this and a that in physical form, even though it’s not ultimately REAL, is still a helpful ability while experiencing physical reality. It allows you to play with the illusion.
Just like when you go to the movies, you know that what’s happening on the screen isn’t actually real and that it’s all a made-up story, you can still have a good time watching the movie anyways. No one said you have to believe that what’s happening on screen is actually happening.
So don’t try to kill the ego or become literally ego-less. Just free yourself from all attachment and aversion to what is. Inquire in to your true nature to realize who you truly are, yet don’t actually believe a single thought the mind tells you. That’s what it’s all about. That’s the heart of spirituality.
Gangaji, an awakened woman whose teachings are very similar to those of Ramana Maharshi, has an excellent video about her core message of Silent Awareness.
In this video, she discusses:
The Silent Awareness that is always alive in you
Non-dualistic silence
Dropping all beliefs
Realizing who you are rather than Believing who you are
How we’ve heard Truth, but haven’t Discovered it directly yet
What’s your impression of her teachings and her message?
You Are Truly Loved features content designed to guide people towards enlightenment, unconditional love, and living a life of joy through Self-realization and proper application of the Law of Attraction.
Enlightenment. It’s basically your vibration raising up to the point where your consciousness has a broad enough perspective to realize that everything is “connected,” that everything is One.
Are you attempting to rid yourself of your ego? To become ego-less?
