Attaining Enlightenment in the New Age

The new age/self help industry is often about building yourself up. Making yourself more special more successful, more liked, more confident. And there is nothing wrong with this. This brings you to a certain level of happiness.

But enlightenment is the opposite. Spiritual enlightenment is about allowing the facade to fall apart, to allow yourself to be exactly as you are and to surrender into that. When you allow the idea of who you think you are to crumble, when you stop trying to make yourself different than you are, then all that is left in this moment is consciousness.

When all hope is lost, then you have nowhere else to go but here. If there is hope and confidence that the sun will come out tomorrow, you will not surrender in this moment.

Most people are afraid of this. They are afraid to experience themselves as they are. Because they do not accept themselves as they are. And that is how the new age industry has done so well. By always thinking about improving yourself, making your life better, then you can bypass this moment all together and remain in the fantasy of a future even.

It is only when you have let go of everything in this moment that you realize enlightenment. In the relinquishment of your idea of who you are, what you know and how things are supposed to be, when your self image has been broken, then there is stillness; then automatically unconditional love, peace and bliss shine forth out of every pore of your being and you discover your true nature.

When the idea of who you are is no more, you radiate peace, you radiate enlightenment. Peace and love that is so divinely exquisite that you willingly give away everything that arises to it. Not because you get something out of it, but out of love, out of joy.

You cannot experience such joy if you have built yourself up into something important. The higher you build a building, the harder it will be to dig unde
eath it.

That is not to say you should not be successful. You can be all of those things. But the 'you' that claims responsibility for it, the one that claims ownership of it, the one that thinks they know themselves: That is the one that is hiding the true nature of this moment from you.

And that is the one you need to look into and see what is really there.

Who is this 'you' that you claim to know.

And when you find yourself without an answer, then you are moving in the right direction.

Blessings,
Kip"