The Lie of Enlightenment

The promise of enlightenment has become the latest in a string of experiential obsessions to hit the western world.

This workshop, that teacher, this crystal, that meditation, this holy spot, that mantra ... Always the promise is that if we DO SOMETHING then that which we seek will become available to us.

Yet where in Truth do you and I begin and end?

If consciousness is all there is, consciousness knows of no such thing as enlightenment. Consciousness is itself perfectly aware and has no need whatever of evolution.

The promise of enlightenment as it is so frequently touted, is rooted entirely in the idea of separation - that there is a ‘me' who is separate from consciousness, who is separate from the workshop, teacher, crystal, meditation (ad nauseum), that there is a ‘me' who can become enlightened.

Yet when we truthfully, rigorously and unrelentingly enquire into this ‘me' what do we find?

Ultimately, it seems, the discovery is made that all that can be described, all that can be experienced, all that is phenomenal is transient. Including the me that I have been imagining myself to be.

And if it is transient, can it really be said to be true?

Surely what is absolutely true is immutable, unchangeable, never begins, never ends?

"Enlightenment' then is not some final resting place, it is not even the beginning of a resting place. Enlightenment is not a noun, but a verb.

Enlightenment is the absolute dynamism of life as expressed through all things.

As such, there is no place and no time and no thing that is not already enlightening enlightened enlightenment.

The promise of enlightenment is a false promise - how can you not be that which you already are?

There is no process required to know yourself as awareness. Right now, simply stop, for just one moment, and ask yourself: "who am I?"

In the moment that you recognise the false idol of identity you will know true and complete liberation. What need is there of an ‘enlightenment process' then?