It is true that very few have reached spiritual enlightenment. The misconception is that it is difficult because spiritual enlightenment requires hard work, sacrifice, superhuman effort, in order to reach a saint-like level of perfection after years of dedication. Only then are you “worthy” of salvation. However, this misconception reflects the upside down thinking of the ego. Believing that salvation depends on you is just another example of the original error. If you have the arrogant belief that it is up to you and not up to God to reach spiritual enlightenment, then no matter how much you want it or how hard you try, you will never succeed.
God does not ask us to do anything. We do not have to prepare ourselves for Him. It does not matter to God who we are, what our profession is or what we do every day. You do not have to be a monk or a priest or live what externally appears to be a “spiritual” lifestyle to find spiritual enlightenment. “Spirituality” as an identity is just as much of the ego as any other false idol. God simply asks of us the tiniest of willingness to let Him save us. He will take care of the rest, if we would simply not interfere. We do not have to nor can we do anything to reach salvation – it is an un-doing. The error of imposing our will over God, was what brought us into this world of illusions in the first place. The way out then is through release and surrender.
Remember then, when you are meditating or practicing spirituality in your life or wanting to communicate with God, if you are trying too hard, if you are straining, if you are pushing, then you are imposing yourself, creating a block that is interfering with God’s love and guidance for you. Take a deep breath and relax, know that if you sincerely invite God in, his love and peace cannot fail to enter. Spiritual enlightenment is reached through complete surrender.
Open your heart. Like the Tao says, yield like water. Remove the burden from your shoulders. Spiritual enlightenment is in truth not difficult. What is difficult is recognizing and reversing our upside down thinking. Relinquishing the controls to God is difficult in our ego based thinking. To the ego, this feels like death. Salvation seems like a distant unattainable goal, when in fact, because it is God’s will, it is the only thing that we can be assured of. Because God is in charge of our salvation, and our role is only to let Him be in charge, effortless spiritual enlightenment is not only possible, but it is necessary.
