Enlightenment: Plain and Simple

Larry Integrating Awakening

Simply stated, enlightenment is simply being, or as spiritual teacher and bestselling author, Eckhart Tolle, explains, “Enlightenment is a felt oneness with being”.

As we relax away from thoughts, emotion and all resistance (judgment, evaluation, story) and into our essential nature underneath all the mental noise and emotional ups and downs, we see everything as it is (as a unity or oneness).  One could say we experience no separation from the silent beingness of everything and are perfectly fine (in fact, delighted!) with everything as it is.

So, allowing, accepting, letting go or surrendering to everything as it is (ourselves included, of course!) opens us to a way of being in the world that is an ease and flow.

We are no longer attempting to fix or control ourselves, others or the course of events in the world. We are simply being. We have no ‘agenda’ or resistance to all that arises.

Why would one wish to ‘simply be’?  One response to this fundamental question is:  Because one comes to realize, to be any other way in life, is suffering. For example, if I want to be other than I am— happier, richer, more peaceful, less weight—I am resisting—which on the spiritual journey is called suffering. (We got the term ‘suffering’ from Buddha who pointed out this human suffering as unnecessary.)

Letting go of any agenda for myself (story) allows me to relax into my essential nature which is beingness. This letting go brings an ease and flow and a way of being in the world that is naturally happy and peaceful.

Which brings us back to where we started, enlightenment is simply being.

You may wish to begin just by noticing when you are not okay with/in this moment, now. Just keep noticing when you are resisting or saying in some fashion—“This (moment) is not ‘it’; I need to get to some other (feeling/condition/situation). As you give awareness to this (perhaps constant) state of resistance, start to feel it and name it as suffering.

Awareness of suffering is a great place to get to; suffering is the beginning of awaking to your path of enlightenment or “being” right here connected to the silent unity that is always here. And that’s the start of a natural flow of joy and well-being.