September/October 2003 Featured Stories
Surrendering to Enlightenment

by Leslie Temple-Thurston

The power of "letting go" is the engine that drives our transformation. On the pathway towards enlightenment, we will find ourselves called again and again to surrender more of our old selves. Our conditioned personality with its programming of limitation is not able to hold the vast eternality of the enlightened state. It must be surrendered.

While the state of enlightenment is already in place for each one of us, just beyond the boundaries of our everyday awareness, the way that the worldly personality is structured keeps our enlightenment veiled from our perception. Thus, surrendering the veils or boundaries of our old self allows us to escape from the old self and to expand into the ever-present, but hidden, state of our eternal Self.

What are these things I am calling boundaries made of—these defining edges of our consciousness, our personality, our ego, our sense of who we are? They certainly have enormous power to contain consciousness in a much more limited state than is our enlightened and unlimited state. Mostly they consist of our fears and desires, our attractions and repulsions, and beliefs we have about reality. Yet, I would say, the major block to knowing our enlightenment is the unfortunate certainty we hold about who we are—that we are not vast, eternal, timeless and immortal beings. It is our belief that we are humans, bound and oppressed by the circumstances of our world—rather than divinely inspired spiritual beings—that keeps us from seeing our true nature as enlightened consciousness.

Enlightenment is our birthright, and we can have it if we really want it—even in one lifetime! There has never been a time when it was easier to reach enlightenment than right now. For those who have been aspiring to reach the enlightened state for many lifetimes, this life is the golden opportunity you have been waiting for. It is important to remember that in the end, no one can give you enlightenment; you must claim it for yourself. And you do this through your own passion and commitment and steadfast persistence. There will always be many helpers who mentor you along the way, but the nitty-gritty path of surrendering the old reality for the new, is ultimately up to you—you give it to yourself.

Being enlightened means being filled with light—literally, not figuratively, filled with the luminous knowledge of the cosmos. Such light is cosmic information and thus the enlightened are "all knowing" and "all seeing". They live in Truth, without the fear of death or of life, and in complete integrity with worldly reality.

As I said earlier, there has never been a time when it was easier to reach enlightenment than right now. And the immediate future holds the promise of an even more accelerated and radical transformation of our old state toward the new. In fact there is an evolutionary imperative in the air, calling us to move forward toward the next ascended expression of the human—the enlightened state. Let the dark circumstances developing in the world be a spur to you, motivating you to engage completely in this thing that, up to now, you may have flirted with as a pipe dream.

As we all begin to realize that the possibility of our enlightenment is a way to neutralize the darkness, which we see apparently gaining the upper hand all around us, we must let it motivate and inspire us to open ourselves to the possibility that the pipe dream can become a reality.

Many are called but few choose themselves. Why is this? Is it complacency or apathy? Or is it that the goal seems so unattainable that we are inclined to give up without really trying? Often it seems easier, and thus more correct, to allow ourselves to become distracted by the allure of the world, than to make the sacrifices of ego that take us all the way home. As we say, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".

Yet the technology of awakening is becoming more and more developed in the West, more and more suitable to expedite the unraveling of the busy, Western mind, even as the stellar and planetary energies make it more auspicious for us to escape the bounds of our egoic cages—and help is always readily available. This is certainly the most opportune time to make the final dash for the gate. And it is never a "doing", a goal or achievement, but is really so much easier. It is a letting go of the old, a dissolving of it—a letting go and surrendering to our enlightenment.

Leslie Temple-Thurston is a guide and mentor to hundreds of spiritual seekers worldwide. In 1988, she experienced the complete dissolution of her old identity and a profound spiritual awakening. Now she offers her eclectic, yogic-influenced approach to western enlightenment at public events in the U.S., South Africa and abroad. Leslie is the author of The Marriage of Spirit—Enlightened Living in Today’s World and Returning to Oneness – The Seven Keys of Ascension. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Leslie will be offering events in Portland November 1-4. for details contact CoreLight: (888) 989-3552, www.corelight.org.