Enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted it cannot be achieved. — Tony Parsons

I read a personal story at The Spark Off Rose last week. I was surprised by how comfortable I felt. I had never been that at ease in front of an audience before.Without my nerves, I was present in my body. I did not experience a buffer between myself and the people listening. I felt incredibly vulnerable and safe. In the past, I had always associated vulnerability with fear. This was different.

The gift I experienced from me just showing up as me was that this left room for the unexpected. In not trying to control my experience, I was surprised. When I practiced my piece at home, I was able to read it through easily. In front of the audience, however, part way through, I felt huge emotions well up inside of me. I was not expecting this. I just let myself be, and let the feelings move through me.

When I was able to keep reading I did. This was an impactful experience for me, but, as I found out, it was also powerful for those watching. At the end of the evening, a man came up to me and said, “We were all with you when you had to take your pause. We would have waited forever. I hope you could feel that.” I knew what he meant. I had felt the one accord between myself and the audience. I was no longer an “I”, but part of a “we” that was greater than myself, and greater than the sum of the parts of the audience members.

In my spiritual practice, that is what I had been seeking, but I see now that the very action of seeking it pushes it away. My ego’s ideals and perfectionism viewed the spiritual path as one of renouncing my humanness in order to experience my spiritual nature. There may be moments of bliss on this path, but they happen in spite of the effort not because of it. I used to think my journey of awakening was through effort and striving. Striving to be good, striving to get quiet, striving to identify with my Authentic Self and not with my ego. I did not see that as soon as I was striving I was in my ego and focused on me, with no hope of experiencing anything beyond that limitation.

In that moment on stage, I was being human — simply being me. I was not trying. I was not performing. I was sharing my story as myself. In that experience, I dropped into the larger Self that does not belong to me or you. I fell into that state of consciousness through happenstance. It did not occur through trying. In fact, all of my spiritual striving would have only got in the way of having that experience.

My humanness is what I have. Like the Tony Parson’s quote says, I can’t have enlightenment. Enlightenment can only have me. That leaves me having my humanity and that is enough. I choose to surrender to that and stop to trying and fix, ameliorate, change, embellish, or enhance my humanness. As the poet Mary Oliver shares in her poem Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

In my acceptance of what is, I can feel the larger whole. I sense the oneness of the delicious soup of “we” that vibrates with love.

That evening when I shared, I was told I was generous and courageous. The truth is, I did nothing, and in the doing nothing magic occurred. I find it amusing to think about how hard it is for me to show up doing nothing, even when I know the spaciousness of nothing allows the deeper wisdom to guide me. Doing nothing and being no one is not a skill set that is highly understood. I’m not sure that is what I would lead with when people ask me about my work. Nonetheless, the results of doing nothing and being no one are highly sought after.

Eckhart Tolle, says, “If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe.” I have been conditioned to think I need to be somebody. I have worked hard to show how I stand out. I believed that was important especially when working with others. Now I do my best to forget about myself, show up with as little on my mind as possible, and allow the magic to unfold from there.

I see the wisdom in Picasso’s quote, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” The unlearning and forgetting everything I have ever told myself I need to do in order to be good enough is a process. Allowing myself to be the raw, unfiltered me is more potent than the polished, censored, version of myself can ever be.

All of my humanness is acceptable — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the insecure. I can be okay with me being a defended, isolated, separate “I”, as well as an indistinguishable “we” in the ocean of ordinariness. Neither one needs to be better or worse that the other, even though my “I” would like to label it so. It just is. Electrons are not better or worse depending on whether or not they show up as a particle or wave. Why should it be different for me? Perhaps I can even enjoy my “I”ness more with all of its quirks and oddities, rather than longing for the dissolving of my ego’s walls.

I have been giving my ego and my lower levels of consciousness a bum rap. All of my defenses and coping mechanisms aren’t bad. I don’t need to look at my insecure self as false. It is all me. It is all an expression of divinity. I am being silly when I make myself wrong for getting caught up in my head and buying into my insecure thinking. It is simply another experience of my creation. There is no authentic me and inauthentic me. There is just thought. My thought, that I am the thinker of, and that gives me different experiences. No experience or level of consciousness is right or wrong, good or bad. It just is.

How magnificent that we humans have the capacity to turn formless energy into thought and be aware of it so we can have an experience — any experience good or bad. That is an amazing capacity! From this understanding we can relax.

Rohini Ross is a psychotherapist, a leadership consultant, and an executive coach. She helps individuals, couples, and professionals to connect more fully with their true nature so they can experience greater levels of wellbeing, resiliency, and success. Her years as a therapist give her significant insight regarding the impact and importance of state of mind on fulfilling potential. She supports her clients with achieving success both personally and professionally. You can find out more about Rohini’s work on her website, rohiniross.com.