Surrendering
Last night, I finished Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Enlightenment, the first trilogy on his experience of becoming enlightened. I really enjoyed the book, as I read it in two days, because it challenged everything I’ve grown up believing and even some of what I’ve found my Self believing about spirituality in the last year. I certainly do not have all of the answers, so I appreciate different perspectives and arguments from what I think I know.
McKenna’s book, and the entire trilogy from what I’ve been told, is intense and is certainly a book that is to be read when you are “ready”; what I mean by this is since it challenges the beliefs of most individuals, it will be easy to be turned off or even offended by his message, which is perfectly ok. But when/if you become ready to bring an open mind to new possibilities, the book becomes hard to put down.
One final comment about Spiritual Enlightenment before I move on: I look at reading a book like this much like I do asking, “why?”. While the book could be offensive to some readers, it could reaffirm your beliefs about life, spirituality, and purpose, or it could lead you to a new way of thinking, a win-win. I’ve found a lot of enjoyment and growth in reading books like this, and I encourage you to do so as well.
Instead of moving on to the second book in the McKenna trilogy, I decided to start a book that approaches enlightenment but from a different perspective—I’ll come back to McKenna after this book.
This morning, I cracked open The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. Singer is also the author of The Untethered Soul, a book I’ve started reading but wasn’t ready for, so I put it down for the time being, but I’ll pick it back up soon.
In the first couple of pages, Singer poses a question that caused discomfort as I read it because it challenges what I’ve come to believe is possible through our thoughts, intentions, and energy.
Through my personal experiences, conversations with others, and hours of reading, listening, and watching experts, I’ve come to believe that we have more control over our lives and that through our thoughts, intentions, and energy, we can design the life we desire–it may not manifest exactly as we envision it, but it is exactly the way it is supposed to be for us.
Singer asks,
“What would happen if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what’s unfolding instead of fighting it?”
And, he follows that up with,
“Am I better off making up an alternative reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?”
He hooked me.
I don’t know the answer to his questions, and I’m excited to see what his experience taught him. I’m also left wondering if it is possible to both go with the flow of life AND use our thoughts, intentions, and energies not to fight the flow but to help direct it to design the life we desire.
Only time will tell—I anticipate finishing The Surrender Experiment in a couple of days.
For now, my challenge to you is to look at areas of life where you feel the most resistance and see if you pull back a little and allow the flow of life to take over and see what happens…maybe the flow of life wants to take you where you want to go, but your (my) desire to be in control is acting as a dam.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
