Enlightenment is only one thing. Salvation is only one thing. Nirvana is only one thing. And that one thing, paradoxically both the simplest and most complex concept in all of spirituality, is this: the realization that you do not exist.
On a human level, this sounds like utter foolishness. It’s why Jesus struggled to convey the meaning of dying to the self. It’s why so many other spiritual teachers were misunderstood when they spoke of the illusory nature of the ego. This truth is the nearly impassable gateway to liberation because the very thing we must see as unreal—the self—is the gatekeeper blocking the way. “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Most of us cling tightly to the self we have constructed over the years—the experiences stored in it, the relationships attached to it, the knowledge accumulated by it. Each memory, each event, becomes another badge of identity in the ego-mind. And yet, this attachment leads only to a fragile existence, one riddled with anxiety as we struggle to keep memories from fading, the body from aging, and experiences from losing their intensity. When we identify with the self, we make ourselves just as fleeting and fragile as “it” is.
Waking up is the awareness that we are not these temporary forms we pass through. The body is not us. The mind is not us. They never were, and they never will be. When we deeply inquire—What am I? Where am I? Who am I?—an “Aha!” moment emerges. And in that realization, we finally exhale. We let go. And we simply live the life we were born to live.