Searching for Enlightenment is like searching for warm water while you are standing in warm water at a Caribbean beach.
Let’s define Enlightenment as the conscious recognition of your true Self. The One Self, the Divine Self, the Infinite Self. The Self that is One with God. You are this now. You have always been this and will always be this. So as long as you are searching you cannot find the Self. When you tire of the search and surrender out of exhaustion you will then find what you were seeking and always were to begin with. The search creates the illusion of two, the searcher and the One being searched for, when there really is only One.
There is nothing wrong with spiritual searching. It is perfectly normal. But if you are tired of searching and want, more than anything in the world, to experience Enlightenment, then this is probably a good place to relax, read, practice, listen and ask questions.
Spiritual searching can be quite addictive. It can lead us into dark corners, bright lights, ups and downs. It can be fulfilling and exhausting. Most spiritual seekers I have met over the years are quite happy searching. The prefer spending their lifetime exploring one or more spiritual paths. They would rather seek enlightenment than find it. There are many who believe that only the great gurus of India or saints of the past can attain enlightenment.
White Alabaster Buddha From Northern India (c) 2011, Jon Shore
There are some who believe that enlightenment leads to instant health, wealth and magical abilities. I have not found any of this to be true.
Again, if your desire is to seek Enlightenment then this blog will be one stop along your path. If you are ready and willing to give up the search to experience Enlightenment then I will do my very best to help you.
MINDFULNESS, MEDITATION AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Hi – I think the search for enlightenment is just a tad overrated. Becoming aware of ego and learning how to become aware of it when it’s reacting – is enlightening.
Learning how to stay present, and realizing that emotions are experiences are most of the battle.
🙂
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That is just fine neftwink. I am glad you have found an answer that works for you.
Take care.
Jon
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ilikethis website idunno its nice, you have helped alot thank you (;
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😉
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Thank you Lovelylife. I am so glad it is helpful. Please feel free to write any time.
Take care
Jon
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About the article “Enlightenment – The Search”
So true Jon 🙂 you are absolutely right.
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Hello Everyone!
At the beginning I want to apologize for my bad English and probably some mistakes, and I really hope you’ll understand me.
My name is Marko and I’m from Croatia!
I had a lot of spiritual experiences and from few years ago I started my spiritual path. From that moment to now I really have had a lot of experiences and lived quite intensely. I loved to meditate and I was really commited seeker.
Now after really a long time I am writing you for help, advice or just because I want to talk to you and here something from someone else.
After many experiences I about 2 months ago kind of couldn’t do this any more. Meditation, my life like this…anything. I now have many exams on college and I am not ready for it at all. I wasn’t studying at all for it. It’s just that …from some moment,and I couldn’t say when it happened i am really not buying all this any more. I am looking myself in the mirror and saying my name and i know I’m not that. I don’t believe in anything of this any more, but I don’t have a profound image of who I really am right now. I had some experiences and profoundly knew at the time but that isn’t with me any more and this “I am Marko” thing I don’t find real at all now. So I am actually very lost right now and I really don’t know what way to follow and what to do anymore. I am sitting and laying at home doing nothing for 2 months now and almost nothing is happening and it kind of seems pointless. I had some pretty desperate moments when i almost didn’t want to live anymore, although I know that I am really far from doing suicide or anything like that because I saw profoundly how life is beautiful and i can’t ignore that but at this moment I actually don’t know what to do. Some of experiences i had,and have now is very strange ringing in the ears which is actually kind of pleasant. When i gave up everything i remembered that i haven’t done everything and a thought was telling me that i have to follow this ringing, so i kind of meditate on it and it somehow lead me to me third eye. I could feel it as it was awakening and one night lying in my bed my body was kind of paralyzed(which happened to me in lot of experiences), and this third eye start opening and it opened,and I could feel energy like some cool air flowing threw it. I can feel it all the time actually. And it is actually really strange because I never searched for chakras or studying them in any way. I had some visions after that and can see auras when I try to. But all this didn’t seem very important and it didn’t seem to lead me anywhere, so I was still actually really frustrated and didn’t know what to do and i still feel like I am going nowhere. After some time ringing in some way led me to my crown chakra. It was like the ringing was coming from the top of my head and I could feel it although i knew of course that it was coming from my ears. But still i know that i can not open my crown chakra or attain Enlightenment or anything by focusing on my chakra and trying to open it.
So now I don’t really buy anything anymore in this world, but at the same time I am not aware of my true nature, and the feeling is so wierd and I’m going threw a real crises right now.
I really have a strong feeling that a big thing is going to happen and i feel really ready but everything around me and in me is so frustrating right now.
I never though about finding some teacher or master but I think that I maybe need some guidence now. I feel like someone who knows what she or he is talking about need to say something or I need to be in their presence to know something but I don’t know what to do on myself anymore.
I am pretty sure that i can’t find a person like that in my country. And i don’t have money to go to India or America. 🙂 I don’t know…
I had to talk to you, and I am sorry if I am bothering you to much, because this is really a laaarge Post. If you have time to send some of you’re thought’s back I would be really glad. If not it is OK too i guess! 🙂
Big greeting!!
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Dear Marko,
It is good to hear from you. Thank you so much for your great post and your open heart.
It is so often as we explore spirituality that we try many different things. Some keep us interested for a while and some for only a short time. Some help us understand more about who we are and who we are not and some are just distractions along the way. Many times on a spiritual ‘journey’ we move along and then stop for a while. It is like climbing a mountain. We reach a plateau and then, after a while there, climb to the next plateau. Some people become distracted on one plateau for a very long time. Sometimes many lifetimes.
It sounds as though you have been exploring some different aspects of this physical reality like chakras and third eyes. I certainly did this as well many years ago. They are very interesting studies. But like most interesting things in physical reality we can lose interest when we are ready to move on.
If you wish, you could try looking at things in this way…
The one who is trying to achieve Enlightenment is not who you are.
The one attempting to open his chakras is not who you are.
The one getting depressed or frustrated or lost is not who you are.
If none of that is who you are, then who and what are you?
Meditate on this. Not just once but many times.
When you finally discard all that you are not you will be left with what you are.
I can remember a time when I was attempting to be non-judgemental all day. It was a very difficult and frustrating task. I thought that if I acquired that spiritual attribute that I would be a bit closer to Enlightenment. Towards the end of the day I had to drive to the supermarket and then home. The traffic was very crowded and the drivers in Arizona were very aggressive. I was unable to be non-judgemental. So when I got home I laid down on my bed and yelled that I was finished with all that spiritual stuff. All of a sudden a beautiful, peaceful Light decended on me and I felt complete Peace.
When I stopped seeking the Light I was able to see and feel it. It had always been there but I had spent too much energy seeking and I was therefore distracted from the Reality that was already there.
Try this dear Marko. Let me know how it works. Also know that you are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people going through what you are going through right this moment all over the earth.
Take care and big greetings from Riga, Latvia.
Jon
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Thank you very much for your answer Jon!
I am reloading this page every hour since I posted this and I knew i would get some answer! 🙂
Yes, well I kind of know now that I’m, lets say, done whit my seeking because it really isn’t doing it for me any more.
I feel too that I have to work on something psychologicaly right now to to get rid of my “I”! It is funny actually how when I read that the one who is trying to achieve Enlightenment is not who I am, I actually can almost say that I for sure know that is true because of experiences
I had, but still I think that I had to hear it from someone else who knows what He is talking about right now.
I understand your experience whit judging too, and I feel like I can tell to others a lot of things to help them and explain them something, but I am not doing that because i have to be honest whit myself and I know that I still don’t know the hole truth. Actually i would not go threw this period right now if I know it all.
However, I want to thank you very much for your advice and I also think that I could do something like that right now. I would do that and come back on site whit some changes I hope! 🙂
I am admiring your unselfishness and desire to help , but I think that I can understand all you are doing as you are obviously living your life from „true place“.
Thank you once again Jon!
Big big greetings from Zagreb!!
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Dear Marko,
Imagine that there is One looking out through the eyes you call yours and that that One is Infinite and Imortal and is everything you are looking to be.
Relax. No matter what your mind says. No matter what anyone else says, you already are the Enlightened One. The more you relax into this fact the more you will experience it. Relax deeply. Relax until you can feel yourself melt into everything around you. Relax until there is nothing left but Being.
And have fun.
It is my pleasure to remind you of who and what you are.
Take care
Jon
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Dear Jon
Even if you don’t know me you have helped me tremendously.
I have spent the last 40yrs trying hard as you can to destroy myself. Needless to say, this has brought great pain not only to myself, but also to my surroundings. Most pain to those that have been closest to me. This selfdestructiveness must be stopped, I have always wanted it to stop, but I have built powerfull images within myself, images that have allowed me to continuously, and pitifully wear my mental pain and agony as a victory-robe and again and again retreat to acting it out in irresponsible,
addictive and selfpitifull ways.
I am deeply ashamed for having kept this up for so long, but I cannot reverse it, I cannot excuse it, I cannot mend it. All I can do is to put an end to it, and with some help I believe I can still do this.
I am grateful for the love and compassion that is all around me, and I am ready to surrender myself.
I am introvert and intellectuallising and have always been “up in my head”, often a storey or two above the actual height of the building, figuring things out. Well, not really figuring anything out, but so I thought. I had read many a book about Eastern Philosophy and meditation, but after listening to your Meditation I, I realised that I had never ever meditated at all. Actually I had not taken a couple of seriously deep and full breaths for…..years.
Your meditation guidance allowed me to enter my body, which was a profound and transforming experience, since it allowed me to enter a state of mind, where I could meet with all those powerfull images I had constructed within my mind on equal terms so to speak, and begin to see them for what they were, counter-productive and ultimately illusive escapeways so as to not feel myself, be honest to myself or even recgnize who I was.
Here I should probably mention that I am in therapy and that it is my Psychologist who pointed me to you and meditation in general.
I work with your meditations at least an hour every day, and were it not for my job it would be several hours. They are truly transforming even if I have only just begun. I will practise this with you for the rest of my life, and I tank you deeply for your insights, your compassion and your devotion.
Yours truly
John Kristensen
Denmark
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Dear John,
Thank you for your heartfelt message. I truly believe you will get beyond all of this darkness. I am happy to help in any way I can. I have been through it myself and know that it can be transcended. There is an end to the darkness for you and you will see the Truth.
Do let me know if you would like to speak at any point. We are only one hour apart as I am in Riga.
Take care
Jon
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You’re the man Jon! :))
This is it now.
…and it was quite a Journey last few months!
Life is so so Beautiful!! 😉
As you were part of my Journey, in the end I want to thank you so much Jon!
Big big greetings from Croatia my friend! (y)
Marko
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Dear Marko,
It is my pleasure to be a mirror for you and to help you remember the Truth.
Take care from Riga
Jon
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Hi Jon! I want to thank you for your help in my life. I had a session with you about 23 years ago. You pointed out a black disc wedged in my being that i had been previously unaware of. You gave me some sheets of paper that detailed how to rid yourself of shadows. I will tell you that was incredibly painful and it wasnt till it had been giving me a hard time for a decade that i found those papers that empowered me to finally release it. Acknowledge, thank, release. Seems simple but its not while human with free will. You have inspired me to write as well, i feel after realizing that I AM, learning to stop searching for that which i think i lack, which is like looking for nothing, that a level of responsibilty and calling to help others on a larger scale is in the works. Did you see that i was a healer in our session if you can remember? Seems you did but was taken back by the shadows i held. Its been a blessed long journey. Anyway, thank you for the love n wisdom i needed, you ROCK… even though you sell relaxing music ; )
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