Enlightenment is effortless...

By and large, people want liberation, freedom, bliss, peace, love, and total release from fear. They want all the accoutrements of enlightenment without having to pay the price. They don’t want to pay the price of a total love affair, a total commitment.

I’m not speaking of anything that is separate or different from your life. This doesn’t have anything to do with the monastery or leaving your day-to-day existence. The truth is here in every single moment of your life.

That’s the truth. It’s not separate from your life. You can’t run away from yourself and your life in order to awaken to reality. Your life is your path to awakening. Stop and open your eyes: You were free from the very beginning.

Please understand that it’s not you that wakes up; it’s reality that wakes up, the truth wakes up.

You are not enlightened; enlightenment is enlightened.

Ultimately this realization doesn’t have anything to do with individuals, since there aren’t any separate individuals.

That is the whole illusion, that there is something separate from the ultimate reality. When it’s clear that there’s nothing going on other than the ultimate reality, it’s a done deal -- enlightenment is effortless.

- Adyashanti