In the modern age, we could be forgiven for looking back at traditional spiritual practices and meditation and wondering if they have been effective in leading people to personal liberation and spiritual enlightenment.

At first glance, they appear to have failed spectacularly. How many people today are enlightened? How many keep trying? Shall we try some more modern practices? Some that adapt to the contemporary environment in which we find ourselves and that can lead us more towards contemplation and towards peace and tranquility… at least?

First, try the luminous acceptance exercise. Actively allow everything to be as it is. Take a minute to commit to who you are. What-is means tuning in to sounds and sights, smells and feelings, the touch of the air on your skin, your thoughts, emotions, body systems and organs, as they are happening right now in this moment. Perfectly accept, invite and approve everything, everything! – exactly as it is. Just a few minutes of this exercise and you begin to feel the light of perfect acceptance.

People will tell you that nothing is perfect and they may tell you that seeing this luminosity is illusory. I say always fight for the impossible and everything is already luminous. You just have to realign yourself perfectly now long enough to bring it into your natural awareness.

Notice how negativity and depressed energy often dulls your finer spiritual senses to the light. The luminosity was always there, omnipresent. Now that you have seen it, be aware of it all the time.

Second, try the ego erase exercise. The ego is truly a fantasy, a fiction. No one has ever produced one for your inspection. It remains as elusive as the Loch Ness monster or the God particle in quantum physics (!). Every day commit to one thing that challenges your ego. Do it without reaction or emotional charge. You don’t have to be vindictive towards something that doesn’t really exist!

For example, do something you really don’t want to do on purpose. Pick up some litter from the street in full view of passersby. If you can’t think of anything else, your alternative practice is to bow or prostrate (you can do this in private), because it’s very hard to take yourself seriously, let alone feel important or self-centered, when you’re lying to your face. down on the ground.

Third, try the unit exercise. Your mind separates and divides… absolutely everything. That’s not how it is. In reality everything is a single unit, a unified whole. This is spiritual lesson 101. This is how you can qualify on it. Relax, relax your senses, relax your body, relax your mind. Now, wherever you are, experience everything without division, distinction, discrimination of any kind, abandonment of preferences, identification, opinion, bias, prejudice, marginalization, judgment or criticism.

Slowly the world around you will merge and the experience of oneness will wash over you. This doesn’t have to take any time (please don’t be fooled by that!). The actual state of existence simply is. It is simply present, just waiting for your awareness to meet it. Breathe, relax, witness… and you are here… you are present… you are all you see… and all you see is you.

Practice these three exercises: the luminous acceptance exercise, the ego elimination exercise, and the unity exercise, and help remove some of the mystification of spirituality. It is your birthright to be spiritually enlightened.