Why I am less afraid of enlightenment than I once was.

Fear is often something that hinders spiritual growth.  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of letting go, all important humps to grow past.  I myself chose the green monster (Baseball reference) of fears, I chose to be afraid of enlightenment itself.

I've been afraid becoming enlightened and then losing myself.  I wasn't afraid just of losing the ego creation, but also of something deeper, the whole of what I have become.   That is because enlightenment has been described as a transformation to me.  This now seems false.  If you look at the integral studies model, or just look around you, you will see that we are all "Whole-ons", an entity that is made up of smaller entities that are made of even smaller entities, My body to my intestines, to molecules to atoms, etc..  This also works in the opposite order, atoms, to molecules, to my intestines, to my body, which is the order I want to look at now, the order of growth.

When you are a newborn, you can't discern your thoughts.  As you get older, perhaps around 3 or 4 (sorry, I'm not a scientist, but feel free to do the research) you start to recognize your thoughts, something is talking in your head.  Then as you continue to get older you are able to define your thoughts as such and recognize when you are thinking, as opposed to say day dreaming.  In fact you get so immersed in this thought world that you think all reality is made up of it.  This continues to unfold until one day you realize that there is something beyond thought; awareness.  This is a wonderful day and often relieves a lot of suffering that has been building up in your thinking mind, but it is not enlightenment.  Enlightenment comes through more unfolding now at this level.  It is true for some that the unfolding was instantaneous, Buddha being an example here, but for the rest of there is a time of transition. 

So with these things in mind, I feel as if the unfolding is actually more of an infolding and therefore, no matter baby or enlightened being, there is still an undeniable me, which exists and will continue to exist.