Something that has never happened before is happening today: we can actually participate in the awakening process. Historically, enlightenment has been regarded as an extraordinary experience, usually reserved for the male aspirant. Today, however, the good news is that, although awakening itself is the same as it was thousands of years ago, it’s more directly available to each one of us in the midst of ordinary life.

These days, more than ever before, an intensification of energies is available that compels us to consciously collaborate in waking up out of the dream of separation. It’s a new frequency that demands our yes, because nothing less will do if we are to successfully survive and thrive, both as individuals and as a species. This yes has nothing to do with willfulness; it’s not a big shout of “I can do it!” On the contrary, this yes is the quality of surrender, of openness, of deep acceptance. It’s a profoundly silent yes that chooses to meet life unconditionally. In the context of personal awakening, this new frequency is the shift from mind to heart that is required for the process of evolving out of the egoic paradigm. In the context of a collective awakening—in which not only individuals but also humanity and the world are waking up out of the dream of separation—it is the increasing desire to live this awakening within the world rather than to transcend it by becoming a mystic on the mountaintop.

This new frequency of awakening is a feminine one, because the quality of yes is innate to women. Women are more naturally attuned to surrender because of our inborn capacity for biological birth that demands a deep letting go and opening. Also, women are more naturally attuned to the holistic nature of life and are more able to include the messy realm of human experience in their spiritual realization. Most often this is a little more challenging for the masculine because of millennia of patriarchal conditioning (which is also the case for many women). But this is changing now as more men are willing to open to a new dimension of consciousness that goes beyond the patriarchal perspective. While this is more easily expressed in women due to our biological function to give birth to a new life form, it’s a frequency that is latent in each of us. The qualities of surrender and compassion for life in all its manifestations is what we see in both awakened women and awakened men. The new feminine frequency really has nothing to do with either gender or biological birthing. It’s a psychological birthing that is happening on both a personal and a planetary level: the willingness to give birth to something new, the innate impulse to cocreate, to collaborate, and to nurture. We are giving birth to a new consciousness that wholeheartedly embraces the transient but undeniable reality of the human experience within the infinite ocean of awakeness. And we are possibly giving birth to a new world.

What I’m really speaking about here is the infusion of love into humanity. Because egoic consciousness has been the primary way of operating for millennia, love has taken a back seat. Ego’s reactivity of “I’m right and you’re wrong” has become the norm and has created the battleground within relationship and within the world—as well as within ourselves. Love is what happens when we stop seeing the other, the world, or even our own thoughts and feelings as “the enemy” just because we do not agree or like what we see and experience. Love is what happens when we choose to end the war within—when we stop seeing division, when we stop the judgment, blame, and defense. I’m not talking about some ideal of love, but about choosing to see deeper than surface reactions right in the nitty gritty of our daily interactions, especially when we’re triggered in intimate relationships or by political, social, and other worldly circumstances. Ultimately, I’m talking about the surrender of ego’s control. When we choose to end the division within, we can move as love into the world. And only love can put an end to war. We are each responsible for being this love.

The invitation of the new feminine frequency is for you to be willing to give birth to something new, by unwaveringly embracing the evolutionary process that wants your awakening to happen, because it is also the awakening of humanity. Birth is messy, and there is no guarantee of the outcome. But once the contractions have started, there is no going back. Despite the unknownness, despite unforeseen challenges, and despite the potential horrors, are you willing to wholeheartedly embrace the possibility that this is the most exciting time to be alive, and that awakening is the sole purpose of your life?

Are you willing to say yes?

Amoda Maa is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author, and speaker. Her new book, Embodied Enlightenment: Living Your Awakening in Every Moment, has been acclaimed as “a precious gift to an emerging new humanity.” AmodaMaa.com