Awakening

„You don’t awaken, what has eternally been awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.“

This quote from Adyshanti* has touched me in many ways and reminded me of a glimpse of truth I had encountered a couple of years ago. A glimpse of peace and acceptance of all there is.

Life kept on going, ups and downs, new people, new places, new challenges, new ideas, new dreams, new downfalls and even new languages. Isn’t it marvellous this experience in a human body? All the odours, the noises, the colours the forms. The feelings of cold and warm, the feelings of unknown and undescribable origin and expression. And inbetween all this and more, trapped in the human cerebric, are our minds. Our chatting minds. That, what maybe keeps us alive? That, what maybe kills us. That, what makes us miserable and happy within a second. I am not saying the mind is the origin or is not the origin of anything. The human is way too sophisticated to wanting to limit it by claiming any function is responsible for a single action. Yet the fascination with our mind and specially the suffering our thoughts are producing, keeps me wondering. Keeps me asking questions. Keeps me analysing my own and enquiring others.

The thoughts. The beliefs. That, what we are telling ourselves every moment. Our stories. Awakening to realize what we are. To let go of all stories and then create a new one.

It is a ongoing process. For me at least. One moment I realise, oh – I am nobody, I just feel. There is this feeling, that you can’t put in words, a feeling without words, where somewhere inside you know – this is who or what you are. And then it leaves you again. As quickly as it came. It is easy to get it back but not easy to sustain. And it helps immensely when trapped in worried situations. In everyday problems. But! It is not an escape. And this is where I want to expain a bit. This is, where I see spirituality has gone astray these days. Or maybe not spirituality, but seekers.

Life is black and white. Up and down. Life is judgement in order to survive. Life is taking action. Life is also acceptance of all there is, detachement of our stories and wishes and beliefs and dreams. When we embark on that journey and wake up to reality, we no longer feel attached to our stories but we still have the same tasks to do every day. And we still have situations in life that don’t feel comfortable. That is life. An awakened person doesn’t lead another life than a sleeping person. It looks the same from the outside. The only difference is the ability to accept things the way they are. To understand, that every being has its own path. Every moment has its own agenda. It is all „good“, even that, that is not good. Good doesn’t mean good anymore – it means – it is the way it is.

The next trap, is to think – we become feelingless beings, acting like machines, accepting everything. No. That is not the case. You, awake as you are, still get to decide in every moment what you want to do. In which direction to go. This is, where you use your judgement. You listen and feel inside and you take action. The action, that feels most true to you in this moment. You take action, without any other agenda than following your own heart, your own inner truth. And you repeat this. Over and over and over again. In every moment, after every action.

It is not the aim to have a positive experience. To have a painfree experience. A successful experience. A „you name it“ experience. The aim is to wake up to who you are. And from there, your actions are no longer coming from a place of attachement to a certain outcome. You can slowly let go of what you think should happen or should not happen.

I encounter a lot of people that have embarked on a spiritual journey and have become attached to a new identity, to a „higher“ identitiy. They become healers and shamans. Leaders of the „Love Army“. Teachers and gurus. Those are all stories. Stories, that create a storytelling reality. Letting go of those stories as well, will eventually lead to what or who we truly are. Which again, doesn’t mean the healer or shaman will no longer practise as a healer or shaman. Maybe. Maybe not. From the outside, we can’t judge. We need to get close and listen and feel. And always remember that stories are just that: stories.

For me personally, I like to stay with my story and know it is a story. I like to explore the identity that I have created and watch how she acts out. Knowing it is nothing but an identity that I created. A story that I tell. And I can change it again, as many times and however I want. I have not had the courage yet to go beyond any story. Any identitiy. Like I said at the beginning, I have had glimpses and I can tap into the feeling of no identity. But to stay there? I am a little too scarred yet to find out what happens after. So for now, I prefer to write a bit, to explore that identitiy a bit more. And to slowly tap into the feeling more and more often and see how it resonates with me… :)

*Adyashanti: emptiness dancing, published in 2004 by Sounds True Inc.

Definition of enlightenment by Adyashanti: awakening from the dream state of separateness to the reality of the One.  It means: waking up to what you truly are and then being that.

Definition of awakening by Adyshanti: Realizing what you are.