To become awake, to become aware… the idea is all but demonized. I realize that “woke” is often referred to as the political movements that look to extend inclusion to a variety of different people. That term is all but demonized today. Yet waking up is the path of enlightenment. To rely on the teachings of others, without a direct experiencing – a waking up – will only result in following another’s path. It’s akin to seeing a picture of a shark in a book and mistaking it for a real shark. Quite different to see a shark in an aquarium. Even more a reality seeing a shark swimming near you and quite more real feeling the bite.
I am currently asleep. At moments I wake up. I become woke. Then the slumber, the opiate of the world shushes me to sleep. The slumber of the world is not restful, quite the opposite. It pulls me into slumber through ripples of discursive thought. Fear, anger, desire these are some of the rough waters that pull sleep into the mind.
Become awake: I do not refer just to inclusion of others, but beyond that… seeing the others and self as one. Dissolving all barriers into their projections. Discovering projections as they are and seeing the Light behind it all.
There is a source, a power. It resides within me, with you. It is in me, you, Biden, Trump, a thief, a lover. It shines into our ego personality and refracts in so many shades and colors that create the world around the individual. My world is not yours, it might be similar, but it’s colored differently because our unique backgrounds.
The problem is that most of us are sleeping Buddhas. To reach enlightenment, our only task is to awaken to who and what we really are—and in so doing to become fully awake and conscious in the most profound sense of the word. “When I am enlightened, all are enlightened,” Buddha said. Help yourself and you help the entire world.
Das, Lama Surya. Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment (p. 20). Harmony/Rodale/Convergent. Kindle Edition.
“When I am enlightened, all are enlightened.”
Right now I see through my sleeping dream. I see the projections. Through fear I see villains, through worry I witness the victims and through desire I perceive the hero’s. This isn’t what is real, this is the dream. Each villain has their own Light, each victim their own Light, each hero their own Light. My perception of their roles is due to the false projections. The Truth is reflected on my shards of karmic past, creating what I experience in the dream-like “reality.”
In truth though, when the projections are paused (or eliminated) only the Light source remains. That is our enlightenment and we don’t see the Light we become it. We recognize our perspective as Source. In that moment all of what we experience is seen as it truly is. The Light behind the villain is seen, the Light behind the victim is seen. The Light behind the hero is seen.
Light is sameness and therein is the unity.
Woke on the mundane plane is a form of inclusion. Woke on the spiritual plane is seeing the inclusive Light in all things.
Many years ago I had a Lama (Lama Marut aka Brian Smith). He gave his students an assignment:
This week, find an image of two people in conflict. Ponder each person in the conflict. Understanding karma and reincarnation, ask yourself, ‘where did the first first person come from?’ Then after some thought ponder, ‘where did the second person come from?’
The above is a process a method. It works, if it works.
One can also use the methods of Gnosis, Dzogchen or Zen to arrive at the same realization by waking up to the present moment and living. Being. The practice of observing, Being… it will open a door to awareness.
It’s time to be spiritually woke, to awaken.