Awakening
There are layers of awakening. On the initial layer of our being, the key sign of awakening is lucid dreaming. But it would be mistaken to rely on this as the sole measure of spiritual awakening. Consciousness is lodged on the surface of our being – it is a crusty layer that requires breaking down. Breaking down the fixations which hold us prisoner of other people’s purposes. This involves the techniques of breaking habits, practising the feeling of awakening, silent meditation. It is a technical practice that if pursued sufficiently results in death. This is the death of the person we believed ourselves to be. But that is only a mechanical manipulation of the cocoon that holds our consciousness bound, releasing it… to where?
Spiritual awakening is far more than this. On the second level, our consciousness is bound by a larger cocoon. There is implied in the term awakening that at least a part – an important part – is awakening to who we are in essence, to know ourselves, instead of what others have made us become. This is awakening of the personality. To accomplish this, we need to break our cultural environment – leaving family, home town, state, nation, continent. These bonds of culture are subconsciously powerful, and once we have opened ourselves to the inherent reference points and manifestations of another culture, we shatter the foundations of our personality, releasing us once again… to wherever.
Again, awakening must dive deeper. The third layer is of character. We are bound by the character that we brought into this world coupled by the characters of our parents and influential people in our formative years. But character is not fixed – it can change and grow. The first way of bringing awakening into this layer, is to question who we really are. To do that, we must be put under pressure – character only reveals itself when under pressure. At that point, we need the courage to face situations which we recognise that we are not good at, and those where we have potential. The method is to expose ourselves to multiple difficult tasks, jobs, experiences, that force us to recognise the true state of our character, and where we need to apply ourselves to develop. This begins to introduce what becomes the ultimate force of awakening – learning.
As we plumb deeper into the meaning and implication of awakening, we naturally seek the abstract essence of both awakening and self. What is self - who are we really – and what exactly is awakening?
When the Spanish discovered the American continent, they had no concept of the possibility that an entire vast land mass existed which no one had found. Columbus himself died believing he had discovered islands off Japan – the western extremities of the East Indies. His reality and identity refused to believe that his cultural intelligence had failed to even comprehend such a possibility, let alone existence. This attitude marks both the old age of humanity (roughly before around 1500AD), and the mind of the unawakened being.
After conquering the Caribbean islands and destroying the indigenous people, the Spaniards sailed west and conquered the Aztecs, who, despite living so close, were totally unaware of these European murderers. Then the Spaniards sailed south and conquered the Incas, who were likewise totally unaware of what had happened just up north. When word spread across the globe of the discovery of a new world, who set off to explore and conquer, staking areas for their nation? The small puny countries perched on the far western periphery of the vast Afro-Asian land mass –European seaboard nations. No one from Indian, Chinese, or Islamic empires.
Why was it that these small European nations were mad keen to discover unknown worlds, while the major empires of the world couldn’t be bothered. Why didn’t the Aztecs and Incas know ahead of time who these murdering traitorous Spaniards were who devastated the Caribbean islands? The answer is the same, and it applies to individual awakening as much as it did to the awakening of humanity. They were not interested for two reasons. Firstly, because they believed they were the centre of the world and already knew everything, and secondly, if there were things or lands they did not know about, these were unimportant and irrelevant. They were bound fast to their cultural egos – all their scriptures and beliefs blinded them to both the endless universe around or the possibility they could discover, learn, and profit from, for their own betterment. Obsessive and complacent confidence in their own identity.
What was it that released these puny European nations to avidly explore, conquer and exploit the new worlds in such a way that they became the most powerful nations the world has ever seen? Acknowledged ignorance. They accepted as foundational that ‘they did not know’, and that they could know and profit from what they learnt. This foundational feature was applied to science, and, as they say, the rest is history.
The lesson here for us, as we stand in one of those aware moments between tasks, turning the focus inward and asking, what is awakening on our deepest layer? – is not to answer this rhetorical question, which must remain a continuous enquiry, but to recognise that we must begin by opening ourselves. Not protecting ourselves and hiding behind our pompous self-confidence that we know it all. Realising that we don’t know – we are surrounded by mystery and isn’t it exciting!
The next layer, and the next, are there for our discovery, but to enter deeper into awareness, we must drop our arrogance. As Christ said, to use the body as an eye – open it and learn.
