The Awakened and the rest of us

What are the differences between us and awakened individuals?
Most of us identify ourselves with our bodies. We think that we are the body but the self-realized know that we have a body, just as we have a car, or a house or any other material object.

Most of us believe that we are our emotions. Awakened individuals know that these emotions just rise inside us, like the wind or storm.

We sometimes believe that we are the roles that we play in society: like mother, father, teacher, manager, writer, doctor, sister or brother. Awakened individuals know that we have roles like actors who play their parts but are quite different from the roles that they play.

Most of us believe that we are our thoughts. Awakened individuals know that we have thoughts and we are separate from our thoughts.

Most of us believe that we are our stories. For example, those who have suffered trauma are often attached to the experience and believe that they are the story.

Awakened individuals know that their stories are separate from who they truly are.
Most of us think of ourselves as if we are separate from others. Awakened individuals know that we are one with everyone and the whole universe.

Most of us often think of the past and the future as real. Awakened individuals know that the past and future are convenient labels but are not real. There is only the eternal now.

Most of us depend on material things to define our identity. Awakened individuals have little or no attachment to material things.

Quest for life's ultimate efficient principle in 2008

Everywhere we look, we see the trend towards more and more efficiency: Less work for greater output, less investment for greater profits, less effort for greater results.

Yet, as we inch towards the second and third decades of the 21st century, we are reminded of a basic tendency of human beings to live the inefficient life.
Is it efficient for humans as a race to build structures like the Twin Towers, or bridges over the Tigris and the Euphrates or sacred sites and then destroy them for whatever reasons?

Is it efficient to build financial institutions and then let them crumble because they were designed to benefit only a segment of the society?

Is it efficient to invent and market products that are harmful to our lives and endanger the earth -- personal care products that hasten the aging process and cause cancer, foods that sterilize, etc., etc?

Is it efficient to describe success by the disproportionate wealth of a negligible few when the majority of the human race wallows in abject poverty, disease and despair?

While we are trapped in selfish efficiency concepts of strategic planning, political expediency, and profit maximization that work for only a few, we as a race are losing sight of the fundamental imperative. This is OUR world and its time to ask whose efficiency must make it work.

Our financial institutions will crumble, our most cherished edifices annihilated, we will self-destruct -- if we fail to rediscover and re-energize our societies with life’s ultimate perennial efficient principle.

This New Year and two decades ahead, the world will thirst for those who will rekindle that flame, those who will work to sustain this earth for the greater good of all.

They will be those who, like Albert Einstein, will seek above all to “know God’s thoughts” and let the details follow.

They will be those who will seek true happiness, not in finite things, but as the 2500 years old Chandogya Upanishad reveals: “There is no happiness in anything finite. The infinite alone is happiness. But one must desire to understand the infinite.”

The ultimate efficient principle then is to seek to understand the mind of God, the Kingdom of Heaven within, the Infinite Invisible. On this foundation alone can we sustain and build a world of justice and fairness that recognizes the interconnected of all human beings.

2008 is the year we can recommit to recognize the mystery within as the rock on which we can build in the long run the truly lasting and efficient social, economic and political structures.

Enlightenment roadmap: Unfolding the consciousness of sunlight on a cloudless summer's day

Enlightenment means many things to many people. To me it is the state of awareness in which we merge with the Great Unknown and our identification with the self fall away.

The process of awakening takes many paths but here is the general roadmap.

First, you must be aware of the need for something greater than your personal consciousness. You ask questions such as: "Who am I? Where did I come from, where am I going? What is the meaning of life?" When these questions persist, it indicates that you are ready to go on the path that culminates in the answer to these questions. In other words, these questions show that you are thirsty for the water of life. Enlightenment quenches that thirst.

This thirst is insatiable. It can be filled only with the Ocean of Divine Love. Nothing else does it. Not fame. Not wealth. Not power. Not sex. Only union with the divine beloved.

A major step in this process occurs with a triggering event.

The event may be a crisis, illness or an encounter. The event may be external to you or within you or both. For example, an external event will be meeting someone who has experienced the awakening. You will not become awake immediately. But you could. Nothing is impossible. However, in general, it takes a lot of adjusting to peel off the traps of the ego, the false programming in which we identify with the body, our emotions, our thoughts rather than the pure consciousness that we truly are.

The external trigger forces you to go within to discover who you truly are. That is the role of pain and suffering in the world. Once you return to the source within, you learn to connect with the Inner Teacher.

The Inner Teacher guides you and shortens the journey by bringing you the necessary events and circumstances that will assist you in the unfolding. For example, instead of making "ten mistakes" before you understand a spiritual truth, with the Inner Guide, you will not have to make those "mistakes." Well, there are really no mistakes. There are only experiences.

Remember the movie Groundhog Day? The Inner Guide helps us to not go through the same pattern over and over and over again.

Working and trusting this Inner Guide is one of the most important landmarks in our evolutionary consciousness. The Inner Guide can lead you to new people, new resources, and offer insight into puzzles in your life.

Once you develop this internal tracking system, the next step is a gradual letting go of the patterns that cover the Sun of consciousness like dark clouds. When the clouds are gone we become "Enlightened," we become awake.
This awakening is a continuum. In other words, just as there are various levels of sleep and wakefulness, there are different levels of spiritual awakening.

The reason for this is that we peel off in gradual stages the structures of the wrong programming of the self like onion layers until we reach the center. Many religious doctrines, dogma and concepts are not true. When we believe them, they limit our spiritual growth because they conflict with the direct experience the Inner Guide is teaching us. The conflict between dogma and the Inner Knowing can cause confusion until we learn to trust the truthfulness of the Knowing from within.

The Inner Knowing must be tested. In other words, you must develop a process where the Inner Knowing is put to the test so that you are not misled by tricks of the ego. Some authorities call this testing process discernment. If there is any warning to be heeded on the path, this is it. Put your Inner Guides to test before you trust them.

In summary, the awakening or enlightenment begins with an insatiable desire to understand the mysteries of life. This desire is intensified at times by pain, suffering or an encounter with a divine soul. The divine soul or Spiritual Master, through entrainment –
a process which resembles harmonic resonance – can activate the seed of spiritual unfoldment or the enlightenment can happen immediately. Or you can develop a deeper relationship with your Inner Guide. You learn to work with your Inner Guide through discernment, cutting short the sleep-walking stage most people are in at the moment.

Enlightenment is the consciousness of the Sun shinning at noon on a cloudless summer's day. Waking up to the Sun consciousness is what life on earth is all about