The Awakening Strain
"Awakening" sometimes comes with many adornments: flowers, robes, good feelings, cultural adornments, artwork, support groups, etc. Cultural adornments can be easily passed off as superfluous bullshit, but these adornments can be tools for transcendence if they do not become dogmatic traps. Awakening comes with many great benefits and by way of various paths, but awakening isn't always all marshmallows and gravy.
Awakening, simply put, is transcendence. Transcendence is a beautiful path, but it requires work. For example, a musician really begins to feel music when they transcend the thought of music theory or structure, but the work is still required. Beyond the structure of music is where creativity begins. Music theory itself is not music, but a tool. A religious person can begin the process of true spiritual awakening when they transcend dogma, structure, or system. The symbols and adornments of the various cultural perspectives are tools much like music theory. A meditator achieves awakening by no longer consciously adhering to method and entering into a realm beyond the deliberate effort.
But the work doesn't end once the door is open. The awakened mind (in a relationship with the body) still operates with one foot remaining in the "real" world, and can often struggle to understand surface reality as it interrupts higher consciousness. It's much like swimming to stay above water. The awakened mind has broken through the surface to breathe, but is still doing the work and continues to get wet.
There are also the personal human confines -the relationship of the awakened mind to the animal. For myself, although "awakened" (or I should say "perpetually in the cycle of falling and awakening") I still enjoy a good fight, wood fired meat, horror movies, strange humor, sex, chocolate cake, and other earthly perversions. I still experience anger, judgment, worry, frustration, and fear (although to a lesser degree). These are not flaws to be corrected. These are animalistic tendencies to be observed and experienced. Much as yin has a relationship to yang, the awakened mind can have a relationship to the animal body. One does not necessarily need to derail the other. Despite my love of my inner animal, I also find greatness in the smelling of flowers, staring at trees, creating forms of art, intellectual conversation, deep meditation, and expressing love and compassion.
A lack of perfection is the journey of the awakening strain. There is never a cause to give up, just enjoy the adventure, for no adventure is an adventure if it is perfect. Certainty has no place in awakening, but uncertainty comes with its own strains that are well worth embracing. The work continues.
"Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it."
-G.I. Gurdjieff
"Awakening" sometimes comes with many adornments: flowers, robes, good feelings, cultural adornments, artwork, support groups, etc. Cultural adornments can be easily passed off as superfluous bullshit, but these adornments can be tools for transcendence if they do not become dogmatic traps. Awakening comes with many great benefits and by way of various paths, but awakening isn't always all marshmallows and gravy.
Awakening, simply put, is transcendence. Transcendence is a beautiful path, but it requires work. For example, a musician really begins to feel music when they transcend the thought of music theory or structure, but the work is still required. Beyond the structure of music is where creativity begins. Music theory itself is not music, but a tool. A religious person can begin the process of true spiritual awakening when they transcend dogma, structure, or system. The symbols and adornments of the various cultural perspectives are tools much like music theory. A meditator achieves awakening by no longer consciously adhering to method and entering into a realm beyond the deliberate effort.
But the work doesn't end once the door is open. The awakened mind (in a relationship with the body) still operates with one foot remaining in the "real" world, and can often struggle to understand surface reality as it interrupts higher consciousness. It's much like swimming to stay above water. The awakened mind has broken through the surface to breathe, but is still doing the work and continues to get wet.
There are also the personal human confines -the relationship of the awakened mind to the animal. For myself, although "awakened" (or I should say "perpetually in the cycle of falling and awakening") I still enjoy a good fight, wood fired meat, horror movies, strange humor, sex, chocolate cake, and other earthly perversions. I still experience anger, judgment, worry, frustration, and fear (although to a lesser degree). These are not flaws to be corrected. These are animalistic tendencies to be observed and experienced. Much as yin has a relationship to yang, the awakened mind can have a relationship to the animal body. One does not necessarily need to derail the other. Despite my love of my inner animal, I also find greatness in the smelling of flowers, staring at trees, creating forms of art, intellectual conversation, deep meditation, and expressing love and compassion.
A lack of perfection is the journey of the awakening strain. There is never a cause to give up, just enjoy the adventure, for no adventure is an adventure if it is perfect. Certainty has no place in awakening, but uncertainty comes with its own strains that are well worth embracing. The work continues.
"Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it."
-G.I. Gurdjieff
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