Self Realization

“We all experience degrees of awakening each day. In the morning, the body stirs from restful sleep. The mind becomes aware of the birds singing. The intellect starts thinking. The heart starts feeling. You remember who and where you are.

We take this process of booting up from sleep mode every day for granted. There are times during the day when we are more awake than others. Some people are more awake in the morning, others more so in the evening. But this is all within the boundaries of the natural state of wakefulness.

While you were sleeping last night, there were probably moments when you woke up, became aware of your body or a sound in the room, maybe a mosquito. But then you were gone again, immersed in sleep.

The same kind of thing can happen while you are awake. You are moving through life, and all the normal things are happening, but then something unusual occurs. Something beyond the normal humdrum of life. Something paranormal. A moment of déjà vu, or a sudden brilliant insight, or a startling coincidence you can’t explain. It leaves you shaken, wide-eyed with wonder. You have just caught a glimpse of something from beyond the waking dream called life. And then normal life resumes, and soon this incident is forgotten. Have you ever had such an experience? Such a moment of abnormal awakening?

Can you remember these moments you have had in your life? Jot them down in your journal. Make a list of your moments of unusual awakening under the title: “My Moments of Awakening”.

Some will describe these events as supernatural, while others will try to explain them away as nothing out of the ordinary. But deep down, you know. You know you have had a glimpse of something more, that no one can really explain. The truth is that these moments are often moments of spiritual awakening. Glimpses of another realm. If you dreamed you had heard a mosquito while you were sleeping, then it wasn’t real. But if you woke from sleep and actually heard the mosquito, it was obviously a moment of awakening. In the same way, if you had an authentic paranormal experience, and you knew it, it was most certainly a momentary glimpse of a higher level of consciousness.

According to our normal conditioning, the world is full of objects and subjects that are separate from each other. Relationships can be established between them, but there is no other obvious connection that we are aware of. You are walking down the street and see a dog marking a tree, but other than that, you are not aware of any connection between the dog and the tree. They most certainly aren’t one. That possibility won’t even occur to you. But what if everything in creation is one? What if nothing is separate? What if the separation we perceive is a conditioning of the mind, like the sun rising in the east, when in fact the sun hasn’t moved at all? What if you could step beyond this object-oriented conditioning of the mind and actually perceive the connection between things? Become aware of that something that connects everything as one? Would that blow your mind? Would you consider it an awakening from your normal state of awareness?

This is what a self-realized person can perceive.” Excerpt from The Perennial Truth – Awakening of the Soul