“In awakening, what’s revealed to us is that we are not a thing, nor a person, nor even an entity. What we are is that which manifests as all things, as all experiences, as all personalities. We are that which dreams the whole world into existence. Spiritual awakening reveals that that  which is unspeakable and unexplainable is actually what we are.” - Adyashanti

What does it mean to wake up?

To wake up is to realize that who you are is not limited to your body, not confined in your thoughts, your emotions, or your circumstances.

It is to discover the deeper essence, pure consciousness, is-ness, that infuses and enlivens the body, the emotions, the thoughts and to allow awareness to be so deeply absorbed as this essence that you can feel free and at peace - right now, in this moment, no matter the circumstances.

As we release from searching for identity in form, we discover that all form is within us.

To wake up is to know yourself and all apparent others as this same essence. To deeply realize that you are not separate from this essence - it cannot be lost or gained, it does not come or go. To trust this essence to live you, to recognize that is has always lived you, it is always here - before birth, during life and after form has fallen away. To know this as your True Nature - open, spacious, silent, free.

The Potential Trap of Awakening

As we wake up to our True Nature - silent, spacious essence. Open, free. We are still in bodies and relationships playing the play of form. Oneness appears as two, as subject/object, as me/you, as inside/outside, as what is real/what comes and goes. A subtle or not so subtle preference can arise - for transcendent emptiness, bliss, oneness, love and light. And with that there can be a resistance or rejection of parts of ourselves and others - patterns of behavior that move, uncomfortable body sensations, messy emotions such as fear and shame, pain, the forgetting of True Nature, and the story told about it all. The duality of the apparent world is somehow excluded from Realization and the war can begin again - now dressed in spiritual clothing.

The Call Even Deeper - Embodied Presence

What if it is possible to pause - right now? Inviting the energy that may want to move up and out to return down and in. Feeling the supportive ground underneath the body. Something that was holding may open and sink down even deeper. What if it is possible for awareness to drop inside, feeling the energies and patterns that are arising in the form of sensations, emotions, stories we are telling about them?  In even a brief pause, there is the possibility to open, to allow what is arising to just be - with no meaning, no labels, no knowing, no judgement or preference. In this moment of allowing everything to be as it is, is it possible to sense the pure consciousness that is all movement, sensation, emotion, story, never separate from? What could it be like to live from here - in embodied presence, intimately connected to whatever is here now - both internally and externally in this play of form? Aware of the oneness in all duality - the entire play of form experienced as Divine.