Awakening: the ultimate human graduation
What is awakening? Now, that is a deep question. There are many forms of awakening, and as many schools, teachers and gurus to tell you all about it. But you don’t absolutely need any of those schools or teachings to experience an awakening. Those teachers and theories are just tools to help facilitate and fast track the process. As humans, we are already equipped to manage our own spiritual evolution, and really it is an inside job. We are the only ones who can evolve us. But tools, and facilitation, can be very good things, and can keep a person on the short and narrow path.
Awakening is such a large topic area, and there are so many forms of awakening that guidance and mentors can be very helpful. Individual learning styles and awareness capacities also vary, but in the end, the Universe or God, or Mother Nature or whatever you call your Higher Being, delivers on time and on schedule, exactly the form of awakening that you can hold in the moment you can hold it.
“Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun”
There’s the tiny moment, when just a sliver of light is shone into a deep crevice of your internal workings. Those slivers of light are easily overlooked, and ignored. There’s the accumulative experiences awakening, where you keep having the same or similar experience, and eventually it “rings a bell” in your mind’s eye. You finally say: “Hmmm, this keeps happening. Wonder what it might mean?” And once you start looking for a meaning, voila! There the meaning is, bright as day.
Awakening by lightning bolts and bright suns
And then there are those awakening moments that shine brighter than the sun and can’t be ignored. Like the time you thought you had a new job position in the bag, and then you find out someone else got the job, less on merit and more because they knew someone, or had a friend or relative who knew someone. That’s a moment of awakening to the fact that the world doesn’t always play by your definitions of fair. It’s also an awakening to the awareness that you don’t personally control everything, and there will be moments, potentially long moments, when the skill set of tolerating dissonance is your only saving grace.
Awakening is said to be gradual or it can be instantaneous. This Monday Music selection is a love song, about a love that happened instantaneously, and shone immediately brighter than the sun. Awakening as a process can be likened to falling in love, only this time you are falling in love with yourself, your good parts and your not-so-good parts, as well as the part of you that is eternal and connected beyond this worldly existence.
Find awakening moments and then keep coming back
And the choice you make is to love all your parts, to shine and radiate out all of you into the world. Acceptance and surrender pave the way to the skill set of tolerating dissonance. At first, acceptance and surrender may appear functional and survival oriented. But, eventually, if practiced enough survival forms of acceptance and surrender evolve themselves into an easy act of daily living.
Acceptance and surrender without attachment to outcome are hallmarks of awakening. It happens in moments. But the length, and the frequency of the moments of awakening will continue to increase. So don’t worry if the bright shining sun and lightning bolt experiences of awakening are fleeting. The quieter moments are still a good sign and can be equally as satisfying. Until then meditate with this idea of an awakening that burns as constant as or brighter than the sun to inspire you. Here’s “Colbie Caillat- Brighter Than The Sun” as posted by ColbieCaillatVEVO on YouTube [LINK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU5o6M7S5nQ ]
Enjoy the music, and use the Grounded Relating Monday Music Challenge to stay present to yourself today. Full lyrics for “Brighter Than The Sun” written by Colbie Caillat and Ryan Tedder, as posted on metrolyrics.com:
“Brighter Than The Sun”
Stop me on the corner
I swear you hit me like a vision
I, I, I wasn’t expecting
But who am I to tell fate where it’s supposed to go with it?
Don’t you blink you might miss it
See we got a right to just love it or leave it
You find it and keep it
‘Cause it ain’t every day you get the chance to say
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun
I never seen it, but I found this love I’m undefeated
You better believe, I’m gonna treat? Better than anything I’ve ever had
‘Cause you’re so damn beautiful read it
It’s time and deliver it let’s seal it
Boy we go together like peanuts and paydays and Marley and reggae
And it ain’t every day you get the chance to say
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun
Everything is like a white out, ’cause we shk shk shine down
Even when the light’s out but I can see you glow
Got my head up in the rafters, got me happy ever after
Never felt this way before, ain’t felt this way before
I swear you hit me like a vision
I, I, I wasn’t expecting
But who am I to tell fate where it’s supposed to go?
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun, yeah
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun, yeah
Brighter than the sun
Brighter than the sun
Brighter than the sun
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
