I want to talk with you today about how we can nurture awakenings. But let's start with what an awakening is. I would describe it as an expansion of awareness that expresses itself through increased presence. The awareness that you will experience as you begin to awaken will be less clouded by thinking than anything you have previously known. Perceptions will be sharper and more vibrant because they involve a more direct engagement with reality. 

But this definition of awakening is too technical to help us appreciate the importance of awakening, and to understand all that this expansion of consciousness and increased presence involves. Awakening is not a matter of personal development. To awaken is to get over yourself and beyond your self-improvement projects and self-preoccupations. It is to know and trust your heart as it makes you aware that every gift and blessing you receive is meant not simply for you, but for you to give away and pass on to the world. Awakening means that you see yourself, others, the world, and life itself through new eyes. The eyes of Christ become your eyes, the heart of Christ becomes your heart. This clarified perception and the deep knowing that comes with it, grounds you in reality, penetrates illusion and fantasy, and enables you to live with wisdom and compassion. It aligns you with the One Who is All - the creator and sustainer of everything that is.

It is important to notice that the word “awakening” is in the present continuous tense. In English, this tense is used to refer to actions that are happening in the present, but are unfinished. Contrast this, for example, with the word “enlightened” or “transformed.” These words suggest something that is completed. The reason why this is important is that awakening is not an event but an ongoing process. The beginnings of this process are so subtle that they are largely out of awareness. In fact, invitations to awaken fill our days and, even when we respond to them and experience a moment of awakening, we tend to dismiss the significance of this moment and return to sleep. 

When we are spiritually asleep, our awareness is clouded and limited by thinking. However, as we begin to awaken, our thinking moves much more to the background and complements awareness. And as we become more and more awake, we will notice increasing moments of awareness that are completely free of thought. This is what it means to be absorbed in an experience. 

Attending to Invitations to Awaken

Awakenings start with a sensation – not an insight or an idea, but a sensory experience that arises in the body. Sadly, most of us are so deficient in body awareness that we fail to notice these subtle somatic experiences. Noticing brings awareness, and this is the first step toward an awakening. This noticing requires that we know our body, and this is the reason why body work and sensory attunement are vital.

Sensations are always accompanied by a surge of energy that invites us to respond. We feel pain and want to recoil. We feel an itch and want to scratch. Without a response to a sensation, there is no awakening. 

When we are home, my wife and I start most mornings with a sensory awakening walk in a waterfront marsh near us. Often we see recently toppled trees that beavers have begun to cut up into manageable sizes to drag to their lodge. Other times we see a fox in the field or a mink near the shoreline. And as a constant background, we hear and see the marsh birds all around us.

We talk very little so as to not disturb the wildlife and to allow us to settle into a quiet attentiveness. But as soon as one of us hears or sees something striking, we stop and open our senses to whatever we encounter. Often it is the quality of the early morning light that captures our attention. Sometimes it is the unbelievable variety of green we encounter in the trees, or the blues, black, and grays of the water as it interacts with clouds, wind, and sun. And on every walk it also includes watching and listening to the birds whose home we are visiting. 

Noticing anything invites engagement, and it does this by means of the burst of energy that comes with a sensation – any sensation. This energy invites attention and facilitates a response. At the most basic level, that response might simply be to pause and notice. But, often curiosity compels me to sit or stand in stillness for a while so I can enjoy a deeper engagement with whatever fills my awareness. 

Curiosity is vital in this process. It both arises from sensory awareness and it feeds further awareness. Without curiosity there will be only very limited awakening. But all we need is enough curiosity to notice because as soon as we allow ourselves to be absorbed by what we notice, we are drawn into a deeper encounter that deepens our curiosity. 

Sometimes curiosity becomes dull. Sadly, we think we know all that is worth knowing about the people and things we encounter. Worse, sometimes curiosity gets replaced by fear. To awaken, we need to see life once again through the eyes of a child. Curiosity was natural for us as children. And it can be recovered. As noted by Alan Watts, "By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us."1

Life brings us many invitations to awaken. Every overreaction that we notice and engage with openness rather than analysis is a potential doorway to a deeper knowing of self. The same is true of a deepening knowing of our bodies, an owning of our projections, and showing hospitality to the parts of self we have devalued and left undeveloped. Every step of deeper knowing of the truth of our being is a step toward the dissolution of a false sense of self and of our illusory perception of the world. Every step we take in deeper knowing of ourselves involves the removal of a barrier to knowing truth and reality.  

The events of our life that we think of as negative and try to eliminate also give us rich invitations to awaken. Anything that produces internal conflict, disruption of meaning and self-coherence, or a sense that our way of being in the world needs to change has great potential to aid our awakening. Coping with a pandemic, a divorce, major financial reversal, or the death of a loved one all contain hidden gifts of potential awakenings. But so do many smaller crises. All that is required is that we truly pay attention to  them rather than simply attempt to get through them.

But let me mention one final category of experiences that have great potential to help us awaken. These are the subtle mystical moments that I think everyone has in their life, but which people then discount and ignore. These moments involve a temporary softening of the optical illusion of separateness and offer a hint of the reality of oneness. Such experiences can be frightening. But even when forgotten, these moments remain with us as a non-conscious memory. Remembering them is a way of starting to pay attention. 

Spiritual awakening is remembering who and what you are – remembering something you have known in deep places within your soul. Moments of mystical awareness remain forever part of you. In the depths of your soul, you have never forgotten them, nor will you ever. 

Each moment of awareness, no matter how fleeting or insignificant, prepares you for awakening. And each small awakening is a doorway to deeper awakening. Offer your acceptance of and attention to life as it is. This is the route to awakening. 

If you hesitate to accept life as it is, remember that there is nothing you can do to change it. Both resisting and accepting the flow of life change you in powerful but quite different ways. Resistance keeps you asleep. Accepting what cannot be changed nurtures spiritual awakening. 

Notes

1.  Alan Watts, Become What You Are (Shambhala, 2003), p. 36.

2021 © Dr. David G. Benner

This is the second of three blogs on awakening that I offer to help you prepare for the upcoming video series on this important topic.

More information on this video series – including sample videos – can be found here. Please contact us at info@cascadialivingwisdom if you have any questions