But what are the practical requirements for awakening?
The first requirement is need. Perhaps that should be Need. Curiosity may work once or twice. Self enhancement or other ambitions are not likely to work at all. For whom do you wish to be present? Who needs you to awaken and why?
The process begins with voluntary attention followed by impartial attention. Observe self objectively. Know that you are asleep and see the patterns of your sleep, in real time. Then you are ready to take the next step.
You need a great deal of energy to awaken the machine. In this moment, can you stop wasting energy? Can you reverse the flow of energy from down and out of the body to up and in? Your sleeping machine is probably reacting to something and harbors ordinary emotions. Knowing the exact formulation of your reaction in physical terms, can you withhold the expression of it? No judgement. Please understand this is not a general condemnation of expression. This is about gathering the energy to awaken at this time.
Now, what will you do with this emotional energy? Can you invoke impartial attention or presence to digest and transform it? Can you at the same time release the associated tensions and sensations so that you are not dragged into identification? Attention and presence are energies of a higher order; invoking them initiates energy generation, upgrading sensation into conscious energy. Can this process continue? Can presence see and counter the tendency to fall into identification?
Does your heart now awaken? Conscious energy makes this possible. Perhaps you can voluntarize a feeling that is essentially part of you…reverence, objective sorrow, glorification…whatever is natural to your being. Perhaps you can invoke the feeling that is most accessible in the space where you are. Some spaces are aligned with specific feelings, making them ‘sacred’. Perhaps you have discovered that all the requirements of awakening are contained in genuine prayer. Feeling brings more energy of a higher kind. Body, mind and heart working together intensify the energy. Perhaps your machine now awakens.
To remember (re-member) is first to bring together all the disparate parts of your being into being. For whom do you do make this effort? For whom do you wish to awaken? Then, in turn, you may be remembered as one of the Work community.
Related Posts:
