Being Awakened! Even God cannot help us, a Savior cannot save us unless we are awakened and willing. IF one should come with all the power and restoring, who will receive that One but those who are awakened!

That is why the great teachers tell us again and again that riches,
perfect health, or happiness, can have no lasting quality unless they are based on our soul-heritage within.

Swami Paramananda
Book of Daily Thoughts and Prayers

Awakening… and then a willingness… Depending on how one defines awakening, it has to come before a true and lasting sense of willingness to do the work required of us who aspire to living a spiritual life on a daily, and on eventually a lifelong basis.

Awakening, in this more focussed sense, is an initial awareness of one’s spiritual reference points; It is often given to us as a surprise revelation, an aha! Or the proverbial light bulb experience!

As pleasant or as disconcerting as that revelation can be, all it is an important first step; movement towards looking at one’s life from the perspective of wisdom, compassion, love, and justice.

Qualities that identify and point out the games and structures of our ego, or our self-centeredness, and first informs us that the central teaching of the spiritual life is ‘It’s not about You!”

In other words, not as our dysfunctional society has taught us, but as all the wise and transformative teachers transmitted it to us. That we first have to awaken, then we are compelled to change, to align ourselves with the depth and demands of the teaching.

This is a clear separation point: what determines whether a wake-up call will be the start of an earnest and heartfelt spiritual journey, or whether it will be just filed away as a spiritual nudge; a hesitant invitation towards an unready spirit and a resistant soul that is still very attached to ego and its riches or social rewards.

I am immediately reminded of the Gospel story of the rich young man who followed all the rules of polite and respectful religion, and then asked Jesus what more would he have to do to enter into heaven… Jesus gave him a tense, and for him, a terrifying demand:

“Go, sell all that you have and follow me!” The rich young slunk away, and with what I would expect to be a heavy heart, knew he was not ready, and could not live without his affluence and comforts…

While few of us could respond in such a complete way as to let go of everything that defines us in our society, the aspiration to do so, the willingness, has to be present as we move towards living beyond culture.

Living into a more Christ-consciousness that offers wisdom and healing happen if we are willing to let go of all that interferes with being a disciple in its largest or most complete sense…