“Feeling my way through the darkness

Guided by a beating heart

I can’t tell where the journey will end

But I know where to start”

~ lyrics ‘Wake Me Up’ by Blacc, Aloe / Bergling, Tim / Einziger, Michael Aaron

Happy Sunday!

My son Alex is 21 years old today. He is such a good person and I am very proud of him. I love him and want life to bring more to him than even I have received. My greatest wish is that he comes to awareness before I did – age 50 for me.
What I call awareness has been called ‘born again’, ‘break-through’, ‘break-down’, some even call it enlightenment but I think that term is reserved for a much higher attainment. We are all given opportunities to expand our awareness; it is our choice if we keep pushing it away and make the journey more of a struggle.
For me, the shift in my awareness came when I recognized myself as Eternal. To all of us there will come opportunities, challenges, or suffering meant to break open our awareness that we can see past this veil of ‘stuff’ we call matter and know there is more than this. Reality is so much more than our five senses reveal to us.
If my son was to ask me “how do I wake up?” I would answer by responding, “allow your-self to acknowledge that there is more. When you are writing and the words just flow into ideas and meanings you did not anticipate – that is more. When the meaning in a song touches your heart and suddenly you are joyous, or saddened, dancing or weeping – that is more. When you actually consider nature that is all around us, that a tree comes from a seed, that your body is formed from trillions of individuals, known as cells, which perfectly mature and cooperate to form your body – that is more.” The evidence is in everything. The beauty and wonder of the natural world from the smallest part to the greatest is proof of an Eternal intelligence that I chose to call God, the Source, or the Universe.
Becoming aware changed my perspective on everything. From the perspective of a limited human life time I think that we focus on the milestones of life and then have expectations that we are entitled to something.

You turn 17 and you can drive, you earned that right. Right? You’re entitled to it so if you want to drive recklessly and put others at risk you say it is OK in your mind because you earned it by reaching age 17. When we hear it said that driving is a privilege and not a right we disagree within our own minds, to justify our own behavior.

You become a parent, a Mom or Dad with young children. Your parents made you do things you didn’t want to do. They yelled, hit, and criticized you; they were the parents. Now you are entitled to treat your children that way so that you can feel superior in being right all of the time. You’re entitled to that as a parent. Right?

These are a couple of examples of how a limited perspective, that society gives us, promotes negative reactions in people such as: competition, judgement, greed, and fear. The biggest expectation that may drive all of our feelings of entitlement is that of death. “I will be dead some day so I deserve something good now,” is a sentiment I believe we all carry in our psyche.
To know that you are Eternal changes your perspective on everything. What are your milestones now? What can you achieve that identifies you and that you can take with you? What are you entitled to?
When you look at this visit to Earth as a short part of the journey you are on then you naturally must ask, “Why am I here?” This is the root of wanting to understand your life’s purpose.
All the stuff of this life becomes less important as you know it does not last so how can it define you? The fancy car you had to have, the big house, the promotion, are all meaningless as you can now see past the time they held importance in your life. I don’t want my time here on Earth to be meaningless so what can I take with me as representation of my time here?
My growth and evolution.
With awareness springs all the virtues: honesty, compassion, gratitude, courage. I will be impeccable with my word and speak what I really mean; what I have to say is important and expecting my brother to meet my needs without my providing the information is false-hearted. I will know that others who come into my life bring a lesson for me to learn from and grow from. All that I experience I am grateful for.
What am I entitled to in this life on earth? I am entitled to know and understand my self! I will be given, by the Universe, all the tools that I need to take that journey within, to understand my self, and to have my questions answered that I need to have answered to reach self-realization.
That’s where we are all heading – our destination has many names: self realization, enlightenment, salvation, Christ consciousness. We come to experience form here on Earth, as spiritual beings who, in childhood must learn this new physical environment and the social rules of humans.
By adulthood we have accepted ourselves as these beings of form with our minds and egos in total acceptance of the material world. We are so grounded in form that we refuse to acknowledge those things before us that we experience everyday that are not explainable in the material world such as: intuition, synchronicity, dreams, inspiration, creativity, Love, gratitude, connection, compassion, energy. The pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other and we must find balance or we will struggle to hold the weight out of balance.
The journey begins with awareness.
Waking up – it is the first step!
“Eternity is not the hereafter … this is it. If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere.” ~ Joseph Campbell