My Awakening

My Awakening

Awakening:  a·wak·en·ing –
noun: 1. An act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something.
adjective: 2.  Coming into existence or awareness.

First, it might be best to clarify how I define an awakening experience. Some consider the slow development of consciousness into a higher awareness as an awakening. This does not describe my experience. My awakening was a moment in time in which my consciousness suddenly expanded to a whole different level, effectively changing my notion of life.

Before I can fully explain my experience, I think it is important to give some background into my life. I feel this is important because it is this background, history and experience that led me to the morning of my awakening.  You see, this was an event that my whole life lead me to. However, if you just wish to read from the point of my Awakening experience please click here

Awakening Background

Many of us have grown up in dysfunctional families and mine was no exception. My family was perhaps near the fringe of the extreme. We were somewhat of a “Brady Bunch” model, though not quite in the same wholesome manner. I grew up in a non-traditional family of six kids. My Mother was a widow with two small girls and my Father was a widower with two small boys. They were married and had my older brother and myself. I was born with a bilateral cleft lip which required a few surgeries to correct. I also had tubes in my ears and my tonsils removed so I was no stranger to a hospital in my younger years. In many ways I was protected because of this and for the fact that I was the “baby” of the family. While other traumas were occurring within my family, I seemed to miss most of it. My family however could not protect me from being teased by other children and because of that experience I developed a thick skin. I got tough but developed a compassionate heart for those who could not defend or protect themselves.

My Father was a tool and die maker and decided to go into business for himself in 1967.  He along with my Mother successfully launched a manufacturing business in plastics. When I was in my late teens I worked for my Father’s business and it became painfully clear I couldn’t work for him. His idea of working my way up in his business meant I might have a position requiring a tie somewhere in my late 40’s. My father had a tradesman mentality meaning you would do the same job over and over again until you could do it in your sleep; only then would you be ready to advance and take on a new challenge. I did not have a clear direction for what I wanted to do with my life but I knew it wasn’t going to entail working for my Father. In my Fathers defense I wasn’t exactly the shining example of responsibility at the time.

I set about the task of trying to find a direction in my life. I liked photography and was always drawn to the more creative endeavors in life and so I ended up working at a custom photo lab out of high school. That lasted for a little over a year as it became apparent the non-creative nature of processing color transparencies was not for me. I was not afraid of working and held regular jobs from the age of fourteen and before that I would do whatever odd jobs would make me money. Finding no success with a job that held a promising future, it was time to go to the local community college to begin taking classes. Still not having a firm goal for my life, I tended to do well at the classes I enjoyed and not so well with the uninspiring subjects.

I think I knew early on in life I was a seeker. I remember buying a plaque of a picture with a guy hiking in the woods, the words read: “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” That summed it up pretty well for me at the time. The one thing I knew is I liked learning about things, not just anything but things I was interested in. I considered myself to be fairly intelligent but not from learning in school. I just seemed to have a high level of common sense.

When my Father passed away unexpectedly in 1983, my Mother hired a Chief Executive Officer to run the company. At the time I was twenty years old. He suggested my Mother, along with my other brothers, should all work for the company. My oldest brother was already in the business so myself and another brother joined shortly after my Fathers death. Enjoying the challenge of creating systems and processes led to a Quality Manager position which I took on in short order. As time went on I took on more responsibility for the day to day operations. In spite of the fact that my younger years were not the shining example of responsibility, by the age of twenty five I was running the company. At this point my choices were, growing up fast and becoming responsible or I risked an incredible opportunity. I chose to put all my efforts into making the business successful.

I did not have any formal training on how to run a business, nor did I have a mentor. I knew I had to get exposure to other business methods so at the age of thirty I joined a Chief Executive group. The group was comprised of sixteen other owners, Presidents or Chief Executives. The member companies represented varying industries ranging in size from five to two hundred million. We met for a full day every month to discuss various business issues and eventually we learned a great deal about each other’s businesses. We also started to learn a great deal about each other’s personal lives. Approximately eight times a year we had a speaker give a presentation for three hours or so.

Since joining in 1992 my involvement with that group exposed me to over one hundred and fifty speakers. The topics ranged from marketing, hiring, sales, strategic planning, personality profiles to finding purpose in life. This experience allowed me to learn so many things I might not ever have been exposed to in my life. It was also a catalyst to learning more about certain subjects I might not otherwise have been interested in. In addition to the speakers, I was surrounded by some great men who were filled with wisdom and integrity. I was a ready student and my teachers appeared month after month. When it comes to running a business you learn to cross the abyss (i.e. face your fears) on a regular basis or you stagnate and fail. I will honestly admit I did not always take the advice I was given and ultimately had to learn the hard way. This is the advantage of subduing your ego and becoming humble, you can avoid a lot of problems by taking the advice of others.

Around the same time I joined this group I was also struggling with a great deal of change in my personal life. I was wrestling with the decision of getting divorced knowing it would entail a great deal of stress to get through. I had a two year old daughter that made this decision extremely difficult. This is when I drew

what looked like a large letter “V” on a piece of paper. I then drew a single horizontal line across the middle representing the abyss I needed to cross. Drawing a line from the bottom of the “V” up to that point represented where I was at that moment. I took great comfort in viewing the stress in my life from above as a line across my path, telling myself, “this too shall pass.” I made it across that abyss to the other side where a new set of experiences were waiting. As time went on I started elaborating and expanding on the metaphor/analogy of the abyss. Originally I started preparing the syllabus for an adult education course that I planned on teaching at the local community college. From time to time I worked on the outline and material but as life goes it became a lower priority.

I remarried in 1997 to a woman who had two girls ages 1 and 3 and we built a house and moved in 1999. I spent the next seven years landscaping a two acre yard out of a farmers field during the warmer months, and during the winters started to finish off my basement. We had two boys born in 2002 and 2003 at which time I stopped most work on the basement. Somehow with all the stress of running a business I was able to leave most of it at work to enjoy raising my family.

Running a business is tough, it is not what people think, it can be gut wrenching stress with many sleepless nights. However, business was very good in the mid to late nineties and we were at capacity, so it was time to expand. I built a 60,000 square foot facility which was over twice the size of our previous space. It was an expensive building with many features specific to my business. I took on a great deal of debt at this point and this only added to the stress of running a business.

We moved into that facility in August of 2001 and had been doing million dollar months in sales up to that point. The month we moved in, business changed abruptly. Our sales that month were $243,000, one

quarter of our normal monthly sales. It was as if someone had flipped a switch that month. Our industry was hit with a depression era downturn that took many years to come out of. For the following two years we did half our normal sales. Over a two year period after moving, one third of my competitors went out of business along with many ancillary businesses related to our industry. Needless to say it was a gut wrenching period in my life. The only thing that kept me happy was the birth of my two boys.

Business started to get better in 2007 and it looked like we were going to have our first decent year since moving in to our new building. My yard had been landscaped to incorporate a pool in our patio area and in the summer of 2007 we decided to finally build the pool. The fall of that year we also decided to have the basement finished. I was overwhelmed with a sense of humility and gratitude for my life.

I have to explain that have I never aspired for material wealth or its display. I was never motivated to have things in order to impress others. I tended to stick with expressing myself more through my creative artistic traits and I focused on deep meaningful relationships. If anything, I knew that wealth had a way of intimidating people, literally pushing them away. This was certainly not something I wanted to create. I had to work very hard at dispelling this effect with my closest friends. One of them even told me it was intimidating the first time he came to visit our new home.

Yet having immense gratitude for what I had allowed others to see my appreciation for life. It was with this state of mind that I invited others to share in that celebration. Everything I had and everything I did was a means to share with others, this was the only purpose of my material possessions.

I believe it is very difficult to be jealous of a person’s possessions when they are humble and truly appreciate what they have. It is also hard to be jealous when someone wishes only to share what they have. I think where people become disgusted or jealous, is when someone doesn’t appreciate what they have. When someone takes their good fortune for granted or even has a sense of entitlement about it. When we hear people complain about life even though they are fortunate we tend to feel repulsed by someone’s lack of gratitude. If a person has a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what they have, people will always be happy for your life. When someone complains or boast’s about what they have, they push people away.

The Moment Of Awakening

I continued to be a seeker all during this time and at the time I was reading several books on manifesting. One of these books talked about modes of prayer and communicating with the divine. I had finished reading a passage the night of December 23rd. that talked about a specific mode of prayer as means of communicating with the divine through feelings and emotions.

The following Christmas Eve morning 2007 I awoke at approximately 4:00am. Wide awake and unable to go back to sleep, I started thinking about how grateful I was for everything in my life. Developing immense feelings of gratitude I directed them to the creator of life. If I could communicate with my creator through feelings and emotions, The strongest emotion I could convey was a feeling of gratitude coupled with love. I started to direct these overwhelming feelings of gratitude with immense love to my creator. This was an overwhelming emotional experience and I started to cry with a sense of humble happiness and gratitude. My entire being was enveloped in this sense of love and appreciation. This is when the awakening hit me.

Approximately fifteen minutes after I first awoke I had an experience that changed my life. During this period of sobbing with intense love and emotion I was literally “zapped” with a flood of knowledge and energy. At that moment the words “you got it” were communicated to me as clear as day, as if someone spoke them in my ear. I started crying uncontrollably and kept repeating “I got it,” “I got it.” Funny thing was, at that moment I had no idea what “I got,” but I left my bed and immediately went to my computer and started writing.

Words, ideas, truth and concepts “poured” out of me. It was as if I was no longer the person writing instead I was merely transcribing from another level of consciousness. In that moment of awakening I experienced eternity. I was given what is timeless and therefor is forever. No matter what time lapse may arise, the knowledge of that moment will forever be a part of me that no illusion of time can erode or wither away. But like all knowledge we receive in life, we apply only that which we truly believe, appreciate and treasure.

I struggled to understand my experience, not knowing exactly what it was. I had heard of such things as born again, revelation, enlightenment and awakening, but never did any research into it prior to my experience. At first the term I used was “epiphany” described in the dictionary as “sudden realization”- a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence. Then I became aware that what I experienced was more accurately called revelation. Curiously, researching the term revelation brought up a great deal of historical biblical references but very little in the way of contemporary references. I found it curious there was little in the way of modern day examples as I thought this is what religion should be striving to facilitate.

At the urging of a friend I bought a book titled “A Course in Miracles” some ten years before my awakening. I tried reading it at the time but felt it was too complex or deep; it was as if it was written in a foreign language. Something prompted me to pick it up again after my experience and it suddenly came alive and made perfect sense. It was within that book that I found the best validation and description of my experience to that point:
“Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It reflects the original form of communication between God and his creations, involving the extremely personal sense of creation sometimes sought in physical relationships. Physical closeness cannot achieve it.” “Revelation unites you directly with God.” “Revelation is intensely personal and cannot be meaningfully translated. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is impossible. Revelation induces only experience.” “Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love.” “The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to you open for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It proceeds from God to you, but not from you to God.”  – A Course in Miracles

During this period when I was trying to describe what it was, I was also lead to read about near death experiences (NDE’s.) It seemed the knowledge acquired during an NDE was the same knowledge I had received. I even looked forward to the experience of physical death as I “knew” without any doubt what would come after. I know that life is continuous and there is no such thing as death. This is why I was so drawn to near death accounts. They are some of the only modern day examples of spiritual experiences of a magnitude similar to what I experienced. Perhaps there are little to no examples on current religious sites because those who experience it understand it to be a very personal experience.

The experience transcends what modern day religion is about. Most people who have an NDE experience become less religious and more spiritual. This is what led me to refer to my experience as an awakening. Almost every NDE experience results in no longer fearing death. They receive first hand proof of life after death.

I readily admit the difficulty in believing life is just a continuation of countless lives and experiences in our never ending journey of becoming. However this understanding is crucial to healing our mind.

It is like being born into an amusement park haunted house and never experiencing life outside of it. Imagine how someone would perceive reality, living in such a restricted and warped environment. Imagine how confusing a hall of mirrors would be with lighting so dim you couldn’t see beyond the next corner. Life would amount to the careful navigating of a frightening maze. Things would appear to pop out of nowhere and life would be a fearful unpredictable experience. This is an accurate analogy of human physical life for many people. Now imagine hovering 100 feet over this roofless haunted house with sunlight beaming into its once dark hallways and passages. Suddenly you would realize the place you once thought of as reality was just a dreamlike illusion. This is how most people view physical life after an NDE experience. They realize what they once thought of as reality here on earth, is just a small piece of a much larger reality.

So how can you begin to heal your thinking if your experience of life is like that of living in a haunted house?  You must expose your consciousness to what exist outside of it. The fact we are eternal beings is a known fact for most NDEr’s. The experience eliminates their fear of death because they know there is no real death. Imagine going through life without any more fear. If you are no longer afraid of death or being hurt, or having your ego bruised, your outlook of life takes on a much different perspective. Love becomes the overriding theme when there is no fear. When we are no longer fearful, we are more apt to take risk and experience life in a much more adventurous fashion. We no longer need to impress anyone, or hoard anything.

I had never been a religious person even though I believed in God. I believed Jesus to be a man who experienced the highest level of enlightenment. All of his words and talks affirm this to me. His ability to perform certain miracles were quite natural for a person having reached the pinnacle of consciousness in human form. Enlightened people throughout history have spoken the same truths as Jesus. At the highest levels of consciousness, truth becomes “known.”

I respect religion and everything it stands for but I have come to see it in a different light. The goal in life should be to reach this higher consciousness; to have an awakening. At this level, love, compassion, gratitude and peace become the state of mind. This is what religion shows us, tells us and tries to teach us, but does very little to promote one’s experience to this end. There are certain sects in all religions that realize the goal is to become enlightened or to have an awakening. In Judaism it is the Kabbalists, in Early Christianity it was the Gnostics and later the Christian Mystics, in Islam the Sufis, etc..

There is a newer spiritual movement afoot which promotes the experience of awakening or enlightenment. There are far more techniques and learning materials available toward this end than a person will find in any traditional religion. There are also alternative religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism that teach the methods for reaching this higher awareness. Meditation is the main vehicle for having this experience. The answer that religion seeks to teach is available to everyone through quiet meditation. In this quiet meditation one is able to connect with the divine higher consciousness in a personal way.

The basis for traditional religion is well founded, my only disappointment is it does little to promote the one to one personal experience of revelation, awakening or enlightenment. I believe the reason for this is people transcend the dogma of religion altogether once they have an awakening experience. Jesus was a relevant example of this paradox as he mocked the structure of religion in his time. His goal was to go out and bring the word of God to the masses of people not associated with traditional religion. Please understand I do not condemn religion, it is a positive force in general and some of the contemporary churches are getting closer to helping people affect real change in their life.

I had often thought about starting some type of a church after my awakening. My vision of this was to use an empty parking lot and stand on top of a car as the pulpit. Afterwards, instead of passing around a collection plate, everyone would be encouraged to go out and help others. Help a neighbor who just lost their job, help a family member, help a total stranger. This is what truth teaches us, “we” are the force to affect change in others. “We” change the world for the better by changing ourselves. The irony and paradox of attending church and then turning your back on someone in need becomes apparent.

I attended a funeral service for a friends Mother and was pleased to hear a younger Catholic Priest talk about the life force energy and the idea of reincarnation. Afterwards I approached him and we had a stimulating conversation. His belief was that science and religion both have a role in explaining God. It was refreshing to say the least, unfortunately it is not a mainstream idea in religion. When a person realizes this life is just one of many experiences, they can start to question what they are supposed to learn. When we realize that every action is determining what we will need to learn and experience in future lives, we might begin to learn the higher concepts of love.

I continued to write for the next eighteen months. Every time I sat down to my computer the words flowed out of me as fast as I could type. This writing became so extensive that it quickly formed into a book. As I organized it into chapters it became the basis of my book entitled “The Road Out Of The Abyss.” It started with my original  analogy of crossing the abyss and overcoming our fear. It occurred to me that we are all in an abyss of our own making. Life itself is the abyss and we spend our entire life trying to get out. Therefor the title is very fitting as it is the story of my road out of the abyss. Prior to my awakening, it never really occurred to me how much the ego controls our life or the pain and fear it causes. After my awakening and the subduing of my ego, I finally understood what peace and happiness was. The book is about escaping this painful abyss and finding “real” happiness and lasting peace.

For the first time in my life, my mind became silent. Prior to this, I always had a sense of pride thinking and strategizing about a countless number of things. Even in the car I would always be surveying the terrain and traffic going through endless scenarios of how I would react if another car swerved into my lane or someone cut me off. This was my ego trying to protect me. The experience silenced my ego, exposing it as the illusion it is, and with that silence came an overwhelming sense of peace. I had no fear whatsoever. It is difficult to explain the experience but I could sum up by saying much of what I thought or believed became “known” as truth. It is as if you are going to go live in Iceland. You can read about it, study it, watch documentaries on it but it only becomes “known.” to you once you live there. All the information that existed as concepts and ideas of what it is like, are transcended to “experience,” “knowledge” or “truth.”

Since that time my life was nothing short of magical, I had a purpose beyond self gratification. I wanted to help people see life in a different context, one that eliminated suffering. For the first eight months after my experience I can only describe my state of being as one of pure bliss. Time stood still as I had no desire to mingle in the usual preoccupations of physical matter. It was the longest eight months of my life. The sense of time did not exist. I no longer thought about the past or worried about the future, I was completely present in the moment as pure awareness. There were no longer endless thoughts about meaningless things. There was just a great deal of silence. My mantra was “everything is as it should be.” My only desire revolved around being with other people to share with them the experience and feelings my awakening gave me that morning. I felt so utterly grateful for the gift of my experience, all I wanted to do was share it with others. I have since come to the realization I was on a path that lead me to that moment having been a seeker my entire life.

Everything radiated with a new sense of brilliance and everything seemed to have a glowing vibrancy to it. I became a part of nature itself and I had a new connection to all things. Our pool and basement became a gathering place for family, neighbors and friends. It would not have a purpose otherwise. Our next store neighbors had two small children and were even given their own key for the purpose of using the pool anytime they wanted. I would invite friends to use our pool and basement anytime we were on vacation. This was the sole purpose of having these things in order to share with others. It allowed others to experience the gratitude I had for the material success in life.

Every night I looked forward to laying my head down on my pillow. During those eight months of bliss I had a smile on my face every night as I went to sleep. As I closed my eyes my sense of vision and imagination was a magical light show of endless colors and changing patterns of light that continued until I was asleep. I would have no thoughts of anything, I was just in awe of the beautiful patterns which danced in my mind.

As I had my transformation, those around me started to transform also. The perceived errors in others started to melt away. This started to happen on two different levels. One level was my perception, having lost all judgment of them, their perceived errors disappeared in my own mind. On a spiritual level, my seeing them as perfect revealed their perfection to themselves. Almost as if by a miracle, they started to behave differently, by recognizing their spiritual perfection to themselves.

The veil that normally separates our consciousness from the universal consciousness was permeated that morning. A rip or tear occurred in that veil allowing the flood of universal consciousness to flow into me, if only for a brief millisecond. I had always thought that my awakening implanted me with a base of knowledge that was given to me but when I think in terms of consciousness I now know of it differently.

The brain acts as a reducing valve of sorts. During our experience of being human we must operate under the physical laws of the material world. This requires a select and limited amount of consciousness to correspond with the body. If we had our full level of consciousness, then the human experience would not be possible, nor would it have any meaning. So the conscious mind is separated from the subconscious and the collective conscious by way of this veil we call the brain. The brain is what gives us our sense of a regular conscious state. Of course there is a wide range of this conscious state, (see consciousness on my website menu.)

The goal of our human experience is to rise up to these higher levels. Once a person reaches these higher states, the human experience loses it appeal and we move on to other experiences. This is why meditation is one of the most successful techniques for experiencing an awakening. We are bypassing the brain when we can clear the mind and achieve silence. It is in this “empty” silent space we are able to access this higher consciousness.

I have come to realize the awakening I had that morning was a momentary rip or tear in that veil. This allowed me to experience my true consciousness i.e. super-consciousness. Even though this lasted for a brief fraction of time it allowed a stream of knowledge to pass into my conscious mind and stay there. It also loosened the veil between my subconscious mind and my conscious mind. Those who achieve total enlightenment have broken through that veil entirely. All the beings who attained total enlightenment have been able to recall all their past lives. Why is this? because the veils separating the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the collective mind are removed. They have an awakening to their soul consciousness.

This original state of absolute bliss I experienced for the first eight months after my awakening eventually faded to some degree. Yet, I was also developing a deeper understanding about how to integrate my new understanding into helping others. The “truths” I came to as a result of my awakening are as follows:

• We are all connected, we are all one with creation, creator or universal consciousness.
• We need not fear or protect anything, especially our body or self concept because we can never die and there is no such thing as death or end of life. We are perfect creations made by a perfect creator
• We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Each experience progresses our soul to greater awareness and understanding.
• When we are ready to completely surrender our will to the creator we end the notion of separateness and are shown the truth of all creation.
• Attachment is the root of all suffering. Only the ego can get attached.
  • Attachment to money.
  • Attachment to status.
  • Attachment to material goods.
  • Attachment to physical pleasures/addictions.
  • Attachment to our own judgment, thoughts and opinions.
  • Attachment to others.
• Judge nothing, make no distinctions for good or bad, right or wrong, herein lies peace.
• Everyone and everything is in a state of becoming.
• We become what we believe ourselves to be. We will eventually evolve to become the model of Love, compassion, gratitude and peace, but we cannot do so until we give up our selfishness and separation.
• All that we learn in the way of higher consciousness is taken with us into our future experiences and thus our soul progresses. This cycle continues until we realize we are part of consciousness itself.
• Our soul is self regulating, we will find truth once we have balanced ourselves and experienced every type of error.
• Life is experienced in being fully present in each moment. Contained within each of those moments is eternity itself.
• Truth resonates with our very being, there is an inner knowing.
• We are awareness/consciousness seeking to experience itself.
• We are surrounded by love. we are love, and this love is extended forever. There is no need to seek it from any other source. We are the source.
• We are fractals of the whole experiencing myriad circumstances of existence, finding our way back to our source, which is consciousness experiencing itself.
• When you take on the role of protector and steward of all expressions of life then life is sacred. All life is an expression of love.
• The purpose of existence is for the never ending creative expression of love.

When we start to understand the nature of life and the fact we are here to learn, it may occur to us we are on a path. Prior to knowing we are meant to experience something, it doesn’t even occur to us that we are on any kind of a path at all. Indeed much like the Chestire cat in “Alice In Wonderland” if we don’t know where we are going then it doesn’t much matter what direction we go or what path we are on. It is only after we start to have a goal in mind that a path or direction becomes important and evident. When we recognize we are here to experience something it occurs to us we are on a path to something. There is a road out of the abyss.

When I speak of God or the creator, I am not referring to a white bearded, white robed man sitting on a throne somewhere. I refer to a consciousness of infinite creativity that has put in place a set of laws governing existence. This set of laws are so perfect they need not be altered, monitored or watched over. These laws insure that all life will follow a path and once again fold into itself creating unity and companionship with the creator. Perhaps over eternity this refolding has happened so many times that we are on a path to becoming a single consciousness once again, or we are on a path to discovering our own godhood. The laws of cause and effect along with the stratification vibration laws of the spiritual realm ensure complete order throughout the process of this refolding. Everything becomes self regulating as the law ensures equal treatment to all things. A soul will continue to experience the effects of its choices until it learns the most harmonious use of its free will in co-creating.

Why seek awakening?

Most of us struggle to satisfy our own desires, wants and needs in life and this becomes our sole quest. But suppose you have been moderately or wildly successful at achieving material success in life, if you are fortunate and insightful you may come to realize it does not bring true happiness. Lasting happiness can never be achieved by having something or doing things, true happiness comes from being. Being what? Being loving, compassionate, grateful and peaceful. These are not qualities associated with money, prestige or experience, they are states of being. When we shed our physical bodies, the material pleasures of life no longer mean anything. All we are left with is what we are. We will see what we have been to other people and the effects we have radiated out as a result of our being. So why seek awakening or enlightenment? Once a person has experienced some degree of being loving, compassionate, grateful and peaceful, they realize these divine states are a sort of spiritual home. They remember these states as their true spiritual home and to live in this way during our human experience is to know heaven on earth. All the societal trappings of material life seem trivial afterwards.

There will always be challenges in ones life and experiencing an awakening does not completely eliminate them. An awakening allows one to put experiences into a new context. A human life experience is itself an experience for learning, that’s all it is. Each deep truth we learn in life will forever stay with our soul. So we learn instead of fighting we should not have fought, instead of hating we should have loved, instead of anger, we should have forgiven, instead of jealousy, we should have trusted. Eventually we transcend these experiences to understand that we should have just loved more. To transcend this even further is to understand compassion. We learn to love all things by not bringing them through the judgment process, ie dragging them through the egoic mind. Every time we judge something we drag it through the egoic judgment process, like dragging something through mud it will always contain traces of that mud. If we are able to love from the heart with compassion, then we no longer need to drag it through the ego. The ego entails an act of judgment, then a “rationalization” to forgiveness. Compassion bypasses this process by precluding judgment. By precluding judgment, the act of forgiveness is no longer necessary, there is only compassion. All things are in a state of becoming.

My awakening led me to a place where I have relinquished almost all judgment. I have managed to view my ego as an illusion of protection, but there is nothing to protect. As the ego becomes more subdued personality characteristics become less pronounced. There is a moving to the center of all traits. This was a dramatic change for me. I had been a very assertive person who always wanted control over everything. Winning any game was a priority because it stoked my ego. To be fair I started to tame the worst aspects of my ego prior to my awakening. Through the years of seeking there were lessons I learned to help me see my view of things was just “my” view of things.

My conceptualizing, rationalizing and justifying has all but stopped. My mind is now silent a great part of the day. I can close my eyes and be in a state of meditation, but I can be in the same state with my eyes wide open. Of course I still have thoughts and think, but it is now different. Thinking flows out of me as a means to an end. There is very little self talk or chattering with myself anymore, it is more of a transcribing from a field of consciousness. Even as I write these words and add to this website, the thoughts and words flow out of me effortlessly as opposed to thinking and intellectualizing about them. I pick a topic or a point of learning and just write. This “transcribing” analogy is similar to letters I wrote one morning to five people when their Grandmother had just passed. I was awakened at 4:30am and was guided to write. I did not stop for four hours until each had a very personal letter from the heart of their Grandmother. Together her and I transcribed what each needed to hear before she completed her transition to the astral realm.

There are many teachers that result from awakening experiences and each knows the same truths. Each person however has a unique gift of teaching a certain way. Each uses their unique abilities to convey in different ways the same truths. Something compels me to share and teach the knowledge gained in my awakening. I realize that everyone is on their own path and their own experience is good no matter what a person goes through. From this perspective I sometimes feel a certain futility, feeling as if my effort to share and teach doesn’t have much of an impact on the eventual fate of every soul. I am reminded however, it is all part of the experience and eventually everyone will get to that place of knowing. Each gesture of love, no matter how small is all part of an intricate puzzle. There are small miracles of love on a daily basis that continue to move all souls closer to their destination.

As a result of my awakening, I no longer question the reality of things. I know the life experience is 100% our own creation. Before our birth we pick our body and our circumstances along with our family. This early predetermined experience is decided in the spiritual realm prior to birth. Once we are mature enough, we start to create the rest of life with our own thoughts and free will. Without exception we create our entire experience with our own thoughts. However, since free will is given to everyone equally, there are others who can “throw us curve balls.” Other people can create circumstances that present an experience outside the realm of our predetermined desire. In these cases, how we react to another persons free will is still 100% our choice, so once again I reiterate, our experience of life is 100% our choice.

There are also Karmic influences that affect our life. These influences may seem downright random and unfair but yet they are experiences we must deal with. We know on a spiritual level we must experience these things in hopes of dealing with them this time around. By applying compassion and love we can eventually neutralize our Karma.

Not everyone who has experienced an awakening chooses to teach, some are quite content living a life of simple seclusion. I had thoughts of this myself and had my partner at the time shown any interest in understanding what happened to me, I might have done so. After years of having little interest in material desires the contrast between us became too great and I sought to separate myself from that life. I have tried to do so in a loving and compassionate manner; divorce has a way of exposing the true nature and authenticity of someone’s love for another.

If I could describe my way of living at this point I would say I no longer worry about anything or fear anything. There are certainly plenty of things to worry about in: running a business, going through a 2 1/2 year antagonistic divorce and being the soul caretaker of a parent in the final stage of life. My approach to anything at this point is I will deal with it when the time comes. I might even say there is an invisible hand that choreographs life at this point. All things happen for a reason and while we may think they are good or bad, I know the purpose is for everyone’s higher good, growth and learning. I no longer force my will upon anything, instead I allow the will of higher consciousness to direct me. I might even describe it as “waiting to see what will happen next.”

Now don’t get me wrong I still have preferences, I mean I would rather have a bed to sleep in as opposed to sleeping on the ground. I would certainly like to have the option of eating at a restaurant instead of begging for food. But these are now preferences, not needs or demands. Sometimes life seems unfair but I know as people do harm to others they will ultimately have to experience the other side of it. This is all part of the learning experience. You “reap what you sow” sums it up pretty well. What I know without question is we can only control one thing in life. That one thing is our self and what we choose to be in the face of adversity. Love eventually makes all things whole. One thing I am blessed with at this point is infinite love and patience.

After my awakening experience conflict disappeared out of my life. I was convinced when you hold no anger, judgment or hatred towards anyone, life can only reflect love back to you. Going through a contentious divorce has been a test for me personally. In the face of hatred, anger, manipulation, gossip and contempt, I am tested to maintain my state of peace and happiness. The true irony is those things had been there all along, it was only my love and compassion that subdued them. All of life is an experience and what we are supposed to learn is love and compassion. Sometimes the simplest lesson in life is to have faith and just let go.

I don’t have any strong desires anymore, it may even seem to some people I am aloof in some ways. At this point in my life I consider myself to be a conduit of sorts. What does this mean? Well, I am a mirror of sorts, whatever someone wishes to see in me, I become that. If someone needs helps and sees that in me, then I am their help. If they wish to see love and compassion, they will see that. If they need money or financial assistance I reflect that. If they want to change their life by learning, I facilitate learning. Even in my business my management team can make the business whatever they wish to see it become. I am and become what people will have me be. The world can manifest through me to give someone whatever they desire. There is only one exception, I will not reflect back hatred or anger.

Since awakening I no longer seek anymore, as there is nothing left to seek. Life is just an experience and what we choose to experience is up to us. I wish to continue my experience of love:

By helping,

By teaching,

By giving,

By sharing,

By demonstrating,

By Being

I am that.