Why awaken?

When many people hear about spiritual awakening or enlightenment, they are often given a sales pitch of happiness, feelings of peace and oneness with the universe, and a complete cessation of suffering. While awakening may or may not incorporate some of these things at various times, they have absolutely nothing to do with awakening itself. Awakening is not about happiness, peace, love, joy, or any other emotion or state of consciousness. Awakening is about realizing the truth of who you are. This is why it often ends up being a very trying process for many people, because in the process, they also realize everything that they are not. This means that all false identities that we hold up begin to lose their power over us; and we see that many of the things we tell ourselves about ourselves are actually untrue.

The promises of bliss that are given in many spiritual traditions often lure people into thinking that awakening is a magical transformation that opens one up to divine happiness - and indeed it can be! However, awakening is not a self-improvement program, or a get-happy scheme. It is the ultimate quest for truth, and for most, requires a good deal of active participation and even struggle and suffering, depending on how much one resists his or her situation. Although the realization of truth can be very rewarding, seeking enlightenment because you want to reap the benefits is not going to work. We are told that enlightenment entails divine union with God, but what if in your search, you find this not to be true? Are you prepared for that? What if the truth is that you are stuck in the Matrix, merely thinking you have control over your life? What if the truth is that you're a character in an inter-dimensional game of The Sims? Would you be ready to accept these ideas, if they truly represented who you were? This radical acceptance of the truth - acceptance of What Is - is often difficult, because we find out that the Truth might not fit into our view of reality, and we are forced to either change or continue living a lie - and the latter option rarely works for any length of time, although it is nearly inevitable that spiritual seekers will try to prolong some of their delusions as long as possible before they can no longer bear it.

Although I may downplay the by-products of awakening, I cannot deny that they exist. As our attachment to ideas, experiences, states of consciousness, and circumstances drop, we see that true happiness and contentment cannot be found within them. Instead, it begins to arise spontaneously, regardless of what situation we find ourselves in. Whenever we are unhappy, it is almost undoubtedly because we are resisting some aspect of reality - we don't like things the way they are. By dropping our attachment to ideas of how things should be in order for us to be happy, happiness begins to arise through acceptance. It's quite the paradox. In order to be happy, we have to stop thinking so damn hard about what makes us happy! We may think we know which conditions or experiences will bring us lasting happiness - whether it be money, a great relationship, etc. - but deep down, we all know that these things will not last forever. All things are temporary. We can either run from this knowledge and keep seeking, searching, trying, doing, in order to bring about temporary conditions of ego-based happiness, or live in the present moment and find happiness in things because they are temporary, not in spite of it. This can lead to profound feelings of gratitude and contentment. This may sound contradictory to what many of us have believed for all our lives, but in my experience, that's the way things are. If our happiness is based on outside conditions, how can we be happy in the moment if we know that our happiness will disappear along with the conditions that support it? Then we'll just have to play the game of trying to find happiness and trying to make it last, only to have it fail again, and the cycle continues. How about we stop trying to be happy, and actually be happy?

Namaste,

Justin