SGM January 2011 Question of the Month: “Why Does Awakening Elude Us?”
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Welcome to our SGM January 2011 “Question of the Month.” I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s good to be with you again.
This month, our discussion and practice center on the book “Waking From Sleep” by Steve Taylor. In our Weekly Messages so far this month, we’ve explored what it means to wake up to a higher state of consciousness and how to make that state permanent through five sacred practices. In this Week’s Message, we’ll discuss why a permanent state of awakening seems to elude us.
Wouldn’t living in a state of greater peace, joy, and purpose draw us like a magnet? Why do we resist, avoid, and explain away living an awakened life? What are we currently doing instead that has such a strong pull on our energy and attention? Perhaps that’s the crux of the matter.
At this moment in human history, many of us have heard about higher consciousness and at least experimented with several consciousness-raising practices. While some simply scoff at the idea of higher consciousness as some figment of New Age imagination, many of us have had some experiences of awakening. Many more have an idea about these things in their heads, whether or not they’ve taken the path to fully realize them in their lives. It’s also possible to know “the words” of higher consciousness and simply superimpose them on “old” behaviors confusing information with transformation.
All these permutations notwithstanding, I firmly believe our consciousness is growing. For example, growing numbers of people are having a taste of awakening in weekend workshops or retreats. Bookstore shelves are lined with self-help and spiritual growth titles. Millions are experiencing higher consciousness for a short time every day when they sit to meditate.
Yet, these are often transient, fleeting experiences. They tease us as they pass by. Once home from the weekend retreat or standing up from the meditation seat, an inevitable pull back to former states of consciousness occurs like the force of gravity.
If we are going to evolve as a species and thrive on this planet, we’re going to have to make awakening more integral and permanent. Higher consciousness must weave its way into every facet of our multi-dimensional lives. As Taylor says, living in an awakened state is the only chance we have to live in harmony on the Earth.
So, let’s discuss what holds us back. The more clearly we gain insight into what we’re currently doing, the more easily we can take steps to encode and reinforce a new way of being. In this Message, we’ll explore six sources of inertia that inhibit us from leaping forward. These are egoic consciousness, attachment, habit, lack of faith, lack of desire, and lack of practice.
You’ll notice that I’ve talked about these challenges before. I repeat them here because they are the crux of the matter. My goal is to say them in many different ways, in different contexts, at different times, so they may strike you in different ways and have cumulative impact. We explore new and interesting facts and techniques, while the fundamental shift we aim for is essentially the same—deeper and wider presence, compassion, awareness, and inspiration.
So, if you can, read or listen to these principle points with fresh eyes and ears. It’s like re-reading a good book or watching a great movie over and over. You get something new, something deeper, each time. You may see a little gesture that you never saw before. You may hear a turn of phrase that just clicks for you in the moment, where it may have passed you by in the past.
To make another analogy, this review is like the activity of mindfulness in your everyday experiences. You may have done the same things over and over again for years, but, if you can approach them as if you’ve never heard or seen them before, they may jump out and grab you. They may light up differently today. It’s also like following the same meditation technique for years. If you are really present, attentive, and focused in your practice, it will continually reveal new layers.
We’re also laying the foundation for this year’s SGM material. These points will help to get us all on the same page.
So, here we go:
The egoic way of being in the world is so ingrained that it can be hard to see. Even if you’ve been “on the path” for years, there are still new nooks and crannies to explore. On your path you are like a miner searching for that elusive vein of gold. You may have already found some major deposits, but within the bedrock there is always more. It may be harder to find, but when you do, you’ll release a whole new reserve of resources.
Egoic consciousness is viewing yourself solely as an isolated individual. You identify yourself as separate from others, separate from your environment, and separate from the Source of your existence. Therefore, when you look out from an egoic point of view you feel small and insignificant. Your existence feels precarious. Death is frightening and so is feeling your fragile flesh in a harsh world.
Because of that, egoic consciousness is perpetually on guard for its survival. Because you feel small, vulnerable, and insignificant, as an ego, you’re always searching to be, do, or have more than you are. Hence, the draw of “The Secret” and the Law of Attraction.
To be, do, and have more, we gather material and financial resources, form relationships and align with groups, try to bolster ourselves in the eyes of others, and seek to extend and secure our survival. We become attached to our body, financial wealth, material possessions, other people, feelings, ideas, and points of view. We identify with these things and call them “me.”
Because we weave such elaborate and tangled webs of “me,” we tend to get lost in our own world and it tends to become all consuming. The ego’s world also becomes very small because it’s focused only on itself and its attachments.
Every attachment takes energy to maintain. When we have many attachments to maintain, this takes all our time and energy. There is no time or energy for anything other than maintaining these attachments, so they become limiting and self-reinforcing. If your egoic “To Do List” is long, awakening becomes a dormant possibility.
Remember that awakening is made possible by managing your attention and energy. You do this through the five sacred practices we discussed last week. To awaken requires an energy surplus that you apply to feeling, gathering, concentrating, integrating, and refining your life force. This process opens you to a vivid, connected, infinite world view. It brings you into a “bigger picture” outlook and gives you a sense of inner peace, joy, and purpose.
In contrast, egoic consciousness has perpetual anxiety because it perceives that not only is its own existence tenuous, but all the things that it attaches to are also tenuous. Everything decays, breaks down, and passes away. This perception sends the ego further into overdrive in an insatiable and fruitless pursuit of “more.”
But let’s not be one-sided in this discussion. Taylor tells us that egoic consciousness also brings us some important gifts. It shows us the transience of all things. It also brings us a rational sense of order and personal responsibility. It gives us conceptual consciousness and the ability to differentiate and analyze possibilities. It gives us the experience of contrast that enables us to see more clearly. And because we hang onto ego attachments, it gives us experiences of suffering that can engender compassion.
Egoic consciousness is actually one important pole along the “spectrum of consciousness” (thanks to Ken Wilbur for that phrase). In the middle of the spectrum is consciousness of the multitude of connections that form the web of our life experiences, and, at the other end of the continuum is consciousness of the One Life that gives birth to us all. It’s when we lock into egoic consciousness by itself that we suffer the consequences of its limited viewpoint.
When we experience our individuality within the context of our relationships and our unity with the Source of Life, we gain a holistic enlightened view. This is awakening. The wide spectrum of consciousness is summarized in the three characteristics of awakened perception that we’ve discussed this month. I’ve re-phrased these below as action guidelines for awakened living:
Action Guidelines for Awakened Living
1. Be present in every moment so life appears vividly and you feel the radiance of life energy in everything.
2. Notice opportunities that are present every moment (when you look for them). Notice synchronicities, harmonies, and patterns of relationship between everyone and everything.
3. Trust in the underlying unity of Life that is ever supportive of the best for all. Your connection to Life is the one thing you can truly trust and center your life around.
Unfortunately, up to now, the wide-spectrum view has been rare. Our dominant culture reinforces a limited egoic consciousness and attachment as a way of life. It’s become a strong habit. We are conditioned to reach outside for more. We are conditioned to try look younger, get thinner, or to augment ourselves with surgery. We are conditioned to want bigger and better things. We are conditioned that the power to make us happy and well exists outside us, usually in a product, an expert, or a drug.
Today, we are also taught to be constantly entertained and to have everything we want immediately (or at most in about 30 days). We’ve become trained in short attention span. Many find it challenging to focus, still, and intensify their internal energy.
These challenges of our current egoic habit give weight, gravity, and a quality of inertia to hold us in place. In other words, the habit of egoic consciousness is strong, it blinds us to other possibilities, and it dies hard.
Fortunately, the force of greater possibilities is growing exponentially. Higher consciousness practices are starting to permeate our culture, even if they often take on some of the qualities of egoic culture in the process. Yoga becomes Core Power Yoga, but it still can serve as an entry to the deeper tradition. Qigong comes as outward physical movements at the fitness center, but it still points to energetic training. Brainwave entrainment introduces the idea of shifting your brainwave patterns that could lead into an actual meditation practice. To transform a habit you must first have a glimpse of another possibility. Many glimpses are now available.
Once you have a glimpse, next you have to gain faith that this greater possibility is possible for you! You might observe others who’ve made the shift you desire and see the results in their lives. Ultimately, you gain faith by testing the practices for yourself. If you doubt your own ability to make this shift, you can join with others to gain some group momentum. Like here at SGM.
To really follow through, you’ll need a strong desire to make a change. You need a strong “why.” Sometimes this doesn’t come until you experience a major setback, illness, or trauma. Or you might repeat a bad pattern for so long that you just get sick and tired of what you’ve been doing.
You need strong desire because the force of old habits will seek to reassert itself over and over again. You have to practice your shift often enough, with strong enough intensity and focus, that it becomes a strong pattern in its own right. You have to consistently practice your shift until it is your dominant pattern. At that point, you will truly trust it and it will flow easily. For example, when I started to meditate 25 years ago it was hard to get up in the morning to do it, now I can’t wait to get up and do it—even if I’m tired.
So you begin with a glimpse, gain faith and gather supportive resources, proceed with intensity born of strong desire, and create the shift through consistent practice. In this way, you forge new habits that replace your old ones. You gain a big-picture, wide-spectrum view that replaces your former small world.
The greatest force for awakening is Life itself. Life supports you to live in an awakened state. Life supports you to do this because Life itself is moving towards greater consciousness. Life has that in-built momentum. Life has an evolutionary impulse that is drawing us all forward.
We live in times that may seem and feel chaotic, but this is simply the friction of higher consciousness rubbing against the inertia of an egoic and material view. Through this friction will come a synthesis that integrates ego within the wider spectrum of consciousness.
You can have faith in the evolutionary process. You can trust Life. You can trust your own awakening. You can follow your inspiration and walk your unique path.
At SGM, we’re here to support you on the way. In next Week’s Message, our “Meditation of the Month,” we’ll take a journey into awakened consciousness together.
Until next time,
Have faith in the evolution of consciousness that is happening through you,
Kevin