Are you awake? What is “awake”?
by Tom – MofWooFoo
Did you ever think that there is no one who knows anything for sure? It can seem for sure, but one must always be open to the possibility of delusion and that it is seemingly impossible to have all the facts, with the emphasis on “all”.. This might be the first real step to “waking up”. When you realize that there is nothing solid to cling to, and knowing this, we all need to loosen our grip on our beliefs and “let go”. Accept that you are floating in the “unknown” with everyone else and that everything relies on improvisation, responding to each moment genuinely, honestly, and openly. Become innocent, drop all desire for absolutes and recognize that they don’t exist and enjoy floating with the flow of unknowing, with a courageous faith like a newborn who can only flow with the flow. This is waking up, becoming innocent once again with genuine humility, meaning feeling no better or worse than anyone else, and enjoying the end of comparing and competing.
Realizing the hopelessness of certainty, of never truly knowing something 100%. We all can unite, and transform our time to one of innocence, humility, and compassion. How sweet life is in such an environment. Opening and deepening the exploration of freedom, how to live freely, being the pioneers, the first or one of the first to live in real FREEDOM. Freedom must be responsible, used only for good. Freedom is a force for “good” or it isn’t freedom, it is nihilism.
That being said, perhaps it is necessary to realize that the human species is insane. Making the same mistakes over and over is what is one idea of insanity. And that is what humanity incessantly does, is doing. It explains to some degree, how humanity has come to the brink of extinction. And it implies that a lot of people should be considered insane, and explains why so often their decisions are faulty, and how there are people who will kill others. But I suppose for the sake of clarity we should agree on a definition of “insanity” or “santiy”. Excuse me while I google. After googling about it, I discovered that there is no definitive definition that I could find. So, it seems I must supply my own definition, which is “crazy”, or when someone does or is doing something that seems to make no sense (faulty reasoning) or doing something that undermines the quality of one’s existence. So, smoking cigarettes is a form of insanity, as well as any compulsive habits, if the results are detrimental. To be “sane” would be to always be behaving in one’s best interests, that is, genuine best interests, or one could say, to always attempt to satisfy one’s needs. Now, I will google it. (You can see that I am letting you see my every move. I have no secrets, I am transparent, vulnerable, nevertheless, I am a little bit mysterious) Soundness of judgement, reason, soundness of mind is sane. Ok, now we all know what we are talking about.
In our small pueblo, with its constant invasion of foreigners, nestled in the Andes, deep in s. Ecuador, the locals pretty much unanimously agree that the gringos or extranjeros are for the most part “loco”. And who would dare argue that? It might be insane to try. Regardless, what we need to recognize is that to “wake up” is to realize that we are all dealing with an “insane situation” with many insane people. I have a tendency to treat everyone as if they were “normal”, but this is proving to be a disastrous mistake. Now, imagine a world where everyone is insane, it would definitely be different than the one we know, because in our world, people can carry on, as if they were sane, for the most part, like a politician or a soldier, so it can be tricky to perceive, especially if you happen to be lacking a very refined sensing ability to sense insanity. It is not easy, considering everything that we have been considering.
It follows that no one can know if and/ or how insane or sane one might be. We only have what other people reflect back to us and maybe how we are doing as far as getting our needs met, and how we are feeling now and most of the time (our “default” feeling). One can see that it is virtually impossible to assess our own sanity with 100 % accuracy, which takes us back to one of the opening premises, that there seem to be no absolutes that anyone can know for sure.
This, I believe, is perhaps the first step to “waking up” and it leads to an individual who is humble, open minded, compassionate or empathetic, and self confident all at the same time. With this combination, one can begin to “let one’s light shine”, and to shine it more and more, making one’s good vibes more and more apparent, penetrating, powerful, and far reaching. Emoticono smile It creates the possibility for unity and harmony while removing those obstacles which keep us divided.
Image from ‘Unsplash’
