Wyde-Angle is being upgraded or expanded with a new name and website (as soon as I get a few bugs out). This spiritual blog as been going like ticker tape since July 2005 (look at the archives), one to three a day without missing an inch. While I can’t speak for those who read this outpouring, I have been, shall we say, awakened by it. I think it is internet journaling at best, mind trash at worst.Journaling (or even keeping a diary) has been around for years and therapies have been using them as a means of getting beneath the surface waves of the mind and touching the deeper currents of one’s being. There are many metaphors to describe working with the mind, from digging, to diving, but I’m leaning towards awakening. In fact, that’s the name of my new website www.we-are-awakening.com. You can go there if you want a preview. I’ve got nothing to hide.
But I’ve come to prefer awakening as my working metaphor because we are all familiar with awakening in the morning or after a nap. We awaken every day. But WHO is awakening? Do we awakening to the software of the mind, a conditioned ego or belief in identity that repeats itself everyday with its whinings, fear, doubts, and tape loops of fear? Most of us awaken to that, and it’s no wonder that we cling to sleep. The suffering can get so intense that we cling to any escape: eating, drinking, sex, sports, book, movies, work, revolutions, and even our illnesses. We don’t know of any state of consciousness beyond suffering in our modern culture. “This is it!” we are told. Take a pill.
But religion has been no help. The religious mind is the next awakening from the modern mind, says religion, especially fundamentalist religion, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. Traditional religion, not so much, as they like being modern and flowing with the main stream. But fundamentalism is no answer to suffering. Just look at the wars they seem to love. Conflict is their food, rebellion is their script. They are happiest when they are outside, but when they get in power, life seems to dry up. A veil is dropped over the sweetness of life and the goddess is put in the basement.
So there must be another kind of awakening, something wider, something deeper, something greater than we think we are. Otherwise, there is no hope for humanity. But to image something beyond or greater than this double-binding duality IS the awakening! Who is it that is calling us out of our sleep? Who am I…really?
This is the awakening I’m talking about and have been practicing most of my life. It’s a solitary awakening, as all awakenings are. No one else can wake up for you in the morning. You never hear, “Will you wake up for me tomorrow?”
This website, WE ARE AWAKENING will be a place were those of us who are interested in awakening to the Middle Way between the modern and the religious can share their experience and help wake each other up.
Posted under General Observations
This post was written by ed on February 21, 2009
