Awakening is that the moment when we search for the “I” and find ourselves in a heightened state of consciousness, contemplating who the hell we are. Nothing, it seems, is stable. And then we awaken to that which is conscious of the instability of time, thinking, ideas, identity, imagination, and for some moments experience a familiar shock of existential freedom. 
1. I am not ready to wake up to being here, until I am sure that it is safe.
Fear is a direct consequence of itself. Fear generates more fear. Safety is an illusion – a promise that cannot be fulfilled by that which is fearful.
Who is this one that is fearful. Who are you that can perceive him?
Who or what could bring safety? To who?
The avoidance of actual physical danger is far more possible when we are awakened. The less we are afraid, the more safe we can become, as we begin to anchor in the timeless and formless, as opposed into time and form which is constantly in a state of change and non-safety.
2. I don’t want to wake up spiritually, because then I will have to sacrifice the fun.
The more we are able to be fully conscious and aware, the more we are able to experience. At the same time, the need for experience is decreased, simply because our perception becomes so much more vital and alive.
An awakened individual has access to feelings of passion, bliss and ecstasy. But these feelings themselves are experiences of being – not an end-point. They can flow in naturalness with what comes, as they are not so limited by fear.
This freedom to experience – as experience is not absolute of definitive – means there is far more possibility empathy and compassion – both of which bring tremendous fulfilment.
Above all, awakened individuals and groups tend to be far more free to “see” and “be seen” – which is one of the greatest joys of being human.
3. If I awaken, I will be rejected by society and perhaps even by my family. Better to share the dream than to share nothing at all.
Each time you interact with others, and they don’t really see you , and you don’t really see them, there is rejection and a constant murmur of suffering and discontent.
When we live our lives in a reactive mode, following a slow evolution of patterns, we are rejecting the deeper part of ourselves. We project this inner betrayal outwards, and try to control others into not confronting us with the betrayal we sense and dread.
When we reject or betray our own existence, we are rejecting or betraying the awakened depth of others.
When we awaken, the nature of our personal relationships might seem to change, but what is actually happening is a revelation of what is going on between us and others.
It might be ugly to turn the lights on, but the light didn’t create the ugliness, it evolved through our individual inability to see. To an awakened individual, rejection itself is revealed as an illusion.
4. If I awaken, I will experience too much suffering.
It can seem that the pain we sometimes endure when we are moved to awareness from the heart is too forbidden or too dreadful for us to contain.
So we negotiate – by thinking ourselves gently back to sleep. If thinking doesn’t help, we always have the option of TV or Facebook.
Yet if you knew there were children suffering – that you could help – at the entrance to your own warm home, would you be able to stay distracted from feeling?
These children are there – they are sentient parts of who you are. They are your children. The children of your own hidden wounds.
Who will welcome them back home but you?
5. I don’t have time.
It is true you don’t have time – time has you.
You have a set portion of time in this physical body. Still less in your present state of mind. All that you think you are is changeable and utterly in flux. In some years from now, you might think you are someone else entirely. And this is even before what you imagine others might be thinking about you – or what others might be imagined by you to be thinking about you when you awaken.
Right now, as you read this post, you experience the time it takes to read. But you are not the time. You are that which is able to oversee the passing of time.
As you begin to investigate this one – the one that remains witnessing it all as all else passes through the days and chapters of living – you are already beginning to awaken.
In this, you will become an artisan of time.
6. I want to awaken, I just don’t know how.
Can knowing be liberated by knowing?
Could it be that knowing itself is part of the non-awakened state?
Martin Luther King famously said that hatred cannot overcome hatred, only love can so that.
In the same way, knowledge cannot overcome knowledge, only experience can do that.
When we switch the belief: “I think therefore I am” to “I am therefore I think”, then we are invited to begin an investigation of just who we feel ourselves to be.
Who am I? There is no mental answer.
The answer can only come through wordless feeling.
How does it feel to be here, now?
Is there a sudden strangeness in being in time and space, and to being a being in a body?
What is the feeling of being who you are, right now?
This is a window to awakening. When you open the curtains and let in the light, you will find many delighted friends are here for you.
