Last Updated on August 5, 2015
Awareness is the key to Liberation.
Awareness is the key to Moksha, Freedom, Enlightenment, Inner Peace—call it what you may.
Pain is a messenger. A self-created “dark angel” that carries forth shadow blessings.
Pain will—when approached in a life-giving and intelligent way—is the indicator of where the light of my Awareness is to next illuminate. It’s the “X that marks the spot”, so to speak.
What spot is it marking?
Pain marks the elements of your story where you have forgotten the Truth, where you have forgotten who and what you truly are—your True nature as a Divine Being, as an extension of God, as a Being of Love, Magnificence and Glory.
The cultivation of Awareness has to be the primary spiritual practice of any person wishing to enter their natural state of Liberation and Inner Peace. As Awareness emerges from within you and through you, the capacity to apply this Awareness to your life will grow. This capacity to simply remain aware when the drama of life—the story and projections of the ego-mind—are playing out is what will propel you through the illusion of separation and into the innate bliss that is your Being, your Self, your Presence. At first discipline and what seems like effort will be required to vigilantly come back to a place of awareness when drama appears to be unfolding all around you. Eventually, however, this state will re-establish itself as a perfectly natural way to respond to and meet with life.
I liken this to “walking through the valley of death” or passing through the shadow self. Death is not the opposite of Life. Life has no opposite. Death and birth are two elements of the story we inherit by stepping into the collective ego-mind. Death and birth, as far as this grand story is concerned, are opposites. Not death and Life, however, for Life is beyond the story. Life is running through it all, and beyond, and around… as far as relating to creation from a spatial perspective (which is not accurate yet is conceptually convenient whilst trying to retrain your mind to perceive in accordance with the Vision of God). Birth is a phenomena arising within the grand spectrum of Life. Death, too, is a phenomena arising in this same spectrum of Life.
Both birth and death are but expressions of Life, existing only in our perception.
Just to be aware. When awareness is lost it is not really lost. You just momentarily identify with the story that is playing out through your world in that moment. As soon as awareness appears to have returned it has not really return per se but rather you have lessened or ceased to identify with the story in that moment and are now Present, in the moment. We can literally say that your Presence is only in the present. The story of the individual and collective ego-mind does not exist in the present. It plays out only in what we perceive as past and future. There is no awareness in the past and future.
Yet, if I can not be aware in the past in future then how do I become free of the life-taking things that appear to have happened to be in the past?
The key here is that it is not the thing from the apparent past that is bothering you. It is the story you are maintaining here and now. This collection of “stuff” is what maintains the false sense of here and now. It is just a mirage dancing of the surface of the barren desert of your wounded painful past. But within this mirage, this apparent sense of now, these is pain. This pain, as mentioned already, is the messenger. It is the indicator.
What it indicates is where to give your attention. Where to remain aware in that moment. There is a tendency—often a very strong one, so strong it seems normal—to lose awareness in that moment, or in that part of your story. Rather than being aware of the pain you will simply become the pain and continue to live the story out. By cultivating awareness you will make set up a habit pattern within the mind of remaining aware more readily than before. Then when this pain arises it might carry you away into dream land for a while but much sooner than previously you will return to a state of Awareness—you will pull back from the story and simply be Present with what is. This is very powerful. Very transformational.
This differs greatly from denial and avoidance. There is no point in trying to deny pain or avoid it. The only form of denial that is healthy within this world of the ego-mind is the denial that reality is how it appears to be in that moment. Whilst still engaged in the ego-mind drama this is a life-giving form of denial that can be used to create some space between You and your story and the illusion of life here in this apparent world. This is really the only healthy way to use denial. So, other forms of denial, such as denying pain and denying the experience of my story is not healthy. It will only result in this story taking on a life of its own until such time as you face it by bringing Awareness to it.
The Awareness is like a high intensity light. This high intensity light must come into contact with the shadows cast by the ego-mind. The way to find these shadows is by being mindful of the pain that arises in your story, in your life. Once light comes into contact with shadow it simply disappears. Shadow, or darkness, is not a power unto itself. Rather it is just the absence of light. That absence only “exists” within the story of the ego-mind. So Awareness has to come into contact with the nature of your pain as it arises in any given moment within your experience of day-to-day living. There is, however, something that can and will prevent this contact from being made.
Judgement is like a filter—a dark, thick sound-proof sheet of glass—that stands between your Awareness and the object of your pain. Like a sheet of heavily tinted glass, judgement will only allow you to see a very dark view of what’s in front of you and will only allow a tiny amount of light or Awareness through into your experience. Hence if Awareness and Pain are you greatest allies, then Judgement and Pain are your greatest enemies. The pain is in fact neutral—it is just a messenger after all—but it will amplify what ever you bring to it. It’s not so much about what pain and painful experiences bring to you, rather it is far more about what you bring to the painful experience. Bring awareness to it and you will awaken to greater levels of awareness. Bring judgement to it and you will fall into deeper states of separation, for judgement and separation and two sides of the same coin.
I write about Judgement elsewhere so I don’t intend to elaborate on this here and now.
The key point I wish to make clear is that painful experience is a shadow blessing. Just as disease and sickness is a shadow blessing. Rigidly judging a disease as “enemy” and then at all costs destroying that enemy without deeply pausing and reflecting to receive the gift that this dark angel is bringing to your attention is a sure way to keep yourself in a state of perpetual suffering and misery. The power of decision is in your hands, and with that power you can decide, if you will, to choose that which will bring about an experience of pain.
As the one and only “Son of God” or extension/creation of Great Spirit, that which you are is endowed with limitless power to create. Within the illusion of time and space—life on planet Earth—that power can be explored within the realm of shadow and used to create that which appears to be destructive and painful. That power can, of course, also be used to create greater expressions of Joy, deeper experiences of Love, and more splendid and glorious displays of Life itself.
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