Peace
Are
YOU Awake and at PEACE or still “sleep – awake”
Although you
believe you woke up this morning it is highly likely that you are
still fast asleep. Not the kind of sleep that kept you
unconscious during the night, but the kind of sleep that has overcome
us all, to some extent or other, during our waking hours. It is
the sleep of the unenlightened, it is the sleep of ignorance, it is
the sleep of the unaware, it is the sleep of a consciousness that
thinks it is awake and aware and knows not that it is deluding itself.
It is the kind of sleep that generates its own form of nightmare, a
nightmare that seems so real that it perpetuates itself.
Are
you awake or are you still asleep?
Brief checklist of
seven of the many signs and symptoms of someone who is sleepwalking
through their life.
Stress
Projections -You are
still
asleep AND NOT AT PEACE if
you blame others, situations or events for your stressful feelings.
Stress is a form of pain or discomfort that comes to tell you there is
something you need to change in yourself, not in another. All
stress is self created regardless of the circumstances. Every
time you blame others for what you feel it means you are asleep to the
truth that your feelings are your response, therefore your responsibility or response
ability. The awakened soul accepts full
responsibility for their thoughts/ emotions/ attitudes/
actionsÂ…everywhere and always! Thus creating peacefulness in you.
Self
Comparisons - You are
still
asleep whenever you compare
yourself with another person. It means you have not yet realized
your own uniqueness and value. In effect you are saying,
"I want to be someone else". Which of course is
impossible. Or you are unconsciously thinking, "I am
unworthy, I am of less value than them". Which is untrue!
The awakened soul, the peaceful soul, knows its value and is able to
affirm their own worth. They never aspire to be someone else.
They are constantly rising to the challenge of expanding their
capacity and awakening their own true potential.
Controlling
Behavior
- You are still
asleep whenever you attempt to control or manipulate
others. You are under the illusion that others should do your
bidding. Sometimes it looks like they do, but they don't.
The truth is everyone makes their own decisions on how they will act
and interact. If you are a clever sleepwalker you may sense the
numerous vulnerabilities of others and be quite adept at exploiting
them to your own ends. But that only keeps you locked in a false
power trip that is actually draining your power and peacefulness.
Deep down your conscience knows you are taking advantage and acting
against the grain of right relationship. The awakened soul
never takes advantage of other sleepwalkers. They know their
role is to awaken others, not exploit them.
Emotional
Indulgence
-
You
are still
asleep when you indulge your emotions, when you go searching
for some stimulus to invoke the feelings of certain emotional states.
Perhaps you like to argue because is seems to enliven your day, which
means you are indulging in anger. If you keep talking about what
went wrong, what you lost, then you are wallowing on sorrow. And
if you keep looking into the future with trepidation and anxiety then
you are likely to have an addiction to fear. The awakened soul has
broken their dependency on emotional stimulation from outside and
inside. They are at peace within themselves. They have relearned
to chose and create their feelings at each moment in every scene. They
also recognize this ability is not easily learned or quickly
perfected, and they privately know that they help themselves by
helping others.
Happy
Purchasing - You are
still
asleep if you go shopping to be happy. It means you are
still attempting to complete yourself with something that is not you!
It means you are still trying to find fulfillment by filling your life
with stuff. The awakened peaceful soul knows they are already
complete and can never be diminished. Their only effort is to
remember and reconnect with their already full filled self!
Problem
People
- You
are still
asleep if you believe the 'other person' is the problem.
You have not yet realized that it's not what others say or do that is
the problem, it is how you judge them that creates your negative
feelings about them. In effect it's how you see them that's the
real problem. You have not yet learned to choose how you
perceive others, you are still at the mercy of old conditioned
perceptions. One clear sign of this is the absence of
compassion. To the awakened soul the 'other person' is
never the problem.
Detached Expectations
- You
are still
asleep if your happiness is dependent on your expectations
being met. You probably have not yet seen that your expectations
are really desires in disguise. And all desire has fear (stress)
built in – fear of not getting what you want. And when your
expectations are not met you get upset and chase your own happiness
away. The awakened soul has expectations but if they are
not met it's OK, they don't lose the plot, because their happiness is
not dependent on their expectations being met. They learn to accept
as is and find peace internally.
Question:
Which of the above symptoms do you display the most – rate each one
(1 is low and 10 is high)
Reflection:
Take one of the above each day for the next seven days and visualize
the awakened state and see how well you can practice it during the
day.
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