Spiritual Life is Waking Up

For a long time, years and years, I was asleep to myself.

I did what people expected me to do, told me to do. I thought spiritual life was about finding the right answers, and that I had found them. I was sleeping. The life I thought I had was a dream.

While our dreams may have important lessons to teach us, we begin to come alive when we wake up.

As the earth awakens each spring, as the sky awakens with dawn each day, spiritual life awakens us. For some, an instance of epiphany reveals what has been hidden. For some, awakening is a gradual process as we adjust to seeing ourselves in new ways.

Some of us do not want to be disturbed, comfortable in our worlds of sleep and dreams.

Waking up does not necessarily mean we become more active. I was more frenetic when I was asleep to myself. Part of becoming awake and aware is allowing spiritual life to move in us. As we wake up we start recognizing that not everything depends on what we do.

Waking up may be the most challenging thing we have ever done. We need to stretch unused muscles, to open eyes that protest against new light. We realize that we have had only a thin sliver of the true picture of reality. We begin to appreciate the sacred depth of everyday life.

Our awakening spiritual life unfolds before us, rolling out in layers of unexplored truth. We begin to wake up, and continue beginning for the rest of our lives.

We may spend a long time asleep to ourselves. As we wake up, we begin breathing life into our dreams.

What has spiritual life awakened in you?

How will you wake up to spiritual life today?

[Image by SixRevisions]