Awaken Our Spirit Within

Chapter 2 - Why Awaken?

We have a crucial need to rise above ignorance and fear by awakening to our true selves and then honoring our spirit’s journey toward ultimate freedom. On every level and for every reason, the need to awaken is our innate purpose. His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama presents the state of humankind and the nature of our spirit in a beautiful poem, “The Paradox of Our Age.” Humankind, both at the personal and global levels, is in dire need of a turning point.

On a personal level, we have only to look at ourselves and people we know and love. How many people do we know who are struggling, suffering, and searching for peace? Are we truly happy? Do we even know what true happiness is? Why not? If we have the opportunity to awaken to true happiness, peace, and fulfillment, why would we not choose to do so? Our spirit longs to awaken, grow, and learn in pursuit of its ultimate realization. Physical, emotional, and mental dysfunctions continue to grow; depression and anxiety are the underlying cause of the Western world’s plight. Depression, suicide rates, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse continue to rise every year. We can ignore the root of our plight and choose to be prescribed loads of drugs to mask the symptoms. We can sit around for years psychoanalyzing our past and present and plotting a desired future. We can read endless self-help and positive thinking books, which provide aid and inspiration. But ultimately, regardless of the techniques, therapies, and theories, nothing will be sustainable if we do not awaken to our spirit, our true self.

On a global level, we need only turn on the television or radio, read the newspapers, or simply look around our neighborhoods. There is widespread violence, anger, destruction, and abuse of our own kind, other life species, and nature itself, all with roots in greed, fear, and anxiety. Globally, it is crucial that we wake up for the betterment of our world and the evolution of our consciousness.

To get to the root of our plight, we need to wake up from our spirit’s slumber. At some point in life, nearly everyone asks, What am I? Who am I? What am I here for? How can I be happy, fulfilled, at peace? How can I stop the pain, struggling, and fear? For some, these questions come early and for some later. But sooner or later, we start to question and seek, some from a young age when our lives confront us with trauma and major challenges that strip us of comfort and security. We are exposed to the rawness and jaggedness of this physical life from which emerges the longing for understanding and transcendence.

Others may reach this point at middle age. With half our lives gone, caught up in routines and monotony, having conformed to society’s expectations, and fulfilled all cultural, material, and filial duties, we ask ourselves, is this all there is? Why is there still a sense of lacking or a longing for something beyond? Then there are those of us who live the illusion, oblivious and engrossed in ourselves and our possessions until we are confronted one day with the issue of life, suffering, and mortality. This could happen, for example, after we are diagnosed with an illness, we experience a tragedy, or death approaches for ourselves or a loved one. We are then confronted with the fragility of life and the impermanence of our physical selves and our physical world. This is when we start to wonder, search, and question.