Awaken

Over fifteen years ago, I experienced a powerful transformation. In many ways, I was awakened.

It occurred over the course of a few weeks when a series of close encounters with nature, caused a budding awareness of my surroundings to surge in a crescendo, sparking a powerful epiphany that forever changed how I would view the world.

Everything changed. The vividness of colors, the intensity of experience, my conceptions of man and nature. I gained a seeming freedom to explore all things from any angle without restraints from past beliefs or convictions.

It was a classic ‘bottom falling out of the bucket’ or ‘becoming aware’ event whereby everything suddenly comes into sharper focus, innocence reemerges, and deeper understandings take hold. It was as though I’d fallen into a new world. A new terrain filled with wonder, bliss, and awe seemingly only roamed by artists, sages and monks.

Over the years, I sought to better understand what had occurred. I read books on neurology and philosophy, as well as writings on Buddhist enlightenment, but a suitable explanation remained elusive.

I wondered: Did my mind change? Did an angel-like spirit enter me? Had I tapped into some kind of universal source—a well of knowledge buried beneath the level of reality we experience in our day-to-day existence?

Years later, I came to the somewhat surprising realization that nothing much had really changed. I was still fully ‘myself’ complete with my memories, identity, and a full set of emotions. What I came to realize was startlingly simple yet intensely profound.

My inner voice—the gentle narrator quietly guiding my day-to-day life—had never changed. The only difference was that a certain ‘control’ over this voice had been removed.

My inner voice—always reliable and steady—had become unshackled and was once again free to roam. And roam it did.

A source of pure universal wonder looking upon a similarly beautiful universe, like looking into a mirror. But now the view was clear—no longer obscured by intervening layers of discouraging thoughts and impulses that served only to keep me anxious and confined within a world where only consumption and getting ahead of others were valued.

Back ‘in charge’ again, I was free to stop, look, and listen to the world with newfound innocence and wonder.

I was drawn to all things beautiful and seemingly closer to the Divine. Art, literature, music, and especially nature were the new beacons guiding my thoughts. Wonder of being and mysticism filled all moments in between.

Able to couple my past experiences and knowledge with a renewed innocence and purity of thought, I was able to fly effortlessly to the greatest heights of understanding, knowledge, imagination, and creativity.

I believe this to be the universe’s greatest gift to us—connecting us to the source and placing us in closer proximity to God’s grace.

Wouldn’t you like to come along for the journey? Awaken will help you better understand what this all means and how you might bring its great gift into your life.