Dreams and Realizations

I love it when I am present enough to notice the wonderful metaphors that are always showing up in the universe to reflect the human experience. I had two such aha moments recently. The first one had to do with excess baggage. I had said to someone that I was in the process of dumping unneeded internal baggage and that I was observing that this was something happening in the collective, whether people wanted to or not. It seems we have the option to toss the excess baggage overboard or the ship may go down. The reflection of this on the material plane is that we now get charged more for having extra baggage when we fly, and the price goes up substantially the more we want to take with us. Now, rather than feel irritated by this policy I find myself chuckling and being grateful.

The second aha came from a dream I had just before waking this morning--by the way, I'm hoping this is an indicator of an awakened state that will soon ensue :) I believe I've mentioned before that my cat companion of 18 years died in March of this year. She was certainly the constant reminder of love in my life and I have felt that absence. In the dream I had a disturbing realization that I hadn't fed her in a long time. When I opened the door and called her she was right there and it reminded me that love is always at the door and I just have to remember to feed it!

When I am present and paying attention life is a big treasure hunt. I might choose the Door of Doom and have to confront the 6-headed beast, but in this game the light saber also drops into my hand from seemingly nowhere. The light saber that the universe gifted me with most recently was a book by a favorite teacher named Adyashanti. The book is called The End of Your World. In it he describes how there is a lot of misconception around awakening. First of all that complete awakenings are extremely rare, and yet many people are having awakenings, primarily on the level of mind. He says a full awakening has nothing to do with a me who wakes up and includes the heart and gut-level. For example, he said that someone may have an awakening on the level of mind which might only blows out 10% of their human conditioning and so they may still have challenges in relating to other people. From the place of an awakened mental state, where someone sees the illusion of a dualistic nature of reality, there can be a tendency to deny human conditioning that may still surface. This moving away from what is not perceived as being consistent with a deeper understanding then delays a more complete awakening. He said the best thing to do is to meet it all fully. He said that at times it can feel a bit schizophrenic and the person may question the awakened aspect. What moved me deeply is when he said that what is awake will call forth everything that is not yet awake to meet it--this is the love!