What would be a good first step toward inviting the awakening process?
A first step might be a willingness to withstand the shock of recognizing our present state, our status quo.
You mean our daily state of ignorance?
Our usual state of operating on autopilot, living a xerox copy of life, a life of pretense thinking we know who and what we truly are.
Seems overwhelming, like this would drastically upset our apple cart.
Which is why there could be different responses like general paralysis, over-analysis, impulsive actions--all ways that keep avoiding the potential of real inner change.
Still it sounds painful.
If so it would be confronting the pain that's always there under the surface.
A pain based on what?
A plexus of fear and trembling the ego-mind utilizes to maintain itself, to make us retreat should we approach it. Like ink from an octopus, it's designed as a protective barrier to keep from being exposed.
Exposed as what?
Exposed as a fraud, as a hostage holder to our dazed state of consciousness. On the other hand, if this confronting doesn’t result in a sigh of relief, in a joyful enterprise, then something could be amiss.
Like what?
Like indulgence in one’s own negativity—a further trick or self-deception that keeps us frozen in our tracks.
