Awakening sense

unique but terminal

We are all unique, but our condition after all is terminal. Meanwhile the journey to personality's end leaves some 'personal effects' in its wake. These are results of our unraveling, the untangling of habit patterns' knots.

Even in a backwash these tendrils can still be active. Like phantom limbs they exercise some mischief. They have to be accounted for at times; humored, compensated for, adjusted to. 

After all they are just the remnants of ourselves, the embers of some circuits not fully discharged. After all the last laugh is truly on us, on what we have taken ourselves to be.

Looking upon these leftovers with compassion remains a best recourse. As does cultivating a never-ending gratitude for the gift of awakening's pull.

signs of progress?

A sure sign of trouble: the belief one is making spiritual progress. The ego-mind, the personality, is so versatile it can imitate anything including spiritual 'accomplishment.' Left trailing behind is a thicket of tangles and trials.

What about damage control? What to do or 'not-do?' Opening the heart; quieting the mind; sharpening the tools of awareness.

Fortunately awakening's urge pushes us along while it's attraction pulls and draws us in. This goes a long way in leveling out our presumptions.

We're left freer to simply cultivate inner quietude, allowing spirit's garden to grow and flower. 

dreaming dragons

In the convolutions of our bodies dragons are twitching in their sleep. Arrayed like mountain ranges they span our inner geography seemingly inert. Awaiting their time they dream of being released, of flying through the skies.

Slender strands, like cobwebs, cover the eyes of our Awakening Spirit's dragons. Our forgetfulness of True Self keeps producing these steel-like threads. But steel can turn to jelly given the right catalyst.

What's the trigger, the accelerator for such a change?  The answer lies within the confines of the inner garden where the Real One's presence can be felt.

But one thing we'll surely be able to know, for who could ignore it: the arousing gusts from the wings of an awakened dragon in flight.

a spiritual classic

Effort and grace: so persistent a theme it qualifies as a classic. Some insist on one some on the other.Two paths: grace's sweet perfume and labor's sweat. Behind both the same motive force, the urge to awaken, no matter how expressed.

For work there's cultivating and preparing ego-mind's fields; just a question of skillful means. For a graceful entry, acceptance of the gift of awakening is ever available; just a question of longing or presence in the present. 

There's a lot of crossover between these two camps, the influence being mutual. On the one hand ego-self's shell can seem impenetrable. On the other our ego-self is the sheerest veneer of who and what we are. Same with effort and grace, perhaps can't have one without the other.

Yet awakening's way is all-inclusive regardless of paths and preferences. Its beauty is in the inclusion of anyone's approach.     (see without this...without that)