It’s easy to fall asleep—to tuck yourself under blankets of cultural trance, woven of safety, approval and control—and drift away from what your soul remembers and longs for.

There’s a lot of reinforcement for going to sleep.

There’s a lot of support for ignoring what your soul remembers and longs to realize, embody and express. You’ll often be rewarded for letting your deepest gifts lie dormant. And even if you’re not actively rewarded, few people will challenge the conventional wisdom of following a culturally approved path, rather than making the journey of awakening.

Conventional wisdom is—um, conventional. It’s the status quo. It says: “Look this way. Ignore your soul.” It reinforces staying asleep.

But it’s too late for you. You’ve already stirred. You’ve already opened your eyes, your heart. You’ve returned—perhaps for just a moment (but what a moment!)—to that which is deep within you. That which is always and already awake.

That which is awake within you goes by many names. We call it Wisdom Heart consciousness. It’s awake—right now, as you read these words. It’s not drinking the conditioning Kool-aid. No matter how many six-packs of the stuff you pour into your soul, the deepest place in you—the Wisdom Heart—never takes a drop.

The Wisdom Heart in you never forgets who you are or why you’re here. It offers the invitation of awakening with every breath:

Inhale (wake up)
Exhale (be present)
Inhale (wake up)
Exhale (be present) 

But what does it mean—for you—to wake up? Don’t answer too quickly. Just let the question move into your body. Let the question settle in; let it drop like a gem sinking into the depths of the ocean.

Feel this question, not abstractly, but as a felt sense in the body. What does it mean for you—right now, with this very breath—to wake up?

Breathe your way into an experiential answer. A living answer that shifts and deepens with each breath. Not a final answer. Even if the inner game-show host (a proxy for the impatient inner judge) asks: “Is that your final answer?”

Let the soul respond. “No,” answers the soul. “No final answers. Only the ever-present revelation of living the question.”

Breath by breath…get familiar with feeling each breath as the invitation to awaken. Let the simple, straightforward sensation of the breath bring you back to the Wisdom Heart. So that even when you fall back asleep—which happens oh so often—you can simply come back to life…with a breath.

Take a breath—right now—and breath by breath, peel back the layers of cultural conditioning to reveal what it means for you to be awake.

What wakes you up? Share in the comments.

Love & Shanti,
E & D

~

Author: Eric Klein

Images: original illustration by the author

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina