Do-It-Yourself Awakening
Do-It-Yourself Awakening
The gigantic hardware stores of our time abound with Do-It-Yourself Workshops, tip sheets and how-to info guides. You can learn how to build a pergola, how to construct decking, how to build a cubby house all in a Saturday morning. The facilitators will give you advice about materials, techniques, tools, the pitfalls and the pleasures, whilst gently plugging the product that they may be aligned with. These wise guys and gals will guide us, coax us and even motivate us, but they won’t, Do-It-for us.
Our inner awakening is also a Do-It-Yourself project (on one level). Really, what would be the point of having someone else do our Karmic work for us, to us, it would be like having someone else do our homework – we learn nothing. We are truly blessed to have Gurus, teachers, guides, healers and way pointers, but the work of realising our inherent nature is ours for the uncovering. If we become dependent on healers and healings, we will stunt our awakening. Dependence on a group or a gadget will also stunt our awakening. Being told about someone else’s experience of oneness is just that, their experience. It can give us direction and temporary motivation, yet it is still their experience.
The material realm allows us to outsource many things, however, our awakening is on a subtler realm and can’t be outsourced. On the material realm we can have another person wash our dog, clean our pool, mow our lawn, and we can even have someone walk the aforementioned sparkling clean pooch for us, but we can’t outsource our awakening. The purification and control of the mind, body and breath takes a specialist, someone highly qualified…ourselves!
Imagine buying a gym membership and asking someone else to lift the weights and run on the treadmill for you. Who is going to end up with the muscles and the improved cardio vascular system? The person who did the work. The trainers and the machines are there to help us, however we must huff, puff, lift, sweat and do it ourselves. To truly, deeply understand the pain and pleasure of a good workout, we must experience it, we are required to undergo energetic, chemical, emotional, mental and physical change to know what it takes.
At one point in my spiritual unfoldment, I began to ask myself “are the gadgets, gizmos, people and places I am employing to hasten my awakening helping or hindering me? I mean, it’s my stuff, my mind that lusts, loves, wanders. Can anyone else really control it?” I experienced some people and places and things worked for a time, and then the mind would revert to its gluggy, morose, judgemental default position. I would continue to seek help, advice and direction, yet in my heart-mind I now deeply knew that I had to Do-It-Myself. I realised what would be the point of incarnating as a human to then simply outsource my awakening. I began to see that I knew myself better than most. I started to take responsibility for my actions, words and thoughts and ceased blaming it on my parents and culture. I would seek help when I felt stuck, firstly through silence, prayer and inner exploration, and if stuckness prevailed, I would find a wise soul who would give it to me straight.
I became willing to do my own spiritual huffing, puffing and purifying. Who else was going to do it for me anyway? Most beings were busy with their own awakening and had enough on their own plate without lashings of my karma. Overtime I sensed that I learnt lessons, burnt karma more fully, most completely, when I had worked directly with it, when I followed the lesson plan and did not ask someone else do to my homework. Sometimes suffering occurred, often earthly sacrifice was necessary, but all in all, I inwardly rejoiced for the depth of understanding was tangible.
This really simplified things and for me, it appears to have accelerated my awakening. I was always available for the Do-It-Yourself project of me. I did not have to exclusively rely on others to get me high or free…I could Do-It-Myself. I had purchased the tools and knew the techniques; all I had to do was get to work. Occasionally the work was done in the physical presence of others, yet I was the one swinging the hammer of truth in my head and heart. I was responsible for the projects timelines and progress. The work always, always led to growth, even though it may not have been in areas that I wanted or expected. Each tiny effortless effort moved the project closer to completion. Regular, wholehearted, inner work resulted in such peace, peace that I had never experienced, nor that I could explain to others as it was/is experiential.
On one realm, this Do-It-Yourself project ticks along. In another realm, it is all being done. The divine consciousness is sending me the materials, the people, the strength, energy and clarity to do my part. All the while, the dance of Karma and Grace are playing out. How can I be doing and it be being done is beyond my thinking mind, but it feels spot on.
I will continue with this Do-It-Myself incarnation playing my roles, measuring twice, cutting once, taking responsibility for my awakening and resting in faith that I will be guided and provided with everything I require to awaken.
Hanuman Das / Greg