Lately, I’ve been sitting with a deep unease—not a dramatic inner conflict, but a subtle restlessness beneath the surface of my everyday life. It’s easy to look “awake” to the outside world: I talk, I plan, I move about my day with some efficiency. But after watching the profound video Are You Really Awake?, I was invited into a deeper reckoning—one that felt eerily familiar.
I realized: I’ve been functioning, but I may not have truly been awake.
This distinction—between merely existing and being fully conscious—has always been central to the path I walk, the path my gurus have lit with unwavering love. Yet here I am, again humbled, reminded how seductive and persistent the trance of thought can be.
The video begins with a striking idea: most people think they are conscious simply because they are aware of their surroundings. But what if, as it says, “they’re not thinking—they’re being thought”? That line stopped me cold. How often have I assumed authorship over thoughts that actually arose uninvited, propelled by old habits, outdated fears, and emotional echoes of the past?
Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, “The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.”
That abyss—the chasm between presence and mind-identification—is precisely what this video exposed. I’ve known moments of silence when the mind steps aside and a vast, loving awareness opens. But more often, I’m ensnared in the commentary of “me”—a voice that sounds like me, uses my memories, justifies my reactions. Yet this voice, as the video gently reveals, is not neutral. It distorts, reinforces patterns, dramatizes, and pretends to be me.
I remember Paramahansa Yogananda’s words: “Man’s greatest problem is ego consciousness. His greatest achievement is to transcend it.”
But ego is clever—it doesn’t just appear in arrogance; it hides in suffering, identity, even in the roles we think make us good or spiritual.
One of the video’s most powerful insights is how the ego thrives on suffering. As strange as it sounds, I’ve known this to be true in my own journey. There’s a perverse comfort in re-playing old hurts. Suffering creates a kind of continuity, a solid sense of "I am this story." But in truth, this identity is not solid—it’s repetitive.
Rumi wrote, “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
But when I’m caught in unconscious reactions, I forget that. I reattach to grievances, replay scenes of unfairness, and lose touch with the fresh, living present. The video names this for what it is: spiritual sleep.
And sleep can mimic wakefulness. I can smile, speak with conviction, even write about awareness—all while being inwardly distant from my own experience.
The Upanishads speak of Turiya, the fourth state—beyond waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Ramana Maharshi lived from this state. He said simply, “The ‘I’ casts off the illusion of ‘I’ and yet remains ‘I’. Such is the paradox of Self-realization.” Watching the video, I sensed this paradox made visible: the “I” that watches the dream without being caught in it.
I don’t need to seek this awareness. It’s already here. The effort to reach it is often the very obstacle that obscures it. As the video wisely notes, “The mistake lies in trying to force recognition through mental effort.” Instead, the space between thoughts—the silent presence that observes—is the doorway.
That presence is the real me, the eternal Self behind the play of identities, reactions, and thought-loops. It is what the mystics and sages have pointed to for centuries.
Lalleshwari, the great Kashmiri mystic, whispered:
“With the Guru’s grace, I recognized
my own Self.
Now the mirror reflects only the sky.”
This awakening doesn’t mean I must reject life. I don’t have to abandon tasks, relationships, or roles. As Sri Ramakrishna said, “Live in the world like a maidservant in a rich man's house. She performs her duties but her mind is always on her home village.” Presence doesn’t require escape; it asks for intimacy with the real.
There’s now a widening gap between what arises and what observes. In that space, I find a strange new freedom—not to change life’s circumstances, but to meet them without being enslaved by them.
Babaji, timeless and silent, speaks through the current of my breath in Kriya Yoga: not through words, but by helping me remember the truth that never left.
If anything in this video stirs something in you—an echo of the truth you’ve always known but may have forgotten—then I invite you to pause.
Don’t try
to wake up. Just notice.
Noticing is enough.
Watch the full video here: Are You Really Awake?
Then sit quietly. Breathe. Let the thoughts pass like clouds. Behind them, there is something that never moves, never judges, never sleeps. That is you.
I’ll end with a whisper from Adi
Shankara, who said:
“I am not the mind, nor the
intellect, nor the ego, nor the memory.
I am the Self, the pure witness, eternal, untouched by the world.”
You are that.
You have always been that.
Now is a beautiful moment to remember.
Call
to Action:
If this reflection resonates with your own journey, I invite you to share
the video with a friend. Talk about it. Meditate on it. Return to it. And
if you feel called, leave a comment on the video or below this post. We
awaken together.
Stay awake. Stay true. Stay present.
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