Being Awake

The tremendous power of Satsang is being here. The moment you are willing to be here, something stops. You are actually resting here as you are. Everything is attracted to that freedom, that space, because now there is some place to rest. It doesn't perpetuate. It comes and stops right here in that quiet willingness. - Neelam

I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share with you what is coming up with me as I am in this healing process. Thank you all for being with me in this.

Just recently I read the daily message in “The Book of Awakening” by Mark Nepo. It is uncanny how these readings are right in rhythm with what is happening in my life. This has been a gracious gift from my dear friend, Charlotte, as I left the Center in December for my travels abroad. She wrote a comment in the front of the book that was very endearing … “We will be reading the same article each day and I will feel you here. Be a butterfly and fly from flower to flower, pollinating each with the Divine Essence of Love.” This book has been a Godsend for me.

As I was reading this daily message, something moved me deeply…and a scene came up…

I was in a program years ago called “Finding Your True Purpose In Life.” And, as the workshop leader brought us through this process, I got it! ... how important it was to find and express my true purpose in life.

So, as I was reading this message, what popped out was this statement from a humanitarian, Carol Hegedus, “Our purpose is that which we most passionately are when we pay attention to our deepest selves.” And, Mark Nepo goes on to say, “So underneath all our worries about careers and jobs and retirements, our purpose really comes down to living fully, to being alight with who we are beneath all the names and titles we are given or aspire to.”

WOW! Did that ever hit me! This reading prompted me to write this to you and it rested for awhile to cook. In the midst of talking with a new friend in Boulder, it all came together …

In the initial “getting it,” about purpose, I was focusing on what I was “doing” and not on this deeper purpose of “being alight with who we are.” Each step of the way, my purpose was to serve “other” in their awakening. And, it was shared with me back then, “help your brother’s boat across the river and lo, your own has reached the shore.” This, of course, can happen and did for me. For this I am truly grateful. But, what I did not see clearly then, until now, is … “which actually comes first?” This is a subtle, yet major distinction that can get missed while being busy serving a very significant purpose and “other.”

Being “retired” now, and in a healing process, has brought me to my true purpose … “paying attention to my deepest Self” … which is now first and primary. It has taken this “full stop” to see this so clearly. This “full stop,” if you may recall from a previous blog, is my not travelling now and just resting and healing this body.

(The previous blog is at: http://elizabethmacdonald.blogspot.com/2011/05/resting-here.html)

There is so much compassion for folks like myself who have lived their lives for “other” and how it feels to make this transition. I am so grateful for this time of “fierce Grace” that has allowed me to make this distinction and go on from here in full alignment and cooperation with my “True Purpose in Life” … which is simply being awake. And, from this place of fullness of completion, serving can happen when and where that happens …

“Just in the everyday ordinary process of life itself… steady, unshakeable happiness remains as the Natural State.” - A. Ramana

To complete this sharing, Mark Nepo gives this story of Buddha’s enlightenment. And, I understand, this came from many years of “doing” and being completely exhausted from this, he finally just sat still…under a Bodhi tree…immersed in Being…and simply accepted whatever arose in him…”being”…not “doing” anything at all…

Imagine Buddha in his moment of enlightenment, of being lighted from within. I doubt if he knew he was aglow. In fact, when Buddha rose from under the Bodhi tree, it is said a monk approached him in utter amazement at his luminosity and asked, “ O Holy One, what are you? You must be a God.”

Buddha, not thinking of himself as anything but present answered, “No … not a God,” and kept walking.

But the dazzled monk persisted, “Then you must be a Deva.” And, Buddha stopped and said, “No … not a Deva,” and kept walking.

Still the monk pursued him, “Then you must be Brahma himself!”

At this Buddha simply uttered, “No.”

The monk, confused, implored, “Then what are you – tell me, please – what are you?!

Buddha could not repress his joy and replied, “I am awake.”

Can it be that our purpose,

no matter whom we run into, no matter what we are told,

is simply to be awake?

Let this be our inquiry…

[Oh, by the way, I have found a lovely little place in Boulder to stay that is very convenient to the places where I receive my treatments. I will be blogging you from there for awhile.]