Together, We Light the Way

Wake Up! Wake Up!

I’ve been reading the writings of Anthony De Mello with his emphasis on waking up. He says, over and over, “Wake up!”. He says that most people are asleep and don’t know it. They are born asleep, live asleep and die in their sleep without ever waking up. To those of us who are students of the Course, this concept will sound very familiar. Through our study of A Course in Miracles, we are learning that we are asleep, we are dreaming. We are learning that we don’t have to stay asleep; we can wake up and that there will be great joy in waking up. We are learning that the Holy Spirit will gently bring us out of our long sleep if we want Him to.

I had a dream the other night and it was so vivid that when I woke up I was disoriented. For a few moments I didn’t realize I was now awake and that I had been dreaming. Later, I couldn’t figure out if something really happened to me or if it was part of my dream of the night before and had to ask the person involved before I could be certain. I found my night dream and my day dream blending into each other. It was disconcerting, but at the same time, enlightening. I am learning that my day “life” is just another dream. I go to sleep and dream and I wake up and dream.

The Holy Spirit has been very gentle with me as He has been helping me to really wake up, to wake up from both my night dream and my day dream. I didn’t always realize what was happening, but now that I look back on it I can see the slow,gentle progression. I think another big step forward was when I started being aware I was dreaming at night. I would be in the middle of a dream and decide I didn’t like the direction it was taking and deliberately change the dream, knowing that it was my dream and that I could change it if I wanted to. The first time it happened, I woke up absolutely stunned! I couldn’t believe I had control of my dreams. I had always thought I was helpless in my dreams, that they just took me where they would.

The same thing has happened in my day life. The Holy Spirit has slowly (the slow part is probably my idea) brought to my awareness that I have control of my life. I can change the direction it takes as easily as I can change the direction of my dreams. Through A Course in Miracles I am learning that I can do this and how to do it. Through the Pathways courses I am getting more help; I’m being provided with clarification and some strategies to help me move in that direction more easily. The book, “The Disappearance of the Universe” is helping me too. There are movies that seem to be instructing me as well;movies like Vanilla Sky that use visuals and interesting story lines to get across to us that we need to wake up. We need to see that we are not really living, we are just dreaming. We use everything in this world to distract us from reality, but if we want Him to, the Holy Spirit will use these same things to guide us to our real life.

Could it really be that simple? Is that all I need to do, just be willing? Well, yes. It would seem so. I find that the more consistently I am willing to see my life differently, the more opportunites the Holy Spirit provides to make this obvious to me. Of course, I am attached to my some of my dreams and find myself unwilling to release all of them. So, my progress isn’t as steady as it could be. I understand, though, that I can’t keep some of my dreams if I want to wake up. I can’t keep any of my dreams, not even one of them, if I want to wake up. Have you ever had a night dream that was so pleasant, you found yourself trying to stay asleep so you could remain in the dream? You would bring that dream with you into your “waking life” if you could, but it is impossible. For you to “wake up” you have to quit dreaming. Well, this is true in both the night dream and the day dream that is my illusion. If I want to be truly awake, if I want to trade the illusion for my real life as God’s holy Son, then I am going to have to leave behind all of the dreams, even the seemingly pleasant ones; even the ones I am attached to. How can I think that would be a loss? Amazing isn’t it, the way we delude ourselves?

This life I think I am living isn’t me. It isn’t the life God meant for me. It isn’t the life I want for me. God and I are in perfect agreement on that, so I know I will wake up. How can I fail? Sometimes I tell myself that it is hard to wake up, but that isn’t true. It is not hard. It is the easiest thing in the world to do. Holding onto the dream state I have been living in is the hard part! Now that I have glimpsed the truth of who I am and what is waiting for me when I wake up, it takes all my ego can do to keep me asleep. But, I am not anything if not stubbornly persistent. So I take my mistaken ego beliefs, one at a time, to the Holy Spirit for healing. I am waking up!

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