Everyday Awakening 1.0

EVERYDAY AWAKENING
Practical Techniques For Waking Up Into Joy

A periodic newsletter dedicated to your aliveness!
by Lion Goodman

Vol. 1.0

Everyday: adj. 1. Every day, daily. 2. Ordinary days, as opposed to special occasions. 3. Ordinary, commonplace.

Awakening: adj. 1. The act of awaking from sleep. 2. Rousing; quickening, such as a rousing to action, becoming active. 3. A revival of interest or attention. 4. A recognition, realization, or coming into awareness, vigilance, or alertness about something. 5. A renewal of interest in spirituality, esp. in a community; a revival.

-- Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary


WELCOME to the first edition of my blog, Everyday Awakening. My intention is to provide you with periodic “wake-up” calls to help you remember who you are, why you are here, and how wonderful your life is -- and can be. Life is a constant self-improvement project. And why not, if it can get better and better?

It is easy to drift back into our normal state of “waking sleep” -- habitual and automatic modes of thinking and behavior. I promise to bring you practical techniques to use and apply to your own consciousness. If you practice these techniques, you will increase the amount of joy juice that is regularly injected into your life.

Remember: Your exploration of your own consciousness is completely voluntary! But once you decide to awaken yourself, it becomes more and more difficult to fall back asleep. Be forwarned!

LEXUS vs. PRAXIS

The Greeks recognized two types of knowledge: Lexus and Praxis. Lexus is language-based knowledge, the type we learn from books, conversations, stories, and in school. Praxis is the root of our words “practice” and “practical.” (Lexus must therefore be the root of our word for "really nice car...") "Praxis" is the knowledge we gain from our direct experience. What we call “common sense” fits into this category, as does the deep inner knowledge that is gained from the practice of any skill. This is the basis of real wisdom. My friend and teacher Harry Palmer, the founder of The Avatar Course, makes this same distinction with the terms “word lessons” and “world lessons.” He points out that word lessons can be very interesting – we can spend our lives analyzing, organizing, and transmitting word lessons, but word lessons rarely have any real impact on us, and don’t often result in fundamental change. World lessons, however, can be both powerful and deeply impactful. This is why the Buddhists call their tradition a “practice” instead of a religion. It is direct, experiential, and real, and it’s something that you’re always engaged in, not just a one-time occurrence.

There are, of course, associated word lessons that go along with any practice. Practices have to be transmitted, and we have to use words to communicate, to point to the direct inner experiences one might have. This is my intention – to use words to point to experiences you can have and techniques that you can practice and engage in that can directly affect your life for the better. Just reading this blog won’t do you much good. As much as I appreciate your readership, you will be impacted only if you actually try out the exercises I offer. I love words -- to me they are as oil paints or watercolors to a painter -- but my goal is to share the excitement of inner exploration. I have been privileged to experience more than 35 years of self-development work. This has resulted in a great life, great friends and community, good work that I love, prosperity, and inner peace. Not a bad result! I can only encourage you to practice techniques that will produces inner experiences and similar results in you.

Because you are a completely unique person, you will have your own direct experience, not the ones I've had. We can share this joyful exploration with each other. I would like to hear from you if my suggestions touch something deep in you. If appropriate, and it's okay with you, I'll publish it here on the blog.

A QUESTION TO BEGIN

What is preventing you from being joyous, loving, contented and happy right now?

When I asked this question in my workshop at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Conference in Palm Springs, the answers from participants covered the spectrum of life’s difficulties:

• Pain from a disease or injury
• Recent loss of a loved one
• My “To Do” list
• I’m too busy – I don’t have enough time
• My children’s constant needs
• I’m alone and I want to be in a relationship
• My job sucks (or I need a job)
• My intractable mind and its constant chatter
• My habits

We all have something that stands in the way of our happiness. Sometimes it’s a small bother or inconvenience, and other times an apparently insurmountable barrier or chasm.
Almost everyone wants to be happier, and to feel more joy in his or her life. Do you?

If there is significant work involved, are you willing to do the work required?

If so, let’s go on this exciting journey together. I welcome you warmly. I am thrilled to meet you through this electronic medium, to walk with you, and to be your guide for this time we have together. We are all members of a large community of Seekers – those who seek after happiness, God, Spirit, love, or inner peace. It is a wonderful community to belong to, and it is constantly growing. The Buddhist word for this community is “sangha.” We are in service to each other’s awakening.


OUR ESSENTIAL NATURE

Where does joy come from? Joy is our essential nature. Happiness doesn’t come from achieving something, or getting something, or having something, or doing something. It comes out of our Being, directly, and is a natural quality of our essence – a quality of that which is the Source of us and the Source of all. There is nothing you NEED to be happy. In fact, nothing can make you happy. Is that shocking?

I mean two things by that statement. First, there is nothing “out there” that if you had, you would be happy forever. When you get something you wanted, you do have a temporary glorious feeling at having attained it. That is very temporary, as you know. When you buy a new car (or camera, or house, or anything you really wanted) how long did that “new car delight” last? In my case, it lasts until I get the first scratch or dent! My beautiful new car then becomes “just a car.”

Secondly, nothing can make you happy. “Nothing” in this case means the emptiness, the void, the fullness, of awareness, of being. There is an expanded state of awareness that is called by many names: satori, moksha, at-one-ment, enlightenment, etc. There is true happiness in that state of pure beingness, of no-thing-ness. But to get there, you can’t take your ego desires with you. You have to leave them behind.

However, there is something you need to NOT have in order to be happy, and that is the stuff that stands in the way, the many beliefs, conflicts, attachments, and ideas that exist as barriers between you and your essential nature – that separate you from experiencing your natural birthright. These are the hindrances in life. In future issues, we will talk about them in detail, and I’ll offer many practical techniques for moving them aside, dissolving them, and even disappearing them permanently.

Would you like to experience your natural joy directly? Here is the first exercise. After you read it, take a few minutes and DO the exercise. I guarantee that just reading it will not provide you with anything valuable at all (or your money back!). If you feel reluctance to do the exercise, allow the reluctance to be there, acknowledge it, and do it anyway.

EXERCISE 1: FEELING THE JOY OF LIFE

The first model for atomic structure pictured atoms as spinning particles, like planets around the sun. Electrons spin in orbits around a group of protons and neutrons at the center of the atom. The number of protons, neutrons and electrons determine the element and its characteristics. We all learned about the “Table of the Elements” in High School. We also learned that atoms group together to form molecules, which are always in motion. What we call “heat” is actually the constant movement of molecules. The faster molecules move, the more heat is generated. And molecules link together in long chains to make up macromolecules, the components of cells, which are also constantly in motion. Cells are constantly taking in certain molecules for their proper functions and keeping others out. The molecular structure and change that take place inside the cell determines the function of the cells. Cells of particular kinds with special functions make up our tissues – bones, muscles, organs, skin, etc. Through some miraculous and mysterious force, this entire complex of machinery keeps us breathing, functioning, and alive. This is the definition of life itself.

If you could look inside your body with instruments such as an MRI scanner, an x-ray machine, and a PET scanner, you would be able to see down into the tissue and cellular level of your body. Using other types of laboratory instruments such as electron microscopes, you could begin to see at the molecular or even atomic level of activity, and you would see this constant movement. This is the merry dance of life. Your atoms and molecules, the chemical structures that make up every tissue in your body, are dancing right now. Would you like to feel it? You can!

Take a moment to sit quietly. Let your breath relax your body. Imagine that you have the ability to see at every level of physical existence: body, tissues, cells, molecules, and atoms – even down to the sub-atomic level. Begin to scan your body, diving down into the tissues, as if you are an explorer. This is the real “Fantastic Voyage.” Your body is made of more than a trillion cells (1,000,000,000), and each cell is made of tens of thousands of molecules, all linked together. All of your cells and molecules are moving together in a cosmic dance, interacting, moving from one place to another, transforming from one thing into another. Every single particle of your body is dancing. There is nothing in you that is still. Notice that this dance is the ecstasy of being alive. And FEEL the movement as the joy of life itself. This is your body. This is your body on bliss.

Right now, take at least one full minute to feel this. Give yourself the pleasure of feeling your inborn, natural exuberance and joy that is in every tissue of your body.

Then, stand up, close your eyes, and feel this dance of ecstasy throughout your body. Let your body respond to the dance – it might be a small movement, or perhaps your body wants to sway and move around. Let your body move in time with this incredible molecular dance, and feel it as ecstasy inside of you. All music, all rhythm, and even your heartbeat is a subset of this infinite rhythmic dance going on inside of you, and inside of all things, all the time. Let it move you. Move and dance with it. Put on some music if you can. Feel it in your bones and muscles and neurons and organs. This is the joyous dance of life. This is inside of you all the time. Give yourself the gift of feeling it, and moving with it.

When you feel complete, you can let this feeling subside, or you can continue to feel this dance inside of you, as you choose.

What did you experience? Please share your experiences and insights with me! I love hearing about them. Also, write to me anytime an exercise doesn’t work for you, or when you get stuck or don’t get a good result. Those are important clues that point to something in the way, and if you write to me, I can help you sort out what it is. My email is: lion@everydayawakening.com.

This natural joy, this bliss, is always available to you. However, YOU are not always available to it.

In the next issue of the Everyday Awakening blog, we’ll discuss what stands in the way. What is it that prevents you from feeling your Joy all of the time?

Thank you for spending this time with me.

Until we next connect, I send you my love and blessings.


Lion Goodman
lion@everydayawakening.com