Being awake is like being in love! It may hurt but then it is the truth.
What does it mean to be an awake man?
To me it means living my life confident, free and unafraid. It means to live impeccably, with integrity and honor, serving the world the deepest gifts of my soul, earning as much money as I need, doing what I love to do. It means to live every moment in alignment with the deepest truth of my heart; caring, understanding, loving and protecting my friends and family. It means flooding my lover with the fullness of my love. But more than all that, to me being an awake man means to feel all the pain and all the pleasures of this human existence with my heart wide open.
But what does that really mean?
As humans, we are designed to outgrow everyone and everything. Constant evolution is the name of this game: this truth is written in the fabric of our very being. So to be happy, we need to constantly grow. To attain mastery, we need constant challenge.
Realize that your training is never going to be over, and there will never be a day when you will have fixed everything, and then you will rest. Life is change, growth and evolution; change, growth and evolution is life. The only thing you will ever find constant around here is change. So give up the grand illusion of “fixing things”. There is nothing broken in this universe… it's just that everything is always dancing the dance of change.
Understand that just like life itself, the woman in your life will also never get "fixed". There is nothing to fix. She is what she is and you are what you are. She is your complimentary opposite, here to teach you some of the deeper lessons of life, to make you a little more whole.
She will never become "like you" because if she did she would become a man. You do not want her to be "like you", unless of course you want her to be a man.
She is chaotic and unpredictable, incomprehensible and sometimes utterly unbearable. That’s what the feminine is like. Don’t try to fix her or limit her within your little box of logical 2+3=5 understanding but care of her and understand her, respect and love her for what she is. The more you take the time to learn about her, about the essence of feminine energy, the more you study the psychology of attraction, the more you will understand, and the more deeply you fall in love with her. She is attractive because she is different.
Sometimes however, it is not in your best interest to remain any longer with the woman you were once in love with. There simply exists no more love and the distance between you is too great to bridge. There is no growth and being together no longer helps either of you become better human beings. In such a case, when there is nothing left to do, you may choose to leave her. If such is your choice, never look back, but only make that choice after you have tried everything else. Regret is the worst feeling in the world, it is poison for the soul, remember that, nothing else comes close.
A great secret of life is that your woman and life itself is one and the same.
They are both part of the divine feminine. They always bring the same challenges and push the same buttons. They work in unison to help you grow from a boy to a man. When you are having trouble with your woman, you can be sure that the world will present you with the same challenges. When the world challenges you to change an aspect of your personality, you can be sure your woman will find the same thing unattractive as well. Your lesson is then, to pay careful attention to both what the world and your woman wants you to change. It is an essential adjustment on the road to life mastery.
The life of a man is that of an awakened warrior. An awakened warrior is unafraid of pain, of defeat, of death, of life. The heart of an awake man remains open in the face of all disappointments and pain. It is easy to be loving when you are holding your loved one and she is smiling at you with respect and admiration. But an awakened warrior realizes life is a perpetual dance of the opposites. The only constant is change.
As there is light so there is darkness, they go together. As there is compassion, so there is cruelty. As there is success, so there is failure. An awake man practices keeping his heart open in love and kindness even when everything hurts. He remains open even when he is facing the greatest disappointment of his life. He remains open not just when he is falling in love but also when his beloved is in bed with another man. He remains open when he is facing dying corpses, he remains open when he has lost the respect of the one he loves the most. Remember, compassion is not about crying for the weak, but remembering that all is One and then doing what is necessary. Strength is not about lifting the biggest rock, but feeling the greatest pain with an open heart. Love is not about owning someone but recognizing yourself in the other person. Being an awake man is about being able to remain open in love and kindness even when you are feeling the greatest pain or facing your darkest fear. Being an awake man is having the courage to be impeccable even when your whole world is falling apart.
To be an awake man you have to become perfectly aware of your shadow side.
Your shadow side generally holds all your fears, insecurities, negative thoughts, judgments as well as dreams and positive qualities you are too afraid to claim. The more aware you are of your shadow side, the more able you will be to effectively deal with them. On the other hand, if you choose not to accept your dark side, if you are preoccupied with only projecting an image of all goodness and make believe happiness to everyone, you only handicap yourself with your own ego.
When you try to hide your dark side, you end up projecting those very same qualities on to the people around you... this is a common human trait, to project our own dis-owned negative qualities or potentially positive powers on to other people, and its terribly difficult to become consciously aware of this. Yet the dark side is nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, the day you are able to uncover all these hidden attributes of your psyche from the shadows of unconsciousness, will be the day of your re-birth.
I realize I have fears and insecurities. I realize I have automatic patterns of reactive behavior I am ashamed of. I realize I hold many thoughts, judgments, ideas and worries within me that I am not proud of. These thoughts and judgments are mostly about me, but they are also about my loved ones, my family and people around me. I am aware of this and I am unafraid to admit that I hold these thoughts and feelings. These are not by choice and not some thing I want to willingly harbor. But I have them and I am not going to pretend otherwise. The good news is I also know whatever I can become aware of, I can change, redefine, reframe, reprogram. This little secret is what makes me limitless on the path of eternal evolution.
Realize, as an awake man, your true home is that part of you that never changes: the fabric of life, Source consciousness, that holds all the universes.
You are a wave that is arising from the Ocean that is the source of all things. As long as you are unable to experience this simple truth, you will not know what true love, happiness or freedom really means.
You are part of that Source which is eternal, un-manifested and un-divided. If you wish to play this game of life with joy and laughter, you have to do whatever it takes to remain aware of your true identity. Without that awareness, you will be nothing but a floating twig in the vast ocean of constant change, being distracted by this wave now and that wave two days later.
When you realize that you are one part of Infinity, you also realize that as a man your priority in life is discovering the deepest gift you are here to offer to the world. Your priority is to know your true purpose and embarking upon that journey, no matter what your challenges may be. Your intimate relationship comes second.
The more aware and aligned you are with your true purpose of life, the more grounded you will be as a man. This does not mean you have to ignore your relationship in order to be successful but simply that your journey is about offering your deepest gifts to the world and your intimate partner is there to help you learn and grow more than you could by yourself. Your journey comes first, your intimate relationship next.
Your journey is the priority; your lover is your partner on the journey who shares the same vision. Remember this. On the hero’s journey, you must choose a partner not based on looks, or how strong your chemistry is with her, or how funny she is, but that she helps you to grow faster and deeper more that you could by yourself. Feminine love is here to help you awaken, first, not to make you happy.
Choose to live on the edge of your strengths and capabilities.
Never remain long enough anywhere to become comfortable because comfort is the opposite of growth. If you are stuck in career or job that demands far less than what you are capable of, leave that job or change that career as soon as possible; a day spent underplaying your true potential is a day wasted in life.
Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet:
If in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness
and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
And weep, but not all of your tears.
As a man capable of awakening, if you are living a life going to a job because you have to, sleeping with a woman because you signed a "marriage contract", sticking to a career because you have a fancy title... you will always feel like you are stuck in a seasonless world where you laugh but not all your laughter, and weep but not all your tears. This is what happens when you choose to live out of alignment with what you know to be true in the deepest depth of your heart.
When you spend time with your lover, don’t do it because you have nothing better to do, but because it is your hearts deepest desire to spend time with her at that moment.
Be with her only when there is nothing else in the world that you would rather do at that moment and there is nowhere else in the world you’d rather be. Your lover will appreciate you doing this because when you are with her, she feels your hearts longing for her; she feels your integrity, your sense of purpose and your undistracted, grounded, sense of identity that is in touch with Infinity. In this ocean of unchanging consciousness, she is free to dance like a goddess because she is in the presence of god.
Once again, try to remember always: life and your lover is one and the same.
She is the world and the world is She. Both are dedicated to help you become all that you are destined to become, all that you promised yourself you would become. And so they will test you.
They will constantly test your integrity and dedication all the way. At times even the best of us get lazy and at times even the ones with the clearest vision become petty, overcome by insecurities and boyish ego pursuits. Whenever you do that, your lover will torment you, torture you, insult you and generally do whatever it takes to push you out of your pettiness and comfort zone. In these times, the more you resist, the worse it gets. She knows your true potential and will not settle for anything but the best. Be grateful if you have a woman like that in your life and say thank you to her everyday for her intuition and deep sensitivity of the movement of life.
To win her love, to feel truly respected and honored, choose to be guided by the vision of your personal destiny every moment of life - the journey of offering your deepest gift to the world. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whoever you are with, never forget what your purpose in life is. It’s a bit like a mountain at the edge of the village. No matter where you go, the mountain is always there reminding you of its presence. Realize that without this awareness of your deepest commitment to life, your personal destiny, life will always feel empty - an endless stream of disconnected moments that have no coherence or higher meaning.
Look around and notice all men who are spending their lives unaware of their mission, disconnected from their deepest driving desire, trying to make some money, satisfying someone else’s vision, going to job that weakens his soul, doing what he is told, never free, never feels ecstasy! This is called the “insectification of man”: humans programmed to behave like ants in a colony. Notice the terminal boredom in their eyes, and promise to yourself: "I will awaken as many of these sleeping bothers and sisters as I can. I will set them free. I will do whatever I can, in my own way. This is my promise."
Remember life is only worth however much you are alive this very moment that you are living. It can all end any moment; look around, the most improbable vibrant full of life people die all the time, without a moments notice. It could be you, it could be me… So ask yourself this question everyday, put a reminder on your phone or computer: "What do I have do today so if I die tomorrow, I will die complete, knowing that I have done everything I could possibly do?"
To be fulfilled, to be inspired, to be truly happy, you will always need to stay connected with the infinite mystery that gives birth to all the universes. This mystery is your very essence, your deepest identity, what you truly are beyond all apparent sense of discontinuity. You will need to have an intuitive sense of oneness with this cosmic drama and your role within it. How do you do this? Two effective ways are regular meditation and silent retreats away from the everyday distractions in life.
Remind yourself over and over of who you are, why you are here, what is your purpose, what is the innermost truth of your heart, what is your deepest driving desire?
Know these answers and live the life of an awakened man. This journey dissolves all the way to eternity.
