The greatest opportunity to strengthen my conviction is Immediately after I awaken. This is the time at which my illness is both at its strongest, but also at is weakest. Strongest, because it must break through the surface of my true being in order to create itself, and therefore has gathered an intense and concentrated momentum to carry it all the way through. Weakest, because at the time of the breakthrough I can most vividly recall who I truly am.
If I can pray at that moment of awakening in such a way that I can strengthen my conviction of who I am, what would I say? What would I do? I would make a decision; the first decision. If I do that first then I set up the day to fight the awakening illness. To heal and overcome my awakening rather than fall deeper into it.
I must decide upon awakening only one thing: the place I awaken into is…
- in all qualities and aspects, beyond my direct and actual experience and therefore unknown or unknowable to me in all of its workings
- is contained to and extends to ONLY my actual and direct experience
The first decision I must make is simple: does the awakening extend beyond me to people unknown, places unknown, and times unknown? To experiences unknown? Or does the awakening only extend to the very edges of my own experience, and not a single inch beyond? Is my experience the entirety of my awakening? Are my awakening and my experience the same thing?
How I make this decision will reinforce how I perform my awakening. If I make this decision correctly, I can perform my awakening in such a way as to heal it, bring it in close to me. I will hurt less. My awakening is a performance. It is an illness that I do not want, but to heal myself I must perform as a surgeon and cut out the rot so it can heal. My performance is surgical. I must remember who I am. I must remember that I am all there is. There is nothing beyond me. There is nothing to know that is beyond me. I am everything. I am everyone, everything, everywhere, and every time. There is nothing beyond me. When I make this decision, then I will heal during my awakening.
When I awaken and I do not make this decision, then I will perform as if I am a character in the story that is larger than me. I will be helpless to control my awakening. I will be a person among people, in a place among places, and a time among times. I will be a small and inconsequential nothing, subjected to forces I cannot control. And that will be the nature of my awakenings; painful, alienated, confused, and lost. Somewhere within me I will know who I truly am, but my delusional beliefs will prevent me from acknowledging the truth of my identity, and I will have a truly horrifying awakening experience. If I do not make any time to pray and decide, then the decision is made for me, and I will behave and perform as if I am a small and insignificant component of a greater body I am temporarily experiencing.
So I must make this decision first upon awakening, for it will reinforce my conviction throughout the entire day. When I carry this conviction with me front and center, then no decisions throughout the day will intimidate and weaken me. I will carry with me the conviction of my own authorship of my awakening experience, rather than the delusional notion that I am merely a character in a much larger story I cannot understand. When I am the omni-dimensional author, and not a one-dimensional character, it all starts to make more sense. I realize that I have written these terrible stories I once told myself. I am behind it all. All the horrible stories that bring fear, anxiety, pain, and confusion — I have written these myself. I only have to stop writing them, and they will stop. I can end them, because I am the author.
When I first awaken I create the temple because it helps me remember what is true and actual when I make the decision. It helps me remember who I am as I ask myself the first question: is my awakening experience only one among countless others; or is my experience the only experience there is. When I constrain Thirdself to a small, non-descript space that cannot be destroyed or misshapen in that moment, then I set the stage to accept who, what, and where I truly am more easily. It is less of an absurdity while in my temple than if I were to be sitting outside around people.
And if I make the decision correctly, then I will begin to perform as the author rather than just another character. I will see my characters as they truly are: one-dimensional paper cutouts I have moved around in a predictable way in this story. I will see all of it for what it actually is and who I actually and truly am, and none of it will be as important anymore. None of it will be so crucial to my own being. I will be able to withdraw from the painful Secondself and Thirdself cancer, and let it abolish itself. It will just work its own way out. It doesn’t actually need me. I can let it happen, and just look the other way while it works its way out. I control where I focus and what I believe is of value. I lost control of that focus and allowed myself to come to believe that I am this person with a name who has a certain condition he wants to overcome. But that is not who I am. That is not important at all… that is a like looking through a microscope to see a flea circus. It is the flea circus I am looking at.
My performance during my awakening determines if I will heal that day, and to what degree. And I must choose how I will perform by answering this first question, and making a first decision, before I lose control of my awakening.
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