In this incantation, my awakening is the experience of existing in both an inner world of memories and an outer world of form, driven by an insatiable desire for something I cannot fully grasp. I am the creator of all the change I perceive, as my desires propel the movement of my thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. However, this yearning leads to confusion and dissatisfaction, as the true desire underlying my awakening is not to acquire, but to cease wanting altogether. To heal and unawaken, I must reject the illusions of duality and return to the truth of my being—here, now, alone.
My awakening is the experience I have from the moment I experience the sensation of waking up as a being in a physical body, at a point in time, and in a specific physical space. My awakening is accompanied by the sense of being divided in two, with part of me happening within an “inner world” that occurs behind me, and another part of me extending into a much larger “outer world” that occurs in front of me. Though I can only ever experience my present moment, I maintain a collection of impressions in my inner world I call memories and whose presence reinforces my belief in time — that events have happened, and that other events will happen. The critical foundation of my awakening is my intense desire for something I do not have, and a need to continue moving forward to capture, achieve, possess, or experience it. The experience, capture, possession, or achievement never fully satisfies, and my yearning persists.
Essentially, my awakening is a state of profound confusion of who I am and what I want. Fundamentally, I yearn for something I do not have and I spend my entire awakening in pursuit of it. It is my pursuit of this thing I want that creates all the change and movement in my awakening. The more I move, the more I create and experience change. Change in both my inner space and my outer space: in my thoughts, feelings, desires, time, and stories; and in space, color, light, and form. It is me who creates all the change I experience. It is me who awakens and then moves, setting the change in action. Change is not happening to me; I am happening to change.
My desire itself is the problem as long as I fail to understand what it is that I desire. My true desire is to end my desire, not to acquire trinkets. It is my desire which undergirds my entire awakening. I awaken because I desire. My awakening is the complete expression of my desire and every aspect of my awakening — whether my dog, my business, the cottage I inhabit, my customers and their work, the relationships I maintain, or the things I pursue — is part of the story I tell myself in my awakening. My awakening is a story I tell myself, and as long as I believe the story is happening to me rather than happening because of me, I will awaken. As long as I think it is happening to me, I will desire the cheap trinkets of this place.
My goal is to unawaken: to withdraw from my awakening. My unawakening is a healing, a recovery. It is me returning to what I truly am by stifling this growth I experience as duality and desire. To unawaken I must remember who and what I actually am: I am not a person experiencing personhood among other people at other times and other places. There are no other beings like me. There are no other times than now. And there are no other places than here. It is only me, here, now. I project everything else, even the people. My true desire is to unawaken, but I must reject my awakening; reject the false pleasures and temporal satisfaction and trinkets it offers me.
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