' Asleep or Awake '...

In its true sense spirituality is not a plaything or a pastime. It has nothing to do with enhancing you or your status in the dream state. Nor is it about gurus in long flowing robes, secret oral teachings, ancient traditions, or holy books that people claim were written by God. It's about here and now and you, and whether you are asleep within the dream state or awake within the awakened state.

It is the nature of all dreams that the characters therein are so busy being - well, dream characters - that the bigger reality of what lies outside the dream state eludes them. But then again, dream characters don't wake up from the dreams they are a part of; the dreamer does. If spirituality is to be meaningful it must address what lies beyond the dream state that most of us create in our minds and humanity lives in day-to-day, for unless we awaken from our personal and collective dreams we will continue to live in a state of unconsciousness on the surface of a life of infinite potential.

Only that which is real and true has the power to liberate us from the mechanical and magnetic draw of the dream state. For ultimately it is ignorance (the belief in things that are untrue) that imprisons us within a trance state, which is induced by taking the conditioned stream of thinking within one's mind to be true. If we are to awaken from the mind's hypnotic embrace, we must question all of our beliefs and assumptions down to the very source of our being until that which is true, real, and everlasting reveals itself.

Truth is that which lies beyond the grasp of the dreaming mind. It is not something that can be captured and stated like a fact can. Truth is a timeless reality and therefore sacred in the true sense of the word. Please do not think of truth in mystical terms or even in spiritual terms. Truth refers to the whole of existence and beyond. Truth exists as much in your teacup as it does in your temples and churches. Truth is as present in shopping for your groceries as it is in chanting to God. To think of truth only in spiritual or religious terms is to miss the whole of it, for in doing so you create the boundaries and divisions that are the very antithesis of truth.

Truth is an immeasurable reality not at all separate from your own being. For in the revelation of truth, all beings rest within your being. Put more simply, if you cannot find it now underfoot, I'm afraid that you have missed it entirely.

- Adyashanti