' My Awakening Story - Lori Ann Lothian '...

I woke up three weeks ago. I don’t mean I woke up in the morning, though I did that too. I mean I woke up from the dreamer of reality into the dreamless self.

“Behold your dreamless being, awake my child, awake!” I read those words almost thirty years ago in the book called Autobiography of a Yogi. I was 23 and fascinated by this tale of an Indian man finding enlightenment. Yet never, ever, did I imagine self-realization was an inclusive club. That I too could join its membership ranks.

My admission to the Awareness Club happened unexpectedly and suddenly, like any plot twist and turn. I’d been listening for two weeks to an awakened teacher named Adyashanti. In two CD sets, Fierce Grace, and Spontaneous Awakening, he spoke of many things, but what most struck me were not his words, but the peace I could feel behind them. Day after day, I listened to his voice driving my car, sitting in the fall sun on a lawn chair, while cooking dinner, while drifting to sleep at night.

On October 24th I got into bed at 11 pm as Lori. At 7 am on October 25 I woke up as not-Lori. Instead, I was a boundless quietude and delight, saturated in the moment. There was no noise in my head, because there were no thoughts except perhaps the one thought: Wow, this is different!

And in between that falling asleep and morning awakening was a dream in which I could hear Adyashanti’s voice saying to me, “Wake up. Walk the pathless path. Wake up..” At 2 AM I opened my eyes to my darkened bedroom where my partner slept soundly beside me. I stared at the ceiling and heard a calm inner voice unlike any voice I’d ever heard. It said, simply, “I am awake.”

Here is the Truth from where I sit, from Rumi’s field beyond wrong doing and right doing. You will meet me here. All of creation is arriving here. There is no other place to be, because you are already here. You simply have to let go of the distractions that keep you from noticing the vast stillness and joy that you already are. It’s not a matter of becoming enlightened, but rather of unbecoming unenlightened.

There is a quickening afoot. Awareness is awakening to itself, all over the world, in ordinary everyday you and me. This is not for the great mystics only, this wake up call. It is for everyone, now. Because there is only one of us here, waking up to self. Only one of us–in many diverse and beautiful expressions–is asleep.

I am not extraordinary. I was a seeker, yes. But not a diligent one dedicated to a guru, or daily meditation, or any particular path. Rather, I was most likely like you—a dabbler in metaphysics and the new age movement, a curious and open-minded spiritual consumer. My shelves are lined with self-help books, human potential movement tracts and sundry occult fare from astrology to numerology. Yet all these writings, and all the spin off seminars and weekend workshops, failed to satisfy. At some deep level I was restless and yearning for something lasting and unchanging. Something real.

If you are reading this blog, you are ready to wake up. The part of you that is deeply still, like the ocean depths, is leading the part of you that churns and tosses on the surface of reality. It is whispering beyond the you that think you are, Awareness is calling to itself: Wake up, wake up, wake up. Now.

In the entries ahead, I will chronicle my experience as barely dry hatchling. I am a discoverer here, not knowing the terrain, yet delighted in navigating this unknown world as awakened Awareness. These dispatches from the frontier, from the place you too are going, might encompass an entirely different range of encounters than your own inevitable awakening. For you see we are each a unique point of view and expression for Awareness. And paradoxically we are all One.

I invite you to join me in my discovery of the unfolding now, the delight of each moment as it reveals itself.


In Awareness,
Lori Ann