It used to be easy to hold hostage the consciousness of humankind. The information which wove together societies was monolithic, disseminated by church and state. Understanding the world beyond one’s personal sphere of experience was limited to the assimilation of those perspectives. While evolutionary progress was slow in that paradigm, over time, small advances grew into sweeping changes, and the future is now upon us.
Today, we are wide awake in the age of atomization. A time when knowledge, wisdom, truth, trust, hope and faith have splintered into an infinite sea of preferences, all instantly available to all. An awakening has already happened, but now we’re confronted with the great challenge of deciding what to do with it.
Because of this, the awakened mind is not necessarily a mind at ease, nor at peace. This quandary is more unsettling than that of the sleepwalker. Shallow forms of bliss just won’t do, but now free of the bondage of ignorance, we are lost in opportunity, drowning in unrealized potential.
In the journey from asleep to awake we were possessed by a need for information, for light shone on darkness, but this phase must come to an end, lest our evolution stalls. We have to somehow go from awakened to actualized, along the way facing a new set of emergent challenges.
These puzzles are the pitfalls in our search for meaning in an ever more intensifying environment. Each of the three dilemmas noted below hinge upon the other two; they are not independent of one another. There exists a natural synergy and symbiosis between them, which must be honored. The decisions we make in each of these arenas will determine which paths become open to us in the other arenas.
For your consideration, what follows are the three most pressing dilemmas of the awakened mind.
1.) What do we choose to include in our awareness?
In very practical terms, when immersed in such total information awareness, as we are today, we must consciously or unconsciously choose what information and which ideas to consume. The choices span the entire spectrum of human possibility, from the darkest blackness of the human soul to the most shimmering golden light of infinite consciousness. We are exposed to all ranges of vibration. Choose we must.
There is a paradox at play here, though. In large part, the information which jolted us out of contemporary consciousness is fundamentally of lower vibration. It had to be that way. Total seriousness and gravity were required to brutally force our eyes open, to wake us up.
But continuing to feed on the darkness only draws us into a different trap. We can be wide awake while helplessly drowning in the abyss of base-level consciousness. As tantalizing and sensational as it is, this level of consciousness is heavy, always working to pull us under.
How much violence, brutality, murder, inhumanity and psychopathy can we look at? How much spiritual pornography can we safely consume? How long can we simmer in the mainline narratives before all progress is lost and we find ourselves stuck in yet another cage?
2.) How will we choose to communicate our awareness?
Just a short time ago, loneliness was the dilemma of the awakening mind. Yet now, so many are awake to some degree. With technology has come such tremendous freedom of communication, but it’s too much to process. To survive we take shelter on islands of comprehension, stranding ourselves with others of identical perspective. We are splintering into tribes rather than uniting as a cohesive human family.
In such a cacophony of competing voices, opinions and perspectives, all of which lay claim to the high ground of the awakened, we are confronted with the dilemma of how we share our perspectives and how we translate those of others. Do we insist that our understanding is final, and demand assimilation? Do we assume certainty and put on a confidence game of defending the information we like best? Do we get dogmatic, insisting that our truth is the only acceptable truth? Do we bludgeon others with self-righteousness?
Now that we know what we know, we have the choice of becoming repeaters of information, or craftsmen of a new story.
3.) What action will we take to honor this awareness?
Choosing to remain stuck in an endless spiral of negative information paralysis is a form of self-imposed psychosis. Nothing is gained if the awakened mind maroons itself on the island of perpetual study and looping examination.
This is resistance to the act of doing what is needed to experience the ideals which have motivated and inspired the awakening. At some point it becomes imperative to declare ourselves aware enough already, then find ways to take action toward the fulfillment of a purpose grander than the task of waking up.
There is infinite possibility in what actions an individual can take to accelerate the drive towards actualization, in both personal and communal terms. Any push toward action, though, great or meager, is honorable, for the body just needs to be set in motion, so it can stay in motion and then gain momentum.
To honor the progress we’ve made in exposing our condition it’s now necessary to accept the call to action. It’s time to actually create the world we wish to see manifest.
Final Thoughts
We find ourselves at the outer limits of the awakening. Can we exploit the momentum we’ve created which has gotten us this far, or will we return to the cave of delusion we came from? Choices.
Read more articles by Dylan Charles.
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.
This article (The 3 Most Pressing Dilemmas of the Awakened Mind) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
Chasing freedom and independence is my next phase. Since the human race has mastered the provision of food, shelter, clean water and electricity it is time to secure these resources for myself and my family on a piece of land and declare sovereignty, to no longer consent to paying for the state-funded nightmare that they have created across the land. Declarations will be sent to heads of state and a peace treaty along with them. Then to defend said territory till death. Join us!
Have you considered a pact with native American tribes? Just curious.
I also am nearing a choice soon similar to your own stated one. Time for me to build toward your choice as I still have work to do to get there. Heartening to read I’m not so far off. Thank you!
I have and they are worth speaking with in order to learn some of the pitfalls of existing as a sovereign under the shadow of the criminal empire. Time will tell…
Hocus-pocus-focus is no way to address what’s happening to us. If I could count the number of times this author used a “progressive” catch-phrase-du-jour, I’d not only run out of fingers and toes, but I’d have to start counting my freckles, and I do not want to go there. We are not evolving, we never have, and we never will. In this earthly life we are flesh and blood only; we are fallible creatures designed to live fallible lives, and we have been since the beginning. And logic demands we were created that way, because “First there was nothing, and then it exploded, and then it became everything, and now it can become stuff we can’t even think up yet” is utter nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with accepting our fallibility because it’s the only thing we know to be absolutely consistently true.
There is no such thing as a “shimmering golden light of infinite consciousness” in this life, that is, unless you’re one of the freakazoids that claim to be in every way superior to us, who believe they can somehow become “I AM” gods on earth if they perform woo-woo rituals the right way. So in my humble opinion, the only dilemmas of the awakened mind are knowing when to stop pretending we’re something we’re not (some unrealized superhuman godlike beings who can evolve into perfection and heal the world and all of its problems), and accepting what we are, what we know to be true, that we are perfectly flawed men and women, that’s all, and that’s all of us. After we tackle those dilemmas, maybe we can figure out how to stop those also-fallible freakazoids from stealing all of our stuff and killing us all, because if we can’t do that, there will be no more dilemmas because there will be no more world.
Maybe you should read my previous post to get one perspective on a track you might take to stop the madness as your self on your personal level. One sovereign can’t withdraw funding from the criminal empire but millions of us withdrawing sure can…
I have no idea what you’re talking about… “stop the madness as your self on your personal level”… what does that mean? I am a huge proponent of the sovereign movement, and have been for years – when you have a moment, check out the discussion tab on my youtube channel’s home page where I post a lot of law and congressional record, as well as history, to help teach people what the eff they’ve done to us, and how to neutralize them. 😉
And as “nothing became everything” IE pure creation- from nothing became everything-I have no trouble believing that. It’s just as easy to believe that as to believe Darwin. I also believe that Darwin stole his “theory” from Wallace. The beginning of the theory of evolution had an evil intent.
This is brilliantly portrayed and spot on. The third is the toughest because knowing does not negate all the granular choices of awakening though decentralization and community tribes are the path toward a sustainable future. It worked before and it will work again.
Guess it must be me but I don’t “get” what you are saying here. Thought it would be a simple one, two, three thing. A bit too heady for me tonight.
My biggest question when people start postulating about “being awake” or anything like that is pretty simple. What do you use as your litmus test to validate your level of “awakeness?” Is it learning the vocabulary of the alternative crowd? The key words like “inside job” or “cognitive dissonance?” Do you take stock of how much in your life reflects pop culture addictive trivialities like SMART phones regular TV viewing, or such??
If we have been lied to (and we certainly have) all our lives about most everything from the existance of god to the idea anyone can be president, the Easter Bunny, vaccinations, etc., then how do you test the validity of what you now embrace?
Have to agree with most of the veteran commenters here. Dylan dabbles in new age hippie concepts. They didn’t work then and not now. Its best to work with solid basics. Example – Second paragraph states knowledge, truth, wisdom have splintered into a sea of preferences? These ideals cannot be splintered unless their understanding (or MIS understanding of them) are purposely muddied to aide in manipulation.
These ideals are one and whole. I cannot choose to believe in only parts of gravity laws and expect to be fine when stepping off a high building.
The one thing that I completely agree with is the two first paragraphs in #3.
We have allowed ourselves to become paralyzed with our endless analysis.
There comes a time to act and we have long since passed that.