36. Process of Awakening
The process of awakening, also known as mastery, enlightenment, resurrection of the mind or salvation (MERS) includes the following progression of realizations, or variations there of. It can take many, many lifetimes to have all these realizations or it can take one. The “time” it takes is up to you.
- I am in denial. This seems so real. I seem so real. I think I am a body living in the world with individual needs and wants. I think I am special and separate. I think I am ephemeral.
- There is a problem. Something’s missing. I want to be at home with God. I’m not. There must be a better way.
- The realization that the cause of the problem is drinking, MAKING IT REAL (MIR-ING) or the acceptance of the separation as real.
- I am addicted to mir-ing.
- I want to get home to God. I want to stop mir-ing.
- Having tried, I realize I cannot stop mir-ing of myself. If I want to get home to God I must turn my life and will over to the Holy Spirit and follow His guidance making all decisions with Him. I surrender.
- I am ready to retire from the world and seek reality instead. My sobriety, my getting home to God, is all I want because it is all that is true.
- RETIRED FROM THE WORLD. SEEKING REALITY INSTEAD. SERVANT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND TEACHER OF GOD.
What does the process of awakening look like? The process of awakening, getting sober, entails MIR-ING and then applying true forgiveness and correction. You observe yourself making it real, which you have done anytime you feel any loss of peace, and then you practice forgiveness and correction. This process entails examining your thoughts, correctly forgiving them, releasing them to the Holy Spirit and replacing them with Holy Spirit thinking. This all happens on the foundation of remembering this is a dream, forgiving the symbols of your unconscious guilt that show up in dream and the mind for dreaming them, and trusting the Holy Spirit. You choose and choose again. Along with this practice, engaging in a study of the Course and its thought system, examining and defining the ego thought system and exposing its hidden beliefs, and developing a deeper and deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit are required. Practicing true prayer or communing in love and gratitude with God is also an essential element. That is the simple but challenging process of awakening.
Its absolutely true to say that only your interpretation of it—your judgment or forgiveness—makes it real or unreal. DU291
When you interpret with the ego you are mir-ing. Here are some ways mir-ing shows up. Addiction to mir-ing can look like…
1) Valuing/grievances/preferences
2) Negative emotions/reactions
3) Psychological/physical pain
4) Problems/magical solutions
5) Ordering, planning
6) Trying to change person or circumstance
7) Judging, condemning, blame
8) Defensive, shaming self
9) Feeling injured or thinking injured someone
10) Trying to keep it together
11) Know it all
12) Attack
13) Save me
We must watch our thoughts closely for forgiveness opportunities. If we are to learn to interpret with the Holy Spirit, this is essential. We have an addict’s craving to make the illusion real, to interpret with the ego. Addicts are committed. They want to MIR.
But out of our desire to get home to God, and desiring nothing else, we can engage in a process, as guided by the Holy Spirit, that will have this addiction fall away. We can learn to stop thinking with the ego, making it real, and learn to think again with the Holy Spirit. This all happens within an extremely difficult process of correction. But take heart. We cannot fail. Our success is guaranteed by God.