Awakening the Consciousness
Awakening the consciousness is freeing the essence from attachment. When the consciousness is free it is not subject to conditioning of the mind and ego. It is not bound by the dimension of time and space. The awakened consciousness is joy, serenity, insight.
Awakening can be achieved through dedicated practices of meditation and concentration, transmutation, self-remembering, prayer, and other practices and efforts. Profound events such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, or having a near-death experience can sometimes shock the consciousness to awaken to the present moment.
What is important to understand, especially in the gnostic work, is the difference between awakening and walking the initiatic path. In order to progress in a balanced way we need both.
Dead Water and the Great Life
Samael Aun Weor taught about two types of awakened consciousness which he called Dead Water and the Great Life.
Dead Water is temporary awakening, temporary enlightenment, but without eliminating the cause of the sleep of consciousness.
The Great Life is permanent enlightenment, which comes from working intensely in the death of the ego, the birth of the solar faciulties, and sacrificing ourselves for humanity. In other words, walking the initiatic path.
The Initiatic Path
The initiatic path opens up when we make serious efforts to dissolve the ego and to conserve and transmute the sexual energy. This path is intimate and will look different for everyone, but the fundamental requirements are the same.
Loving and cultivating the sexual creative energy opens the doors to initiation.
Eliminating the ego frees the consciousness from attachment and brings about gradual, but permanent awakening.
Sacrificing ourselves for others with love is the momentum that propels us along the path. Without love and sacrifice the work stagnates.
Awakening Without the Path
There are many people who practice and teach beautifully about the awakening of the consciousness. But awakening is only temporary without the path.
It is very possible to awaken the consciousness for selfish reasons such as wanting to escape obligations and difficulties in our lives, feeling superior to other “unconscious” people, and desiring special spiritual powers.
Even if the motivations for awakening are sincere, if the ego is still intact the consciousness will always go back into its conditioning. There will always be that small selfish desire behind our efforts.
Without the conservation and transmutation of sexual energy we lack the necessary force to create real internal change within ourselves. The result of this can be the delusion of mistaking ourselves for awake or enlightened but still trapped in ego conditioning. The danger is in leading ourselves and others astray, and causing harm through being partially awake but still ignorant. Awakening without the path is like driving a car in an unknown country without a map or compass.
Walking the Path Without Awakening
As strange as it sounds, we can work with transmutation practices, prayer, meditation, death of the ego, and sacrificing ourselves for humanity, all with the consciousness asleep. Samael Aun Weor reminds us of the need to practice self-remembering (awakening) while self-observing (working on ourselves).
Walking the path without awakening means we are not receiving inner experiences about our initiatic process. We are not feeling deeply connected to our Being, we are not conscious in the superior dimensions, and not achieving deep states of meditation. Sleep means feeling ourselves as the personality rather than our own true reality which is the essence.
This is a difficult and sad state because we lose hope and feel only the burdens of the path without the simple joy of Being. We may become rigidly dogmatic about what we think the path is, projecting our pain onto others in judgement and condemnation. We wander in the desert without ever finding an oasis until we burn out and leave the path.
The Solution
For those on the path and working in the three factors: practice awakening. Breathe, relax, take time to find serenity and to feel the consciousness flowing through you and flowing through your life. Find your unique way of walking the path in accordance to your own Being and particular ray. There will be times when it feels lonely and deserted but keep drawing from the fountain of life within.
For those dedicated to awakening: study and work with the three factors. Learn to die to the ego so that your process is integrated. Practice humility so that you can stay grounded even as your consciousness shifts and awakens. Incarnate the solar values so that you may find the Great Life.