Waking Up to Truth

 Truth is exact correspondence with reality.

Yogananda

I often wake up in the middle of the night with some very clear thoughts in my head...more like instruction as to what I am to remember to write down the following day.  And it is always about my practice lately. I know it is important teaching I am receiving as I lay there and I am very grateful for the insight , even if I might not understand what it means or why I am to remember it at the time. So I tell myself...oh I will remember that and it if it is general information... I will remember it.  Sometimes , however, it is like a line of poetry or a beautifully written phrase on a chalk board, that I am to remember ...and I recite it and recite it and recite it in my head convinced that I couldn't forget something so beautiful and I get up in the  morning and I forget...sigh.  I need a notebook by my bed. Hope there isn't another "Paradise Lost" waiting to be written through me lol.  I don't know how Milton did it. (Of course, I am not comparing myself to Milton...it was a joke),

Anyway, I woke up to this:  When confronting the phenomena of  life...First, Know! Know if you are reacting or responding to what is and why?  What kind of an effect is it having on you, in terms of  pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? Are you judging it as good or bad; right or wrong; should be or shouldn't be? Why? What samskara is it triggering?  Know that this phenomena is just that phenomena...something passing through.  Know that Self is okay with all of it and if there is a problem with it is just your "little me" doing the complaining and that you don't have  to listen to your little me.

 Second, Feel it. Feel the emotions and sensations of  the phenomena as it passes through, as well as the feeling of the reaction of response you might be having .  We need to get out of the head to do that...to make it a feeling response we need to be free of the interference of thought and story.  Where in your body are you feeling it? Can you briefly, without detail, name the emotion you are experiencing...focus more on what that emotion feels like, than describing it or analyzing it. 

Finally, Experience! Allow yourself to just experience it all ...fully and completely. That experiencing is done without words or doing.  It is done by simply being. 

Hmm!  Well that is what came to me. Could just be my mind reacting to all the studying I have been doing, prepping me for some big exam that is coming up :) Still...when it tells me to write it down, I do.

All is well.