Intention

So if we want to awaken, how do we do it?

This question is as relevant for someone who has been following a spiritual path for many years as it is for someone who is just about to step onto it for the very first time. There is no end to awkening, no end of our ability to go deeper. And the intention that carries us deeper is the same intention that put our foot on the path.

Awakening is in our control in a very specific way. We are set up to awaken, hard-wired to have the experience of awakening. Awakening will happen if we invite it. There are sometimes spontaneous awakenings-in a near death experience, in a time of overpowering joy, and so on-but why leave it to chance? Food might also walk in our door, but the chances aren't high, and we never leave it to chance. We used to hunt, now we go to the grocery store.

When it comes to awakening, intention is the first key, the key to the first door. So let's look into our intention. What is it we most want to do with our life? It's a big question, but it should not be too difficult to answer.

Ask it yourself: what do I most want in life? If an answer is slow in coming, you might look at where you let your fantasies go, and at what you spend your time on.

We may know people who have it as their clear intention to make a great deal of money. As we look around, this seems a popular intention. Others wish to consume the finest wines, food, have the most interesting art collection, and the other material and intellectual refinements the world offers. Others wish to become famous as writers, or painters, rock musicians or sports stars. And so on…………none of these things are bad of course. Some may even conceal a deeper intention. If I want to make a great deal of money, do I want it for myself, or because I want to help others with it? There may not be many who want money to help others, but I know some. Such an intention-to help others-is a key to our own happiness.

But before looking into that intention more, what about the intention to make sense of my own life? To really understand who I am and why I am here. That is a fantastic intention, as long as we hold onto it very tightly once we have picked it up and never let it go. If we hold onto it, we will get an answer that will change us forever. If we let it go, we are likely to become bitter, and worse. Another way of stating this intention-it is the desire to answer the question: Who am I?

If we take this intention to heart, and never let it go, what happens? It becomes our practice, informing every aspect of our lives. If we ask: "Who am I?" with all our energy, our perspective on things begins to shift. We probe everything about ourselves. We look into whether we are our thoughts, feelings, relationships. We question whether we are our work, memories, and dreams. Instead of drifting through life, everything and everyone we meet has something to teach us. The world vibrates with the possibility of meaning. We go deeper and deeper, and find that we don't know who we are……..until the structure of reality shifts and we do.

This kind of knowing comes through awakening. Not through words and concepts, but because the frame through which we experience the world expands. It expands on its own when we invite it to. And we invite it to by holding fast to our intention. When we fix the intention of knowing, and persist in that intention, we create what we might think of as a gravity well in space-time, and everything in the Universe relevant to our question enters into and transforms us.

When we hold the intention to know who we are, we take it into work with us, into the supermarket and the movies. It's there when we read the paper, and when we cruise the Web. It's there when we take a shower, pay the bills, do the dishes. We take it into our relationships, and we find we are more adaptable. We find that we can learn. With fewer false concepts about ourselves to defend, we have more fun. To ask who we are in a deep way is to approach everyone with a certain humility, because they each offer a window onto the landscape we wish to see.

Though this question never ends, we begin to embody an answer. And when we do, we come naturally to the intention we mentioned above-to help others. For the answer to "who am I?" includes others, and so they naturally become our focus. How do we help others? The answer is as varied as each of us. And like the answer to "who am I?", it is an answer that will come. And it will only come when we invite it with our intention.