Asleep

 

Have you ever tried to awake a sleeping man?

How does he respond?

As you try to awaken him, he shrugs his shoulder and grunts and turns his head to the other side of the pillow.

He is drugged by sleep. The greatest and most ubiquitous addiction in the world.

But the sleep I’m speaking of is not the type that comes at night. The sleep I’m speaking of is the sleep the covers a man’s eyes in broad daylight.

Fear not, I will not tell you that you are asleep. I will not succumb to the baseless hope that you will hear these words and suddenly feel the desperate need to awaken.

Nor will I ask you to awaken. For if I do, your mind will dismiss it as an idle platitude and file it under the impotent feel-good phrases that circulate endlessly on twitter.

So how shall I put this to you?

It’s a conundrum.

For if I tell it to you straight, your mind will shoot it down.

And if I put it to you cleverly and subversively your mind will occupy its time combing through the words in search of the drop of medicine hidden within the strawberry flavoring.

We are on opposite sides of the river bank, my friend. I want to reach out to you, but the river is too wide. I’d like to cut down a tree so that you may use it as a bridge, but the river won’t stand for it.

The river is your mind. But neither the river or the mind is really the problem.

The problem is that you listen to what it tells you. And it’s only job in this world is to keep you firmly planted on that side of the river bank.

It’s interesting. I’ve discovered in working with human beings that the more you condemn the sleepiness of people, the more they defend their sleepiness. The more you tell them what doom and gloom they face on that side of the river bank, the more they become attached to it.

Why?

Because you see, they don’t consider it A side of the river bank. They consider it THEIR side of the river bank.

How can they disavow something they have come to take as their own?

So what shall we do?

How shall we awaken you?

We won’t.

Nor will I tell you to stay right where you are and keep suffering and living in emotional turmoil and never realize the God within yourself and never realize all of your ambitions.

Because if I do that your mind will immediately categorize that as “reverse psychology” and tell you not to fall for it.

So what is one to do?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Yes, Nothing.

The practical truth is this: Whether it is in the world of professional sports, or in the high corporate environment, or on main street USA, greater than 99.99999% of human beings in all nations of the world will die in this state.

And No, I’m not using this as a clever statement aimed at getting you to act. I’m well beyond that.

This is not a prophecy. It’s history. Look in the obituaries and Every single human being that you find will have died having lived a life of Sleep. Every single one of them will have died never having awoken.

So there is nothing to do.

The only man that has a chance is the one who becomes so enamored with the other side of the river bank, that he makes it his Immediate mission to cross the cold and raging river.

It never ceases to surprise me who takes that plunge. It’s not predictable.

Do I hope it will be you?

No.

I don’t believe in hope.

I will say this plainly. And without a single drop of emotion in my voice or in the fingertips that type these words:

It is practically overwhelmingly certain that you will die having lived a life of Sleep.

It is virtually guaranteed that you will die never having Awakened, and never having experienced the full sum of your birthright glory.

Perhaps this discourse will be the closest you come to it.

As one who has slept for years, I can vouch for the addictiveness of sleep.

You may call me immodest, but I would call it pure and sincere desperation when I say that I will not die asleep.

I’d rather a lightning bolt strike me dead this very afternoon than to not experience Awakening for the remainder of my days on Earth.

There IS emotion in these words. There is quiet desperation. There is sincerity. And most of all, there is disgust for having wasted years asleep, when I could have been awake.

Each morning I look at the stillness of the pines through my library window.

As I look into their verdant branches I notice that they are truly alive.

And as I look at them, they look back at me. As a tall and imposing conscience.

I realize that the reason that trees are so strikingly still is because they are Awake.

For man is most restless in the state of sleep.

I will Not conclude by asking you to Awaken.

I will simply return my gaze to the stillness of the trees.