Waking up the first time is weird, but you get used to it

I was out for one of my long bike rides last month. At one point on the journey I took a rest at a popular cyclists rest stop. As I stretched my legs and refueled with some ice-cold water I had packed for the journey, I tapped into a conversation two gentlemen were having at a picnic table only a couple of meters from me.

One man was talking to his friend about all the travelling he had been doing recently. He said to his friend, “Have you ever had that feeling of arriving home after a long trip and looking so forward to a good night’s sleep in your own bed? And then you wake up during the night and don’t know where you are?”

“No, not really.” said his friend.

“It’s weird, a little scary even. But after a few times, you get used to it.”

I tuned out from the conversation at this point, as I didn’t want to feel like I was eaves dropping any more than I already had. I smiled, however, at what conversation I had overhead because I thought to myself “What a beautiful and magnificent metaphor for ‘waking up’ spiritually.”

“Have you ever had that feeling of arriving home after a long trip and looking so forward to a good night’s sleep in your own bed?” …symbolic, if not literal, of the illusionary, day-to-day journey we dream up.

“And then you wake up during the night and don’t know where you are?”…symbolic of those moments in life when we are given a window on another reality, other than the one we have been sleep-walking through up until now.

“It’s weird, a little scary even.” …it sure is!!! The first time this happens we lose all sense of relationship and attachment to this world and everything in it. We have few-to-no reference points. It is disorienting to say the least.

“But after a few times, you get used to it.” …some may get used to it; some won’t. But for those who do get used to it, each subsequent awakening moment reveals more about the illusory dream we live in and offers a window on another existence that calls to us like a familiar voice calling us home.

Our ‘waking up’ is a little weird the first time it happens. But we do get used to our glimpses of reality and truth. And the more glimpses we have, the less interested we become in the things of this world. It’s a magnificent transformation.