The cycle of awakening
Waking up is a profound transformation -- a wild fire that consumes disappointment, illness, struggle and affliction. The Cycle of Awakening is set in motion by the courageous act of releasing our reluctance to feel. It begins the moment we stop avoiding our own discomfort, the moment we enter into total loving acceptance of our current situation. In essence, waking up is a process of losing what we are not. This is the spark: the choice to honestly face ourselves with naked awareness. Complete self-acceptance is a gentle bellows that nurtures the inner fire of awakening. A brightness grows inside.
All of this happens at the level of deep feeling in the Vital Center. Here, inside our belly, is the common origin of all Nine Spheres of our life. For authentic awakening to come about, all Nine Petals must be illuminated.
Once set in motion, the Cycle of Awakening is self-fulfilling. If we attend to it diligently through the time-tested practices of self-observation and self-healing, the Cycle will completely transform the cause of suffering into the seed of enlightenment.
When all that we are not is transformed in the fire of relentless loving awareness, what remains is our pristine Original Nature.
Vital.
Radiant.
Free.