What does it mean to be awake, or to have an awakening. Depak Chopra says:

awakening happens when you are no longer living in a dream world where you filter everything through your ego and focusing on the future and the past.

I came across a forum where the organizer posted a comment that read something like, -I am the only one on this forum that is awake, no one else understands the work it takes, only me-. I can only imagine that his intent behind making this post is to show others how ridiculous people sound when they claim to be “awake”. Or perhaps he was trying to show how the ego takes hold of every part of our lives.

When I read this post my ego had a field day, “how dare he say I’m not awake, he doesn’t know me!”, “he certainly thinks he’s better than every one else doesn’t he”. Regardless if he had an intent or not the post got me thinking about what it means to be awake (maybe that was his intent).

As I ponder the questions, what does it mean to be awake?, I can’t seem to come up with an answer. “Awake” is simply a word some use to describe the nature of things, or to describe an understanding of the nature of things. I don’t think anyone can “claim” to be more “awake” than anyone else. The understanding is something we all poses inside us. I suppose some are more receptive to it than others, or more “aware” of it and maybe this is what it means to be awake.

Is awakening: An awareness of the understanding of nature? Maybe, doe it matter if we define awaken? Absolutely not! Doing so only leads to a false sense of connection to a word or concept.

I chose the quote from Depak Chropra because it makes sense to me. Particularly the when he says …no longer focusing on the future and the past. Being aware of the “present” and not allowing the ego to keep us trapped in the past or future is one step to understanding.