The Awakened Mind

When you think you are awake, you’re not. You go for a walk along a path in the woods, and you are fully awake, at least in your mind. But from a different perspective, are you awake? No you are not. You are sleeping. Why? Because your mind is full of thoughts, ideas, tasks to be done. All of these mental activities are moving at the speed of light. Your eyes are open. You look awake to the world. But you really are not.

You’re not really present. You’re far away. You’re unaware of your present world.

A frog can hop at your foot, and you won’t even see it.

A mind full of thought is not awake. It cannot be. Your mind cannot be in the moment, focused on one activity, one person, one objective, when it is loaded with ideas taking you other places.

You have heard the experience to be of single-minded purpose. Well, why do you want to obtain this state? For only when you’re empty, when your mind is clear of all thoughts concerning the future or the past, can you truly be in the present, and your mind can be awakened.

An awakened mind sees, it hears, and it knows experiences differently than the sleeping mind.

Imagine three men. The first two are blindfolded. They walk into a room and asked to observe what they see. Since they are blindfolded they can only use their hands. The first says he feels a tree trunk. The second says he feels a solid wall. The third man has his blindfold removed and what he sees is an elephant. The first thought was a tree trunk, was actually the leg of the elephant. The second thought, it was a wall, was the side. The third man was totally awakened, and he observed and saw that which was It was.