靜心的真正必要性
想像一下，你沒有每天早上從夜晚的夢中醒來。想像一下，被卡在夢中幾天、幾個月、幾年，甚至一輩子的時間。
僅僅因為你沒有睡覺，並不意味著你是清醒的。
僅僅因為你已經獲得了世界，並不意味著你獲得了自己。
僅僅因為你在世界上成功，並不意味著你不是個迷途的靈魂。
大多數的人並不知道，但我們認為生活在世界上，意味著負起我們全部的責任，把事情做好，去見人們，去各個地方，獲取財富，解決問題，去工作，去渡假，去建立你的外在生活。在外在世界的繁忙，和思想、情緒的複雜內在世界之間，我們的注意力完全被捆綁進客觀的現實中。我們對於自己純粹的主觀存在、我們的中心、我們存在的核心，很少或沒有連結。
一個在睡眠的人會知道嗎？我們都如此深的睡著，清晰的夢是勉強可以的，這是你懷疑自己可能在做夢的最微小時刻。
每次你靜心的時候，你督促自己醒來。起初，你可能會是朦朧、昏昏欲睡的；這是你在幾十年深沈無意識的睡眠之後，試圖起床。你甚至可能想要多睡一點，多打盹一下。但你必須決定何時足夠了。對於有的人而言，從未有足夠的睡眠。透過睡眠，人們從他們清醒的現實中得到休息；睡眠是逃避的合理理由。你的生命是一個長長的夢；你生命中的每一章，是夢裡的每一個夢。從一世到一世，你過著一系列的夢，扮演著不同的角色，經歷著不同的故事。在每一世之間，你的呼吸，就是你清醒的時刻。然而，在這一世中，每次你坐下來靜心的時候，你就在準備自己得到一個清醒的時刻。
起初，靜心是你試圖清醒。一個靜心並不會讓你醒來，幾次靜心也不太可能。確實的清醒點需要巨大的內在努力。任何人試圖告訴你，覺醒不是那樣的，你已經覺醒了，這只是感知輕微的改變，或恩典的碰觸 ，這樣的人是沒有將覺醒放到高的標準。有的人描述覺醒僅僅是自我覺察的狀態，超越情緒流的狀態，獲得更高的感知，或是觀察頭腦的能力。這些都不是覺醒；這些都只是在準備覺醒的小步驟。
覺醒是一個沒有終點的旅程；你只能不斷的深入。無意識是個固定的狀態；一旦你是無意識的，你就不能更深入。但無意識的相反是你有意識的覺知，而且相比之下，沒有上限。你可以就是從覺知的清醒中，到更深的意識層次，到宇宙性的意識，然後是在超個人領域的所有了悟層面。你可以決定你想多深的進入你所是的真實。我們最大的喜悅是，當宇宙、源頭，和神在內在全然的實現。我們最大的痛苦是，我們持續收縮進分離的恐懼自我中，卡在頭腦和自我的領域中。這是集體的意識狀態，只有最真誠、專注、願意做覺醒所須要的一切的人，才會真的做的到。
就像電影「駭客任務（The Matrix)」，夢有它的特殊相遇，現實未必全是你渴望的，但至少你沒有活在幻象或謊言中。幸運的是，「駭客任務」只是一部電影，而事實是，實際的覺醒現實是純粹的喜悅、崇高的美、內在的整體性，和神聖的提升。神的崇高狀態是你自己意識內的種子， 但你必須尋求它才能被喚醒。
需要強大的毅力，去克服瀰漫集體現實的無意識、健忘和無知的巨大領域-像試圖從海底提取一粒沙，穿過泥濘的水，海洋層，穿透海面，最後到達太陽之眼。你可以做到，有一條道路，然而睡眠、舒適、熟悉和不做什麼的懶惰，對於大多數人而言更具吸引力。
一些教師形容覺醒的過程為簡單、直接、幾乎毫不費力的。如果你在尋找簡單的答案，願意接受短暫和表面的變化，那你就會接受這個觀點。基本上，如果你的靈性渴望與了悟標準是低的，你就會接受這樣的基礎答案。如果你對於真理的尋求是不妥協的，並願意翻轉你系統的每一部份，直到你真正解脫、覺醒，並透過每個細胞發亮，那你就不會接受這樣的簡化觀點。只有你的真實與誠懇會不斷地追尋，直到找到靈性的黃金。如果是你最深知曉之外的任何事物在推動你，你就只會接受不全面的途徑。
我們的人類外觀和我們的靈性身份在一開始時，是以很長的細線相連著的。只有當你全心全意依循著這條線時，它才會成為連接著一扇又一扇門的途徑，最後通往了我們內在最深處的存在，然後再連接到進入「超越」的門戶。當我們從一個階段到達另一個階段，我們開始展開我們是誰的不可思議的豐富奧秘，直到我們達到最包羅萬象的自我啟示，直到我們成為更偉大現實的活生生體現。基本上，求道者必須在你的內在誕生。對於大多數人而言，在道路上的第一步，是決定他們是否想清醒的過程，這需要花時間，有時甚至是幾年。這可能是個緩慢的羅曼史，要想密切的了解自己；你必須決定與你心愛的（即是你自己）戀情如何開始。
當我們對此付出自己的時間時，這條途徑才會打開。作為短期日常努力的靜心，無法將你帶到你的更高自我。對於積極參與生活，和進入內在空間的寂靜，我們必須喚醒在這兩者之間振盪的需求。這是個平衡；這是潮起和潮落，連海洋的波浪都知道這是必要的。起初，靜心是一種練習，有時與生活是分離的，而你試著將它融入你的生活中。最終，它成為毫不費力、活生生、呼吸般的每一刻生活體驗，於是你就與靜心的狀態合一了。唯有全心全意將靜心作為一種生活方式，才可以使它如此。
~ Avalon
Genuine Need for Meditation
Imagine that you did not wake up every morning from your dreams at night. Imagine being stuck inside a dream for days, months, years, or even a lifetime.
Just because you are not sleeping does not mean you are awake.
Just because you have gained the world, does not mean you have gained your self.
Just because you are successful in the world does not mean you are not a lost soul.
Most don’t realize, but we think living in the world means to attend to all our responsibilities, to get things done, to see people, to go places, to acquire wealth, to solve problems, to work, go on vacations, to build your external life. Between the busyness of the outer world and the complex internal world of thought and emotion, our attention is completely tied into objective reality. We have little to no connection to our pure subjective existence, the heart of who we are, the core of our existence.
Does one who is sleeping know it? We are sleeping so deep that a lucid dream is barely possible, which is the tiniest moment you suspect you may be dreaming.
Each time you meditate, you urge yourself to wake up. At first, you may be foggy and lethargic; it is you trying to get out of bed after decades of deep unconscious sleep. You may even want to just sleep a little more, to snooze just a little more. You must decide when it is enough. For some, there is never enough sleep. Through sleep, people get rest from their waking reality; sleep is a justified form of escape. Your life is a long dream; every chapter in your life is a dream inside the dream. From lifetime to lifetime, you live a series of dreams, playing different roles, undergoing different stories. The breaths you take between lives are your waking moments. However, within this life, each time you sit down to meditate, you are preparing yourself to have a waking moment.
At first, meditation is you trying to awaken. One meditation will not make you awaken. Several will not likely do. The actual point of awakening takes an enormous internal effort. Anyone who tries to tell you that it does not, that you are already awake, that it is just a slight shift in perspective or a touch of grace – is not holding awakening to a high standard. Some people describe awakening as merely a state self-awareness, a state beyond emotional flux, access to a higher perspective, or the ability to observe the mind. None of these are awakening; these are only baby steps in preparation of awakening.
Awakening is a journey with no end; you only go deeper and deeper and deeper. Unconsciousness is a fixed state; once you are unconscious you cannot go deeper. But the opposite of unconsciousness is your conscious awareness, and by contrast, there is no upper limit. You can just go on and on from the awakening of awareness, to deeper levels of consciousness, to universal consciousness and then all the layers of realization in the transpersonal realm. You can decide how far you want to enter into the truth of who you are. Our greatest bliss is when the Universe, the Source, and the Divine are fully realized inside. Our greatest suffering is our continuous contraction into the separate fearful self, caught in the realm of the mind and ego. This is the collective state of consciousness and only the most sincere, dedicated and willing who do what it takes to awaken, will actually do so.
Like the movie “Matrix,” the dream has its perks, but it is not real. Reality may not be all that you desire but at least you do not live an illusion or a lie. Luckily, “Matrix” was just a movie and the fact is that the actual reality of awakening is pure bliss, sublime beauty, inner wholeness, and divine upliftment. The exalted state of God is a seed within your own consciousness, but you must seek it to awaken it.
It takes a powerful persevering will to overcome the huge field of unconsciousness, forgetfulness and ignorance that pervades collective reality. It is like trying to extract a grain of sand from the bottom of the ocean up through muddy waters, the oceanic layers, penetrating the waters surface, finally making its way towards the eye of the sun. You can make it, there is a way but the gravity of sleep, the comfort, familiarity and laziness of doing nothing is more attractive to most people.
Some teachers describe the awakening process as simple, direct and virtually effortless. If you are looking for easy answers, willing to accept transient and surface level shifts, then you will accept this view. Basically if your spiritual aspirations are low, you will accept such an answer. If you are uncompromising in your search for truth, and are willing to turn over every piece of your system until you truly liberate, awaken and illuminate through every cell, then you cannot accept such simplified views. Only the integrity of your being will keep searching until it finds gold. If anything outside of your deepest knowing is moving you, then you will just settle for a partial path.
Our human facade and our spiritual identity is a connected by a very, very long thin thread at the beginning. Only if you follow this thread with your whole heart, does it then become a pathway, eventually leading to a succession of doorways to our innermost being, followed by gateways into the beyond. As we pass from one stage into another, we begin to unfold the unfathomably rich mystery of who we are until we reach the most all-encompassing revelations of self, and until we become a living embodiment of greater reality.
Basically, the seeker must be born in you. For most people, the first step on the path is the process of just deciding whether or not they want to awaken, this can take time, sometimes years. It may be a slow romance, the movement into wanting to intimately know yourself; you must decide when the love affair with you as your true beloved, begins.
This pathway only opens when we offer it our time. Meditation as a short-lived daily endeavour cannot lead you to your highest self. We must awaken the need to oscillate between active participation in life and retreat into the stillness of inner space. This is balance; this is the ebb and flow that even the waves of the ocean know are necessary. At first, meditation is a practice, something separate to life that you are trying to integrate into your life. Eventually, it becomes an effortless living breathing moment-to- moment experience of life whereby you are one with the state of meditation. Only dedication to meditation as a way of life will make it so.
~ Avalon