We are circling at eleven thousand feet over Lichfield, England where, 
as is their annual want,
a group of lexoromantic skydivers 
are preparing to make their memorial jump 
on to the roof of Dr. Johnson’s childhood home.
(A touching tribute that ne’er leaves a 
literate eye dry.)
Not surprising is my neural sight seeing this affair 
in light of that certain matter that motivates these 
far flung fables & daily dispatches.

That “certain matter” of course being the alteration of one’s 
dominant mental state, 
(“waking up”, “being enlightened”),
and the reason the moment reminds me of same
is that,
if I gave advice,
perhaps the best I could proffer 
would be to encourage anyone interested in this undertaking 
to develop their own individual definitions of what is to, “be asleep.”

Note that I speak in the plural
inasmuch as if you are, to-this-activity-born,
your efforts will gradually unfold to you a multitude of
operational definitions of what this perfectly normal
state-of-thinking is in relationship to your perfectly
abnormal way of seeing it,
("abnormal" here being synonymous with,
“more objective”).

People who become involved in this sort of activity
are subject to the natural inclination of uncritically accepting 
the definitions & descriptions of things
related to the activity from sources apparently more 
experienced than themselves.
(The first time you go to the train station you have to
ask someone in uniform for directions to your gate.)
But just because the first time you heard the term,
“man is asleep”
it instantly struck you as right-on-the-money,
and still seems so,
it is now due to habit & familiarity,
the very heckle-&-jeckle of being asleep.

People also have a tendency to stick strictly with the
words, models, descriptions & symbols used by the
particular, “system-for-awakening” that got them started,
feeling anything otherwise to be an act of betrayal.
I understand that, 
or I could not be so making note thereof,
but undertaking to awaken yourself,
(which is what you must ultimately do),
does not make you unfaithful, or disrespectful to
your original heroes and their methods.

I most frequently employ the terms,
“being asleep,” and, “waking up” simply because 
they have always been, and continue to be 
the most commonly used & best known descriptions 
pertinent to what I am really writing about here,
but these descriptions are not magical,
and the further you have sunk into 
believing that they are,
the more noxious they have become for you
without you realizing it.

If someone already with time spent in the effort to 
“wake up from being asleep”
asked for my suggestion
my best one would be that they instantly face the fact that 
they have no idea whatsoever, 
what, 
“being asleep” means.       No one does!
 
 
 

It is not possible to “KNOW” what,
“being asleep” means,
cause if you do  --   then you’re awake,
and then,
“being asleep”  is a meaningless concept.

I assure you that realizing that you do not know what,
“being asleep” means will be an experience of
supreme joy & liberation,
and you will in fact, at that moment,
learn more than you have in 
all of your previous years of struggle combined.

That is the radical step, and indeed not an easy one.
I can tell you that no one knows what, 
“being asleep” means,
and I can encourage you to see this for yourself,
but doing so is tricky with a capital “T”.
The best you can do is to keep repeating to yourself
quizzically what I have said,
“No one, including me, 
knows what, ‘being asleep’ means.”
I know that at first it sounds insane and surely not true –
but it is true, 
and as soon as you see it for yourself
you will, for the first time  -- be sane.

The other, less immediately demanding thing 
that you can do is what I already mentioned:
compiling your own personal, 
operational-definitions-of-what,
“being asleep” is.
I do not mean examples such as 
you forgetting your keys, or dropping a glass, 
or running into a door, and declaring: 
“Ah, now that is – ‘being asleep’!”
No, what you are seeking to see requires a 
much wider view than is contained in 
individual instances of less than alert behavior.
And labeling your inner states of anger, resentment, 
fear, or envy toward others as, “being asleep”
is also inadequate.
Frequently in these writings 
I offer original definitions of, “being asleep,”
not based on a censure of some isolated act,
and if they ever seem to be so to you
then your eyes/I’s are failing you in their duty.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about.
Being asleep is: Worrying about the irrelevant.
Being asleep is: Living a life of pretend.
Being asleep is: Having a mind made of glue.
Being asleep is: Being away from home.
Being asleep is: Taking symbolism for substance.
Being asleep is: The inability to stop chasing yourself.
Being asleep is: Always answering the phone.
Being asleep is: Wanting to jump up in the air and
                           not come down.

These are just randomly picked from a multitude of such 
that have struck me over the years,
and in every instance when one of these descriptions hit me,
it instantly brought with it 
fresh understanding of such width & depth 
as to forbid any verbal attempts to detail same.
As anyone with any meaningful experience in this
adventure knows: “You have to be there, and
doing it for yourself to fully appreciate, 
and understand it.”
But what I have said today should still give you enough to 
get you started looking in a new, more profitable direction.
Set aside, (if not abandon), 
all of your assumed understanding of what, “being asleep” means,
and chew on what I am telling you dead-on, 
and for-sure:  no one knows, nor has ever known
what the term, “being asleep” means.
Everyone interested in this matter knows from their own experience
what it is for them to, “be asleep,"
yet they do not understand the reality behind the words. 
A man knows --  feels  --  the reality of: “I am asleep,”
yet he does not understand what it actually means,
and without realizing this fact
he is like a person who wants to leave the station, 
but who cannot find the train that is right for him.

Until you can wake-up and face-up to the fact that
you don’t have the slightest idea what, 
“being asleep” means,
you will forever 
BE asleep.
 
 

If a man who had been struggling for fifty years to,
“wake up from being asleep” heard this and asked me if it means that 
he had wasted the last half century, I would say, “No.”
I would tell him that realizing this would be the pay off
for all his efforts.

From one perspective:
a “stupid” man is a man who is so stupid that
he doesn’t even realize how stupid he is  --  BUT –
from a view higher up, it goes like this:
a REALLY stupid man is someone who believes that
he understands what it would take to be non stupid,
but is too stupid to realize that he is too stupid by definition to
understand what it would take to be non stupid.

(Okay  --  have I got you primed? –
are you almost on the edge? -- 
are you ready?….
all right  --   the real deal):
    If you really understood what the term, 
    “being asleep” means --  you’d be awake.
 

This is fact --  not  fiction;
this is how the real deal is   --  not how 
metaphysical fairy tales & frustration-causing dreams
say that it is.

A man inherently drawn to this activity
knows that “something” is not right about his life –
--  but he doesn’t know what.
He tries to talk to his parents, his rabbi, 
his professors, his friends about it,
but no one knows what he’s talking about.
Then he finds the words that say:
“While men believe that they are fully conscious,
and awake --  they are not;
they live their lives largely as in a dream,
but through certain efforts, 
a man here & there can awaken from this dream,
and live a more satisfying life,”
and the person instantly “feels at home,”
feels as though their life finally makes sense.
They realize now that the  feeling they have always had of 
something being wrong with their life is due to the fact that 
they are, “asleep,”
and what they need to do is to, “awaken” from this sleep.
But few  to whom this happens 
ever gain any personal understanding of what it was that happened,
or what their belief that they are asleep actually represents.
They accept the symbolism of the words,
and never claw their way down to the substance of the matter.
 
 

Okay, another definition:
To “Be awake” is to: Know that no one knows anything. 
How liberating can one statement be?!
(if you don’t let the stupid, self-protective thoughts 
currently in charge of your mind pretend to be so offended by it as to 
dismiss it out of hand.)

Be not mistaken or confused,
for those with the hunger & instinct for this,
there is an all-too-real, “reality” to, 
“being asleep,”
but you do not know what it is --  you cannot know,
for it is from your state of sleep that comes the idea of,  “being asleep.”

   If you understood what, “being asleep” really means --
   --  you’d be awake -- 
                             ....... (due to nothing other  than that.)
 
 
 
 
 

The day you see for yourself the reality of what I am talking about
will become your new  --  4th Of July.
It will become the day you remember as being when you were first set free.
 
 

    Only the sleeping believe that they know anything:
    only the awakened actually do --
       ….and even then, it’s just this --  one little thing.
 
 
 

Happy Bastille Day!, (even though we are in G.B.)
 

                Hey, you 'bout ready to jump or what?!?
 

                                               JAN