The Self In Disguise, The Dreamer is Asleep

From Maïalene Edgar

Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they’re telling the truth.

— Doris Lessing — The Golden Notebook, 1962.

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As soon as I leave the house, I leave awareness. I go to the grocery without a single moment of awareness. I move through the aisles zombie-like, scoring treats for myself while pretending to want to eat healthily.

At home I remember myself once again, but not entirely. The dreamer is sound asleep and cannot wake up without hard inner work. To throw off the dream is to be the Self in all beings. We are not “others.” We are all the Self in disguise.

— Vicki Woodyard

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…Now as the American Dream has vanished and our world is spinning perilously, today’s teens are succumbing in greater numbers to various addictions, overdose, and other self-destructive behaviors. Some are apathetic, perhaps lethargic, with an overabundance of depression and anxiety due to a kind of existential hopelessness. And my thought is that we should provide them forums or platforms to speak about such things, and engage in dialogue with them about these critically…