I went out early in the pre-dawn to take out the garbage. Hardly a spiritual task, you might think. But as I walked out the door, I gazed up at the sky.
A pale, pale blue lit the east. A thin crescent of a moon, and two planets glowing like diamonds, decked the pre-dawn glory. As I watched, a bat made his erratic path across the scene, claiming one last insect before retiring for the day. All was silent.
We are asleep. The world goes on around us, but most of the time we are absorbed in a dull buzz of daydreams and plans, echoes of memories and images arising from phrases off the radio or television in the background. We are not even truly aware of ourselves as living, sovereign beings, much less cognizant of the ever-changing drama in the sky, or around the bird feeder in the garden.
Our sense of personal awareness, our ego, is only rudimentary. I believe it is our task to awaken, to become more aware that we exist, to build a permanent and enduring self that can assert its will in the world and, ultimately, to survive the miniature Ragnarok of the death experience in such a way that we have a high degree of consciousness and volition in the afterlife.
This, of course, it the exact opposite of all those philosophies that urge us to annihilate the self, to get rid of our ego.
Before we can know the Gods, before we can see the glory that surrounds us every moment, before we can even know ourselves, we must Awaken.
(Suggested reading: The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by P.D. Ouspensky, Lecture One.)
Steve McNallen
Asatru Folk Assembly
http://runestone.org
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