art by Saccidananda Dasa

All of us have experienced a spiritual awakening. Each of us, whether we realized it or not, witnessed the light of true Self-awareness when we silently observed how powerless our self-ego was when we hit bottom in our addiction. Then, we were witness to how our true Self, our Higher Power, found the strength to do something different—to seek help—to save our exhausted self-ego, our mind, and body. The problem is that many of us didn’t even realize it, and will forget or ignore that glimpse of awakening we experienced during our detox and early Recovery, which is the initial awakening of our spiritual, true Self; the truth of understanding, that we are not the temporary mental and physical self-ego, constantly repeating our past, which is all we know; we are not the mind and body, that decaying husk of an image we see in the mirror, using our addictions to escape from feeling the pain of our past. We forget, all too quickly, how good it feels to have an open heart and a clear mind while being sober, here in the present moment of remembering “Who I am.” We forget because our new sober way of thinking, our new mental wiring, has not yet taken root. Because we are not aware of the Higher Power of our true Self, the embedded self-ego starts firing the addiction-wiring in our brains, which gets triggered by our hard-wired past, and our addictions start up again, even worse than before.

The truth is, we experience opportunities to wake up throughout our lives. Now, hitting bottom in our addictions may seem like a brutal wake-up call. Still, it is no more dramatic than the opportunity to awaken when we meet “the one,” our life partner, or when we get a divorce, realizing we are not “the one.” We can have a spiritual awakening when our child is born, or when someone we love dies, or when we have our own near-death experience. We might have an awakening experience when we reach the peak of our first Rocky Mountain, a 14er, or when we fail miserably at achieving our life’s dream of being socially successful. Some might experience an awakening simply by watching a random sunrise or by reaching out to help someone worse off than themselves; selflessly adding joy to someone’s life can open the door to true Self-realization.

When we are born, we forget that we are created out of nothing, by the unknown universal conscious energy Source of vibrational spiritual light. We forget the Source of our existence; we forget that the reason we materialized to be born is to wake up and remember where we come from and what we are. We are here to remember that we all come from the same conscious energy Source, and that each of us is directly connected to that Source by the energy that causes our hearts to beat and our lungs to breathe. Just like the ocean is in every droplet of seawater, we are all created and connected by the same spiritual energy—Love—with everything that exists in Consciousness.

Now, you’re probably thinking, what does spiritual awareness and awakening have to do with getting sober and staying sober? Coming here to detox and get sober is one of those life-situational opportunities I’ve been talking about, which our unknown Source offers to help us wake up and realize our life purpose: to remember where we come from and what we are, to remember we are the spiritual energy that directly connects us to the Source of everything. To remember—despite everything we have experienced in our dysfunctional families, outdated cultures, broken school systems, judgmental religions, corrupt politics, and all the traumatic experiences that we and others have created in our lives—despite all that, we are divine! We are here because of the conscious energy Source that created our material existence by forgetting its unlimited potential, out of a selfless creative act of Love, to become limited by space and time, and materialize as this temporary existence, to experience itself by remembering its divine, infinite potential.

Now, as I said, many, if not most of us, will ignore the light of awareness that we have experienced, which brought us here. We might forget, as soon as we walk out those doors, or soon after, that we are divine. We will forget that staying sober is staying awake, staying aware that we are different now than when we got here.

So, the real question becomes, how am I going to stay awake outside when I leave this place? How am I going to stay sober, which means staying aware?

The answer is, I need to remember. I need to keep remembering that I must live differently. I must remember that I had a spiritual awakening of my true Self when I did something different, when I came here to detox, to get sober, and learn ways to stay sober, my true Self woke up. That’s when I started living differently, and now, I must remember to keep living differently. I must remember to stay aware that my brain is hard-wired with addictive habits and the thinking from my past, and all thinking is from my self-ego’s past, which triggers my addictive patterns. I must remember to avoid, or even change, the people, places, things, and thoughts from my past—that trigger the addiction wiring in my brain to start firing again. I must remember all the tools, people, meetings, and resources I have found in Recovery to stay aware of my thinking, to stay sober.

I must remember “Who I am,” that my true Self is not my hard-wired, self-ego mind, imprinted with everything I know and have experienced in my past. My true Self is not my addictions, which are wired to my past. My true Self is not my temporary body and mind that will wear out in this illusion of space and time. My true Self is the light of spiritual Consciousness, the Source that is eternal, everywhere, in everything, like each droplet of saltwater that makes up the oceans. My purpose is to remember: I am “That.” divine infinite, eternal potential in this temporary existence. I must remember to stay aware—to stay sober!

VAB  06-06-25

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