Awakening: A Journey from Constructs to Consciousness

By B.A. Crisp

Beyond the Veil of Illusions

“Stop creating constructs and disempowering thoughts for they are a veil over your being.” These words, heard in the deserts of New Mexico, kicked off my awakening.

From childhood, I was taught to “become somebody” and not to fail at life. This typically meant “get a job” and dig ditches for other people so you may feed and house yourself as you pay your fair share of taxes.

We are taught to be independent dependents in a complex system, a game designed to set most of us up for a lifetime of debt and societal expectations. Additionally, we are taught to compete against and compare ourselves to others as a measure of personal success and self-worth.

This sort of subhuman domestication shapes our illusory identities. And it often distances us from our authentic selves. Recognizing this push-pull feeling between worldly angst and disconnection is the beginning of finding peace.

While I struggled after my trip through the desert, a development ensued: I found myself better bonded to something unnamed, an essence I can only describe as ethereal ‘discernment’.

The Catalyst: New Mexico

My adventure began in New Mexico around this time last year. There, I experienced a meaningful sense of universal connection. This sparked a series of smaller synchronicities, peeling back layers of awareness. My heart opened, and I expanded beyond my limiting worldviews. I felt empowered and courageous.

However, upon leaving New Mexico, I noticed that I retreated from these gifts and into old behavioral patterns and conditioning, moving from a state of expansion back toward one of dutiful constriction.

The Dance of Expansion and Constriction

Initially, while exploring The Land of Enchantment, I welcomed this expansive foray without fear. But once I left the desert, the demands of everyday life—rebuilding a hurricane destroyed condo, work, finances, bills, taking care of loved ones—easily pulled me back into a frenetic routine. My remembrance of this awareness, though, became a healing balm for my soul, helping me recognize the often-covert insight and hidden power within. Rather than steering further away from it, I changed course and followed this intensely burning inner star.

A Major Transformation

For me, the awakening process in the desert, alone at night, was a major transformation. It was a shift from identification with the mind, body, and ego toward a deeper awareness. While in this state of sudden insight, I no longer knew who I was in the conventional sense. Instead, I became mindful, which was both empowering and enlightening. I met with nothingness where everything could, at any moment, burst forth. It is an empty void…of potential.

What is an Awake Mind?

An awake mind is one that is not obscured by internal or external distractions or activities. An awake mind knows no time because the present moment is our most valuable springboard for transcendence. This awareness is not a subtraction or loss but an enhancement. It is where the last moment of ignorance meets the first epoch of realization. An awake mind expands, embracing everything as part of itself. And it realizes our connection to and inseparability from Source.

Gratitude and Freedom

Reconnecting with life through gratitude and an appreciation, I realized that I could lose everything I own—and I would be okay. It is the grasping of things that keeps us dissatisfied, in despair, or hungry. We often manufacture our own suffering because we run after the bait and forget the Source.

For example, we become so lost in the past or wish so hard into the future that we lose our first sight to the value of Now. Now is an interval for integration. Now allows us to appreciate our personal uniqueness in the cosmos and the grand diversity of life. This is when the divine within us awakens—a superposition of energy, frequency and vibration.

Spiritual Awareness. Man opening portal to other galaxy.

Superposition and Unity

I realized that this Superposition is not hidden; it’s the background of our essence shining through a cosmic choir.

Likewise, I discovered that it’s okay to desire change and have preferences, as they are parts of our wholeness. Science and the Sacred are equal elements of the Source. Moreover, what happens inside us reflects outside of us. We influence our environment through creativity, and it influences us.

Furthermore, this evolution of resolving and integration is crucial. By quieting the mind and feeling divine intelligence, we find ourselves immersed in life as both creator and created. This divine intelligence courses through everything we think we see and that which we often fail to notice.

Similarly, intelligence is natural, not intellectual. Divinity is one essence, harmonizing our relationships and unifying our internal and external worlds. To see through this is to know through—an abrupt shift in consciousness.

The Path Forward

During my solo adventure through the Land of Enchantment, I learned there is no distinct “B.A. Crisp” in Naples or New Mexico—pure knowing is being in both at the same time—and not being there at any time. I’m also a part of each while at the same time, belonging to something beyond our boundaries and borders.

Remember, a seeker typically starts as an unaware self until the self falls away. Letting go of worldviews and domestications is challenging because surrender hurts the ego—and most of us are heavily invested in our separateness. But in this surrender lies acuity and insight.