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Question:Is it possible that changing brain chemistry through meditation tapes, meditating, body work, or sudden trauma such as a fall or auto accident, could lead to realization?

Answer:With your question you touch on the great paradox inherent in realization. Everything can lead to realization, yet nothing can lead to realization. The words ???lead to??? seem to suggest that realization is a future goal to be reached by someone, while awakening reveals that both, future and a separate someone, are illusory.

Realization can be seen as the falling away of the illusion of time and separation. Since it is an illusion that falls away, there is in reality nothing that falls away and thus nothing that either leads to -or stands in the way of- awakening.

This may create a feeling of helplessness. So if that happens, I suggest to look and see what it is that is aware of this feeling of helplessness. Who or what is aware of everything including the body/mind and the questions that come up?

Here are a few quotes from ???Awakening to the Dream??? that address your question from different angles.

* This is not about a gradual progression to a future goal, but about a radical awakening to what is. No conditions have to be fulfilled for this to become clear. Self-realization can happen at any time for anyone.

* You don???t need to do anything to ???become ready??? for it. It will happen by itself and reveal that Awakeness is ???and always has been??? fully present. It will shine when it shines, and it will shift the attention from the content of Awareness to Pure Awareness itself.

* It may be silence from a sage or words from a shopkeeper. The surrender may come through agony or ecstasy. It can happen through an apple falling on your head; it can come from the smile of a child; or it can arise from deep inside as you walk along a beach at sunset or when you burn your finger on the stove. At any time, your sense of separation may dissolve to reveal the One beyond all duality.

* Enlightenment is not something difficult and remote, attainable only by an elite few. In fact, it is not attainable at all, but reveals itself through the removal of the illusion that there is an individual entity to take hold of it.

* There are no fixed rules as to how awakening should occur. The problem with preconceived notions about the much-coveted holy grail of truth and the packaging in which it should be delivered, is that such notions prevent the seeker from seeing that the liberation he is looking for is always fully present and instantly available.

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If or when you have a question you'd like to see answered in this newsletter send it to:
author@awakeningtothedream.com

Quotes from Joan Tollifson's book
'Awake In The Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is'
Visit her at: http://home.earthlink.net/~wakeupjt/index.html

Painting by Paul Owen Lewis.
Visit him at: http://stoningtongallery.com/artists/lewis2.htm





Buddhist Verse

When they curiously question thee, seeking to know what It is,
Do not affirm anything, and do not deny anything.
For whatsoever is affirmed, is not true,
And whatsoever is denied, is not true.
How shall anyone say truly what That may be,
While he has not himself fully won to What Is?
And, after he has won, what word is to be sent from a Region
Where the chariot of speech finds no track on which to go?
Therefore, to their questionings offer them silence only,
Silence - and a finger pointing the Way.

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