The Courage To Wake

a brief meditation on Herman Hesse

“Each man has only one genuine vocation—to find the way to himself….His task is to discover his own destiny—not an arbitrary one—and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else is only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness.” — Herman Hesse

To be who you really are is the highest expression of grace and beauty a human can attain. It is also the most difficult, and therefore the most rare.

Yet, it is not out of reach for any of us; and is, in fact, the central and most essential work of our lives. For, without this genuine foundation, nothing we build in this life, however invested with the sweat of our effort, however infused with cleverness, or adorned with spectacle, can bear up under the weight of Actual Reality, since it is built on a foundation of lies and illusions.

Only what is created from our real selves is real; only what is real, lasts. The rest is mirage, the chimerical fruit of unconscious distraction and soulless game play. It is the chief indictment of the human race that most of us would rather remain unconscious and sleepwalk through our days than to wake up and see life for what it actually is. We would rather distract our great souls with pointless pecking-order games than confront the Actual Reality of who and what we really are.

Yet, there is hope in this: Not all of us prefer the mirage.

Only those rare souls who dare to wake can ever be real. Only they who open their ears to really listen to the music of the world can ever discern the one true melody they were meant to weave into the score.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes lamented in his great poem “The Voiceless”:

“Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!”

Which will you decide to be—the one who sleeps, or the one who sings?

For those ready to go deeper: If you are a spiritual entrepreneur on the journey of waking up and finding the unique music your are meant to bring ot the world, I currently have a few slots open for new clients, and would love to explore with you how I can help you find the genuine in yourself and bring it out to the world in a way that is fully alive and economically sustainable.

Drop me a line here. Let’s talk.