My friend and I have been talking about this topic often recently.  This idea that many of us, from every walk of life, every creed, color and religion are innocently sleepwalking through life.

I think maybe the makers of the movie The Matrix were trying to make a spiritual point.  That many of us are asleep in this bubble and our perception of what the world is around us is just a well maintained illusion.

But in the Matrix if we choose, when given the opportunity, we can take the blue pill (or was it the red pill?) that enables us the see what is really going on.  In the movie the pill enables a person to “unplug” from their deep sleep of illusion (which was the matrix) and wake up to Reality.

I want the pill! (which ever color it is)

I want to wake up!

The more I go deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole that I call spirituality I realize just how asleep and sleepwalking I have been (and still am in many ways).

Still not following me on the mystery of the sleepwalking population?

Here’s an example that’s down to Earth and far from the mystical.

I was raised in middle class America.  My parents were educated post-high school and had professional jobs.  I lived in the suburbs most of my life.  I was able to go to college without paying my own way through.  I did all of the suburban things that many people think middle class kids do.

But I was blind.

Sure I knew that there was such thing as poverty – but it wasn’t in my neighborhood.

Sure I knew there was such thing as crime on the streets – but if it was in my neighborhood it wasn’t in plain sight.

While I may still be middle class as an adult I live in a very different place than I grew up.

I live in a neighborhood where poverty is pervasive.  My son goes to a school where 90% of the students are on free or reduced lunch.  I live in a town where the local government cares more about building a brand new municipal building, than resurrecting historical buildings that have gone vacant and claimed by squatters.

My point is – I had been asleep for most of my life in this regard.

I had been asleep to the hardships that others experience each and every day.

It is one thing to intellectually understand that something exists, it is a whole different story to experience it.

But even more important is the spiritual sleepwalking that many of us go through everyday.

We live our lives on autopilot.

We get up, use the restroom, get dress and go to work.  We don’t notice many of the everyday things around us.

Some of us are “stuck” in careers and lives that we don’t even fully understand how and why we are in them.

Marriages that aren’t working and we can’t figure out why. Jobs that seem to have no purpose besides paying the bills.

We are asleep walking through our daily lives.  As Rev. Michael Beckwith says when we live this way we are “wasting our incarnation”.

But I think we are here at this time to do great things.

Not to be listless and fit in with the status quo.  Not just to get by and make ends meet for another month.  Not even to live out the dreams and hopes of generations past.

We are here to wake up and realize the beautiful creatures that we each are – the divine expressions of God itself.

We are here to be used and useful to serve God by serving humanity.  Not because we are martyrs or deliberately trying to sacrifice ourselves.

But because service is how we express love unconditionally.

I want to wake up my friends.

I want to fully see how broken the world around me is, so that I may be used as a vessel for healing.

I want to fully see and experience my own personal brokenness so that I may heal and forgive others in my life.

We are sleepwalking when we cannot see that war and violence does NOT lead to peace.

I want to wake up to peace!

We are sleepwalking when we think tearing down others is justified because they don’t share the same beliefs, values or lifestyle as we do.

I want to wake up to love!

Will you wake up with me?

Will you open yourself to the possibility that you (yes you) are here at this time ON PURPOSE with a PURPOSE?

Will you turn within yourself to discover your purpose and God’s will in your life?

Will you Wake up?

Because I want to wake up too.

PS: This month we are working on our meditation practice and your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to take the 21-day meditation challenge offered through the Chopra Center.  This is one of the affiliate programs that I promote and an amazing resource for all things spiritual. You can click here for more information and to get your copy of the guided meditations for each of the 21 days.