The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep. [i]Rumi
We commonly hear of people experiencing great and sudden epiphanies as Road to Damascus Experiences, which typically alter the way a person has seen things or believed and will suddenly change. The name comes from the dramatic experience of a man named Saul.
Saul was strictly observant of Jewish law and saw the newfound movement after the death of Jesus as sacrilegious. As the story goes, he was on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians when he was suddenly blinded by a bright light and heard the voice of Jesus. The event totally changed his entire belief system, changed his name to the Roman name of Paul, and dedicated the remainder of his life to spreading his newfound beliefs.[ii]
We will frequently hear the phrase, “saved by the light,” which refers to the same type of experience. Most of us have epiphanies during our lifetimes that wake us to a higher way of knowing, a higher truth. Stories also abound of those who were so stubborn that it took a very intense experience to get their attention.
The above poem by Rumi touches my heart. After we have had the privilege of an epiphany, it is our responsibility and our mission to not go back to those old ways. We are to stay awake to a higher way of knowing and seeing. Different people, though, choose to remain unconscious to their higher source.
Martin Seligman, author of the book, Flourish, describes a moment that changed his life. It came from the sweet but honest words of his little girl Nikki. He provides the following as a key moment.[iii]
“I’m going to tell you the intimate story – I had an epiphany a couple of years ago which started positive psychology for me, and some of you may have heard this story before.
I was weeding in the garden, I am a rose gardener, and I was weeding with my daughter, Nikki, who had turned five a couple of weeks before that, and I must tell you, that even though I write books about kids, I’m not very good with kids. And, like most of you, I’m goal oriented and time urgent.
And I was trying to get the weeds out, and Nikki was throwing weeds in the air and running around and dancing, and I yelled at her, and she sort of looked at me and she walked away, and she came back and said, “Daddy, I want to talk to you.”
I said, “Yeah, Nikki?”
She said, “Yeah, Daddy, you may not have noticed, but do you remember that before I was five years old, before my fifth birthday, I was a whiner? I whined every day from the time I was three until the time I was five.
“And, you know, Daddy, on my fifth birthday, I decided I wasn’t going to whine anymore. And that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I haven’t whined since. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being so grumpy.”
This was actually an epiphany for me. First, personally, Nikki was exactly right, for fifty years of my life, I have walked around being grouchy and grumpy.
And even though I am surrounded in my life by my wife and children, who are just rays of sunshine, and there’s no reason for my grumpiness.
So personally, I decided I was going to change just like Nikki, and that is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, by the way. I do not know if I’ve succeeded or not, but I’ve tried.”[iv]
Looking at my own life, I have had many epiphanies and if I did not act upon them and change my behavior, I next had a more unpleasant experience that certainly grabbed my attention and I then changed something. After epiphanies, many times, we see life differently. We may pray for a solution and the solution arrives in way of another person. We may pray for insight and suddenly, a brilliant idea appears. We are prone though as humans to quickly discount those occurrences and regard them as coincidence. This is what the poet is referring to when he says, “don’t go back to sleep.”
Stay awake and aware of the higher presence in your life.
- David recognized God as the Shepherd and gifted us with the 23rd Psalm,
- Dorothy recognized she was not in Kansas anymore but only had to click her red heels to go home,
- Moses had the Burning Bush,
- An executive realizes that treating employees with respect and kindness means much more than profits in his/her bank,
- Addicts suddenly put down drugs and/or alcohol because they realize they are creating havoc for their loved ones,
- And many of us change our behavior because we suddenly see how we are unkindly affecting others.
We are all on the metaphorical Road to Damascus. We each have opportunities to improve. Won’t you join with me in recognizing those awakening moments and stay present? Like Dorothy, let us click our magic slippers and return home to our higher self. Lovingly, Judy
[i] https://www.poetryverse.com/rumi-poems/dont-go-to-sleep
[ii]https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle
[iii] http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lincspeech.htm
[iv] http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lincspeech.htm