REMEMBRANCE
The Great Remembering: The Ancients New This
Let me show you exactly what they said. Not in fragments. Not in metaphors alone. But in patterns so consistent across civilizations that you can’t ignore them. This is what awakening actually looks like.
I. Waking Up Begins with Truth
In John 8:32, we read: “The truth will set you free.”
Not obedience.
Not blind faith.
Truth.
Truth about yourself.
Truth about your mind.
Truth about fear.
Truth about ego.
Truth is the solvent that dissolves illusion.
In the Avesta, the sacred text of Zoroastrianism, we find: “Truth is the best good. It is everlasting life.”
The Buddha said, “Three things cannot remain hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
Every awakening begins the same way: the moment we stop running from reality and start seeing it. That is why suffering often precedes awakening. Pain breaks the illusion we’ve been protecting. It cracks the armor. It exposes the lie. Truth doesn’t comfort the ego. It frees the soul.
ll. Waking Up Requires Presence
Every tradition agrees - awakening does not happen in the future.
Not someday.
Not when you’re healed.
Not when everything is calm.
The Buddha taught
Do not dwell in the past.
Do not dream of the future.
Concentrate the mind on the present moment.
The Tao Te Ching tells us
If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
Jesus says, in Matthew 6:34
Do not worry about tomorrow.
Plato described time as
The moving image of eternity.
There is only now. Presence is not a spiritual buzzword. Strip the word “spiritual” away entirely if you want. Presence is a doorway back into reality. The ancients weren’t telling us to “be mindful” as a lifestyle accessory. They were saying: stop living in a hallucination. Come back.
III. Waking Up Requires Compassion and Service
Every ancient tradition links awakening with compassion. Not because compassion makes you morally superior. Because compassion is what makes sense when separation dissolves. If I see you as myself, kindness is not virtue. It is logic.
In the Qur’an, we are instructed to care for the needy, the orphan, the captive.
In the Bible: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In the Analects, Confucius teaches that the noble person cultivates virtue.
Plato reminds us: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Compassion is not something we learn. It’s something we recognize. Once you stop believing you are separate, love becomes the only behavior that aligns with reality. It’s not about being “good.” It’s about being sane.
IV. Waking Up Requires Stillness and Self-Knowledge
At the Temple of Apollo in Delphi “Know thyself” appears and was inscribed everywhere.
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
The Yoga Sutras define yoga as the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.
In the Nag Hammadi texts of early Gnostic Christianity, we read: “Know yourself, and you will be known.”
The Buddha taught that in stillness, truth reveals itself.
Awakening is not about collecting new ideas. Don’t let anyone sell you that. It’s not beads. It’s not branding. It’s not adding more. It’s subtraction. Removing noise. Removing illusion. Removing ego. Removing fear. Until what remains is what was always there.
You - without distortion.
V. Waking Up Transforms Suffering into Wisdom
The ancients never promised a painless life. They promised transformation.
In Romans 5:3–4: “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths begin with suffering - not as punishment, but as a doorway.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says he destroys ignorance with the lamp of knowledge.
In the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the soul ascends through trials.
Suffering is not the end of the story. It is the catalyst. It is the fire that burns away what is false.
VI. Waking Up Is Remembering What You Are
When you put it all together, truth, presence, compassion, stillness, transformation - every tradition lands in the same place. Awakening is not becoming something new. It is remembering something ancient.
In Kabbalah, each soul is described as a spark of the Infinite.
The Emerald Tablet declares: “All is One.”
Across cultures, the message echoes: humanity is the divine remembering itself. The final step of awakening is not acquisition. It is recognition. It is truth. A flash of clarity:
I was never separate.
I never was.
I just forgot for a while.
Awakening is not a destination. It is a return home. And it rarely feels like fireworks. At first, it feels unsettling. Then it feels like relief, like setting down a massive backpack you didn’t realize you’d been carrying your entire life.
The pressure to become someone.
To prove something.
To defend yourself.
To win.
All of it built on a misunderstanding. The world doesn’t change when you wake up. Your relationship to it does.
Fear loses authority.
Ego loosens its grip.
Noise stops sounding important.
Not because the world became different. Because you saw clearly. The truth was never hidden. It was waiting. And if this doesn’t feel new, that’s because it isn’t. You were never missing something. You were taught to forget. This is not about becoming spiritual. It is about remembering what you are. And remembering is the most revolutionary act left.
Love you.