In waking we emerge from the corridors of sleep. Consciousness comes out from the dark places.

In sleep, the body is there, alive but quiescent. The consciousness is somewhere alive. But the two are not functioning together.

It is when the bodies all unite, when the reasoning mind, and the body, and all the rest come together and work together—all in one piece—then do we awake.

In sleep the eyes are closed to outside things. The first proof of waking is the opening of the eyes. The first proof of the spirit’s awakening is the seeing with new eyes, so that all the things seen before now look new and different.

Ordinary man is in a deep sleep. He has come down from God, and entered the house of his body, and become heavily involved with its needs and desires. HE HAS PULLED THE SHADES.

He is walled in by thick flesh, and has become involved in serving the temple, rather than its indwelling Spirit.

The body needs food, and drink, and warm shelter. It needs a place to rest. Primitive man worked at supplying all these, and little more. They are essentials to the physical upkeep, or maintenance of the “house.”

Man nowadays has acquired unnatural tastes, and has to work harder to supply these complex wants—so he keeps in a dither doing so, and becomes involved in a tangle of bills and jobs, and charge accounts.

It’s time somebody told him it’s morning. Christ has returned. and the energy of the Sun is pouring into our beings. Let’s arise and use this energy, stir ourselves and do something to feed the Spirit that dwells in the temple, as well as the cells which comprise its walls.

Bears go into hibernation in winter to escape the snow and long period of cold, but they come out as the sun grows warm in spring, along with the crocuses, and tulips, and baby chicks.

The whole symbolism of Easter and spring refer to the wakening of the earth and its creatures to the return of the Sun’s warmth. Similar to this are the entombment and resurrection of Jesus.

The awakening of the human consciousness to God-realization, as the awakening of the seed below the earth, begins below the level of conscious awareness. It stirs deep down in the sub (under) conscious REALMS of mind and being, just as, while we still sleep—toward morning certain sounds or movements bring us almost awake, yet drowsiness holds a curtain about us.

It may take an earthquake to rend that veil of the temple, an inner jolt, with the accompanying flash of realization of God’s Truth. That’s the alarm clock of the Spirit.

It may be hard to topple out of bed, but once out, we begin to bloom as the fragrant daffodil in the early morning sun. Birds begin to sing in the flowering trees, and we come outside to breathe the wonderful scent, and yawn, or breathe deeply to take in more of the oxygen of God’s own Life-Breath, the pure air.

As the animal, having spent the winter in gestation, comes forth from the womb, to frolic on the spring meadows; as the seed unfurls its embryo to push up and show itself above ground; as the chick and baby bird pecks its way out of the enclosing shell—so the locked-in spirit of man will burst his bonds as the solar energies within him get rid of the dross, and open his eyes to the true nature of his being.

One lives by being awake. Being asleep is like existing only in Nature, bound by time- processes. But awaking is a miracle of God, which overlooks time, and takes on eternity. Awake and living, one also chooses and acts freely to change his own destiny.

Rocks and minerals apparently sleep, in their slowness of evolvement. Man is the most awake creature, because of his high intellect.

SLEEP: Says the dictionary, is a state of reduced physical and nervous activity, accompanied by suspension of voluntary movements, and a complete or partial unconsciousness. To be dormant, inactive.

WAKE: Is to emerge from sleep. To become active or alert, after being inactive or dormant. To keep watch or guard at night. To rouse, stir up, excite.

All the waking of earth corresponds to the timing of the Sun (except for certain night creatures, which use night as cover). So does the waking of the Spirit of Man correspond to the coming of the Christ or Son-of-God consciousness to his being, being reborn to this state, through Grace.

Isaiah said, Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For thy dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.

Paul wrote in Thessalonians 5:6—”But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night…but since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love and…for God…who died for us, so that whether we wake or sleep, we might live with him.”