Journey of Awakening Book Summary - Journey of Awakening Book explained in key points

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Journey of Awakening summary

Name: Journey of Awakening
Rating: 4.7 (194 reviews)
Author: Ram Dass

Ram Dass

A Meditator's Guidebook

4.7 (194 ratings)

23 mins

What is Journey of Awakening about?

Journey of Awakening (1978) is a guide to establishing and solidifying a personal meditation practice. Combining insights from many spiritual traditions, it outlines a path to self-realization through meditation – offering sage advice on how to stay the course through doubt, fear, and ego traps.

Table of Contents

Journey of Awakening
summarized in 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Quiet the chaotic mind and find balance through meditation.

Do you feel disillusioned with life? Perhaps you’ve achieved success, yet don’t feel as happy as you expected. It’s no surprise. Many people find themselves confused when they get to the end of the rainbow and realize there’s no pot of gold after all. They think there’s something wrong with them, and start searching high and low for solutions.

For Ram Dass, the search took him from being a psychology professor at Harvard University, to experimenting with psychedelic drugs, to beginning his spiritual journey in the Himalayas.

These blinks reveal what he learned: that you must look deep within yourself to find fulfillment – and that meditation is the best way to do that.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why you should free yourself from your ego;
how different concentration techniques can ease you into meditation; and
how to maintain a strong meditative center at every stage of your journey.

Meditation helps you to live in the present moment and find balance and clarity.

Have you ever had a moment when you felt at peace with the world – a moment totally free of self-conscious thought? It’s like being a surfer who catches a wave and moves in perfect harmony with the force of the water. This is a moment of flow.

People often refer to flow as “losing oneself” or “forgetting oneself.” It can happen when you’re alone or with people you love and trust. These moments – when your anxiety is released and your awareness expands – are the essence of meditation.

Sadly, most of the time, flow evades us – because we’re trapped by our egos.

The key message here is: Meditation helps you to live in the present moment and find balance and clarity.

Think of your ego like a room made of your thoughts – you see the world through its windows. Your ego wants to convince you that your identity depends on staying inside, where everything is familiar and comfortable. Because you’re afraid to leave, your ego can become a prison.

Outside of this prison is where flow exists. The good news is that you don’t have to destroy your ego to spend time outside its walls; you can stroll in and out as you please. How? When you begin a meditation practice, you poke holes in the walls of your ego – which helps you adapt to the idea that your thoughts are not reality.

The purpose of meditation is to help you move outside of your daily thoughts more easily so that you can live fully in the present. But perhaps you’re pursuing the healing powers of meditation halfheartedly, or for ego-driven reasons – like to increase pleasure or power. You secretly hope it won’t work, and you won’t really have to leave your familiar rooms.

Even if your initial goal for meditation is to feed the ego, the practice itself, paradoxically, leads to liberation from ego – if you can overcome your resistance to change. As you meditate more, the stillness allows deeper motives to emerge that encourage you to further your practice – and your thought prison starts to crumble.

When your mind is rooted in awareness, reality is relative. You grow less attached to your thoughts, and stop clinging to feelings – like anger and fear – that make your life difficult. In doing so, you come to see the world differently.

Choose a form of meditation that interests you and matches your sensibilities – then dive in.

If you’ve never meditated before, take a moment to try now. Find a comfortable seated position with your back and head straight. Close your eyes. As you sit, your thoughts might grab at you. Try not to follow them; just let them pass. This is meditation. If a thought catches and you find yourself making plans, strategizing, or recalling memories, then you’re thinking, not meditating.

Try picturing a stream. When thoughts interrupt your focus, notice them, and let them float by like autumn leaves. Then, gently return your attention to the water. Don’t get frustrated by your active mind; that’s another leaf. Just go back to the flowing stream. Do this for several minutes.

Incorporate different techniques to concentrate your mind and evolve the subtleties of your practice.

Think back to the flowing stream you visualized in your brief meditation. As your mind wandered and you calmly returned your attention to the water, you were practicing the essential skill of all meditation practices: concentration.

Mindful breathing is another way to practice concentration. Next time you meditate, focus on the flow of your breath coming in and out of your nostrils. Notice the subtle sensations – like a doorman watching people coming and going. Maybe the breath feels sharp inside the nose, or light at the rim of your nostrils. There’s no right or wrong feeling. Just be aware of it.

Just as meditation influences life, life affects the process of meditation.

The more you practice meditation, the more you will integrate daily life into the meditative space.

For Ram Dass, even walking through New York City could be profoundly meditative. By using mantra or concentrating on his breath, he would notice just how often his mind was pulled by the endless stimuli of the city. But he was able to stay in the meditative state by noticing his thoughts and letting them go.

Power, attachment, and other ego traps may lead you astray – but if full liberation is what you want, keep going.

As you bring a meditation practice into your awareness, your consciousness will start to shift. You’ll experience moments of rapture and ecstasy – something southern Buddhists call jhanas. You might even see visions, or experience tingling or shaking. These moments can be fascinating – and seductive.

On his own spiritual path, Ram Dass was drawn to memories of psychedelic highs, and tried to recreate them through yogic practices – without luck. But when he stopped comparing them, he realized that his present meditative moments were just as intense and rich as his past psychedelic ones.

As you flow beyond the boundaries of the ego, remember that before growth comes change.

Ram Dass once had a patient who worried she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She’d ride her bike for hours and finish with more energy than when she began. Sometimes she had trouble distinguishing between dreams and reality. She was a therapist, and at times she felt so overwhelmed with love for her clients that she wanted to worship them.

Normally these symptoms would be treated as pathology. But Ram Dass wasn’t a traditional psychologist. He recognized the woman’s experience as the rising of the kundalini, the divine energy located at the base of the spine.

We begin the path to liberation with hope; we continue with faith, self-reliance, and endurance.

Imagine a group of people hiking up a mountain on a lush summer day. The walk is easy and pleasant. After a few hours, they arrive at a rest station with comfortable chairs, a restaurant, and a beautiful view. Many are satisfied with their climb, and return home refreshed.

Those who stay discover a new path to explore. As they climb higher, it gets cooler and the trees thin out. By the time they reach the second rest station, there’s a warm feeling of camaraderie. The view is awe-inspiring. Their villages below look tiny, and the experience gives them a new perspective on the limits of their lives. After resting, most head back down.

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About the Author

Ram Dass was an American spiritual teacher, psychologist, and writer. He was the author of several best sellers, including Be Here Now, Still Here, Miracle of Love, and Grist for the Mill, and he founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. Before his spiritual awakening, he conducted research at Harvard University with Timothy Leary on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs.

Who should read Journey of Awakening?

Spiritually curious thinkers who aren’t sure where to start
Stressed-out people looking for peace of mind
Anyone interested in meditation

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