The Battlefield is You

by Zen Gardner
April 2013

There’s no looking for crowd validation. There’s no waiting for outside redemption. There’s no collective bargaining to rely on.

The awakening is you. Only you.

That’s what all this ruckus is about. The battle for your spirit and soul. And that’s the boat each of us is in. There is nothing more important in this life for you, or me, than waking up. Once that’s straightened out the rest will follow.

How we perceive the world around us creates and reinforces the world around us. Once we become conscious and aware that this existing matrix we’re witnessing is an arbitrary creation manipulated by power-crazed puppeteers, however you perceive them, that is when the change happens.

And the Universe will tell you what to do from there.

That’s what to respond to. Nothing else. That’s your job. That’s my job. Don’t shirk it when it happens.

Enjoy Your Earthly Suit, But Rediscover Who You Truly Are

Like me, you are sitting inside, or somewhat near anyway, the body you chose to be in. We’re looking through and freely operating these amazing biological machines on a fabulous planet. And, “Wow, there appears to be a whole lot of other beings like me walking around! Where am I? What am I here for? And what am I supposed to do?”

I know, jumped off the deep end there, but that’s exactly our predicament. And what immediately sets in once we arrive? As young children we have this abandon as we experience this incredible place and all its feelings, sights and sounds. We screech with delight, sing made up songs, swing our arms around wildly, and run in place. We just express!

Then what happens? We start to conform to what we’re seeing, as well as what we’re being told. We become more regimented and are herded into classrooms and categories. We start feeling social pressures and are then handed this fundamental doctrine of insecurity where fear and scarcity become our main drivers. Your purpose in life now is to “fit in and get a job” so you won’t run out of money or food. Your internal, conscious response? “This is strange. Everything’s a problem here. Sure didn’t feel that way when I arrived.”

The Illusory Attachment Trap

The main trick of the illusory world around us is to make us think we’re somehow attached to it, and therefore dependent, and that we need to conform to this world we’re viewing. We tend to judge by the standards we’re exposed to, and act accordingly. We base our lives and actions around these perceived behavior patterns, which in turn gradually dull the voice of conscious awareness.

You might have noticed how blind people, such as entertainers Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, gesticulate totally freely, rocking their heads while singing or talking, and have wildly free facial expressions, almost as if they’re handicapped.

Obviously they’re not. But it strikes you. They’re free from visual conformity. They don’t know how everyone else acts. They’re free to physically express their emotions without having to conform to the suppressed, fearful conformist nature of our hung up society. They don’t know you don’t rock back and forth, shake your head and smile so broad your face almost cracks. How liberating!

And that principle can be applied across the board.

We judge so much by how we think it will measure up to the world around us rather than just express what we’re thinking and feeling openly. Whether with close friends and family, our peer group, or the message we pick up in public or from the media, we’re being programmed. Programmed to not respond to obvious needs, but to strange, shallow self-serving impulses.

Just like everyone else.

You can say that’s just natural, but it’s not. It’s induced behavior from a manipulated and self-regulating created collective. Natural for the matrix, but not for a conscious human being, especially when the crowd is clearly going the wrong way. But who’s looking when you’re sleep walking.

The Cost of Vicarious Living and Beyond

In the end most humans end up living a vicarious life, acting out the projection they think they’re supposed to live up to. That’s bondage. The yardstick is acceptance rather than truth or conscience. This is heavily reinforced through education, the media and the existing paradigm they’ve succeeded in creating. It appears to be the only option out there…but only to the unawakened.

But there’s a price to pay.

Everything. Waking up costs everything. So what? What are you saving up for? Aren’t you paying that price anyway even if you’re not waking up? Life always costs everything. You’ll leave here eventually, like me, and the cost will be your life. How did you spend it? Consciously, or trying to conform, and using that to hide behind to justify living as a comfortable, selfish, lazy brain donor to the system you’re too afraid to buck?

That’s the battlefield. You. Me. It goes no further. What we see playing out in the world is a bunch of you’s and me’s deciding if they’ll live consciously and truly respond to that still, small voice within them, or not. The sad reality is almost every one of them has been duped into being fixated on what all the other “me’s” are doing in order to keep up with the projected reality. It’s like a school of fish feverishly clinging together in response to a perceived predator.

The only thing is, for conscious, spiritual reality there is no predator. That’s the secret. We are eternal consciousness having an experience. The way to solve these problems is to re-create the perceived reality through conscious awareness and conscious actions.

When You Get the Call, Take It!

We, individually, have to change first. We have to commit to consciousness, get free of entanglements and live a conscious life. The rest has little meaning until we get out of the matrix ourselves.

If each of us would get that message the phony world structure would crumble in a minute. Every soldier would drop his weapon and go home. Every politician would wake up as if out of a dream and go be with his family. Every policeman would lay down his gun, take off his uniform, and go help someone in need, smiling and greeting people on his way.

It’s you. It’s me. Your personal world and experience is the only one you’ll ever know. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Just let consciousness be your guide. But act on it.

And don’t fret too much about what it is you’re supposed to do. You’ll know it when you see it. It comes in the form of little things, little decisions, the rest follows. Learn to listen to that voice and act accordingly and it gets louder and louder.

Just walk away from what you know to be wrong, and do what you know to be right. It’s not that hard once you start. And again, once you get your boat in motion, the rudder will take effect.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao Tzu

…Now go for it. I can’t wait to hear about it!

Love, Zen

Zen Gardner is an impactful and controversial author and speaker with a piercing philosophical viewpoint. His writings have been circulated to millions and his personal story has caused no small stir amongst the entrenched alternative pundits. His book You Are the Awakening has met rave reviews and is available on amazon.com. You Are the Awakening examines the dynamics of the awakening to a more conscious awareness of who we are and why we are here – dynamics which are much different from the programmed approach of this world we were born into.