Today we’ll dabble on awakening and mystical awareness.

The human mind is a wonderful tool for navigating the manifest world. But it is not everything. In fact, identification with thoughts and emotions is a source of great suffering. Being unable to distance our inner self from the constant barrage of mental processes causes fear, anxiety, and stress. And prior to awakening, there comes a time in which the mind becomes so full that, in a flash of insight, one comes to release a lifetime of carefully constructed ideas and concepts, and realizes the Witness within that is our true self: always watching, always still, perfectly present, unaffected by the ups and downs of the life of the mind.

The King of Swords represents a positive mastery of the mind. But given that the mind is limited and that our thoughts actually color our perception in a way that prevents seeing reality truly, this King can also stand for a mind that is full and complete, but that has reached its limits. And that’s where the spirit comes in.

The Magician joins Heaven and Earth. He is the fundamental aspect of the ever-flowing source of Cosmic manifestation. As card No. 1, he can stand for the deepest layers of reality, the border between nothing and something. And it is that nothingness, that fundamental Emptiness that we get a glimpse of when we drop the full mind, stop using earthly mental constructs to frame a reality that is deeper than we know, and open our eyes to a Truth that dissolves all thought.

From that place of no-mind, yet All Mind, we rise up to life with a clean slate. We become The Fool, the no. zero, free to perceive the world without chains of clinging, suffering, and karmic tendencies. We embody what Suzuki called the “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind“: a mind that is open to what is actually arising at any given moment, rather than to what we think should arise. We are free, open to the greatness of the Universe. We are born again.

Today, allow yourself the freedom to drop the mind. Allow yourself to wake up!, and see the world anew.