During a nightmare, a very wild dream, just one thought or one click such as, ‘Hey, this is a dream’ is enough. You will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. In the same way, if you are intense in this dream you are living, called the waking world, then one click is enough and you will be out of the dream! If you think, ‘No, I need some more technique,’ then you are not really going through a nightmare or an intense dream. You are just having some casual flow of thoughts.

Sometimes in the dream state you will be seeing without any clarity. There will be some casual black and white shows which will be going on. You will neither feel like watching it nor feel like coming out of it. If you are in those kinds of dreams, then you are just wasting your time. If you are not really intense, you are in these kinds of dreams. Neither will you go down nor will you go up. Please do not be in that state.

Understand, if you are in such an intermediate state, then this click will not happen. It will not be a sharp, strong shift. Just like you can get up from your sleep by just an intense desire to wake up at a particular time, you can also get up from the deep slumber you have been for so many millions of lives. If you have an intense total desire to wake up, you can wake up this moment.

Kabir says so strongly and beautifully, ‘When you look for Him, you will find Him instantly.’

There are people who say ‘What is there in our hands? When god wants us to be awake He will wake us up. It is our destiny.’ Understand, these are nothing but cunning tricks of the mind. God knocks every moment at the door of the prison you have built for yourself. If you don’t open, what can be done?

I always tell people, God is a gentleman. He never interferes with your freedom. If you choose to remain asleep, He will simply wait till you wake up. He respects your freedom. Till you are bored and realize the futility of the fantasy world you are in, He will patiently wait. Look inside yourself and you can see that you are choosing to remain asleep in your fantasy world. Reality is knocking on the door every moment but we choose to ignore it. We are so used to our dream world we don’t want to wake up.

So when the master tells you that reality is much more beautiful and ‘real’, you still remain in the inertia of sleeping. You have to understand, it is only you who can choose to come out of your long dream. It is your choice and your responsibility.

Have you ever tried this simple experiment? Suppose you want to get up early in the morning at say 4 am. Suppose you don’t have an alarm clock. At night, when you go to sleep you simply make a deep and intense will, ‘I am going to wake up at 4 am.’ At 4 am, you will find that you are awake, your eyes are open and sleep has just disappeared. Your body clock responds directly to the intensity and the sincerity of the desire. If you are not sincere and deep down you think, ‘I will try this as an experiment. It is ok if I don’t get up also,’ then it will not happen. Be sincere and intense and it will simply happen. Intensity has the power to penetrate your states of unconsciousness including deep sleep.

source: Living Enlightenment