A Final Note

A Final Note

What we have shared here is a beginning.

The Wakening Practice was born inside the creation of So That We Can See, and it lives most fully when experienced alongside the book. But the tool itself belongs to no single discipline, no single field. It belongs to anyone who has ever struggled with a question they couldn't answer, a mystery they couldn't solve, a creation they couldn't quite bring into being.

The scientist who needs an insight that logic alone can't reach. The engineer who knows there has to be a better answer. The artist searching for what comes next. The writer staring at a blank page. Anyone who has ever lain awake knowing that the answer is right there, just beyond the reach of the waking mind.

This is what the Wakening Practice is for. A tool, a skill you can learn, to help you find true answers to what you are asking right now. For solutions to problems that you don't know how to solve yet. For answers to questions that you don't know yet exist.

Because we have cleared the way between the unconscious and the conscious, or found a way to listen to something — or someone — waiting for you to open the path so you can finally hear and begin the work you are meant to do.

"The distinction between attention and focus is one of the most important things in the entire manuscript. Focus is the conscious mind asserting control, narrowing, excluding. Attention is open, receptive, relational. It is the condition for connection. If the reader understood this distinction early — they would understand what they are actually training themselves toward, and why letting the mind wander is not laziness but the point."

Step One ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

To Begin

So what follows is a condensed introduction to The Wakening Practice so that we can get you started on the book So That We Can See. We will go deeper later for those who want to experience the full power of The Wakening Practice.

Okay, so let's begin with the basics.

Easy, peasy in one way. In another, well, like any muscle or skill, it needs work, sometimes a lot of work, before we get to see how it works, what it does.

Now, what we are about to suggest might come as a surprise, but we need to ask you to go to sleep.

Yes. Sleep.

We told you this was going to be easy.

Step 1. Get ready to snuggle under your bed covers and read a chapter, maybe two, as you drift off to sleep. Not saying you can't read more, but often less is more, depending upon the chapters you have just read.

After you have closed the book, turned down the light, and put your head gently on the pillow, think about what you just read as you quietly fall asleep.

But here is the important part, and I mean truly important: as you drift off, don't just think about what you read. Be there. See it in your mind's eye. The lift of a mane in the breeze, the sweep of a tail as it briskly swipes away the flies. Turn the words into a world. Make it you to whom all of this happened. You, standing in the grass, damp with dew. You, feeling the warmth of the sun as you gaze out at the herd grazing in the dawn.

This is not visualization as a technique. This is inhabiting. You are building a reality within yourself in which these experiences become yours. Where the wonder and the confusion and the surprises belong to you.

There is a difference between attention and focus that I want you to understand, because it is one of the most important things in this entire practice. Focus narrows. It excludes. Attention is different. Attention is open. It receives. It reaches toward rather than closing down. What we are learning here is attention, not focus. And the reason that matters is that connection requires openness.

Don't think of yourself as analyzing; just let your thoughts run where they will. It doesn't matter that your thoughts wander. It really doesn't. Actually, it is a good sign.

Chapter Fifteen

A Living Thing

Just know that, as with everything here at Kjrsos, everything is in a state of evolution. The edition you read today might be different than the edition that you read tomorrow, because it was understood from the very beginning that once the first full edition was done, it needed you. That what you would bring would more than likely change what was here.

So, rather than wasting more time rewriting and perfecting what is here, we pass this on to you so that your questions and insights can help us create the next edition, and together we can create something beautiful and amazing.

And perhaps you can begin to understand just how different this Kjrsos Experience is going to be. First, a book that is not meant to be read but to be experienced. But more than that, think how unique is a book that cannot be completed until you become a part of it?

You are ready now. Not because you have mastered this — you haven't, none of us have, it is a practice, not a destination. But you have begun to learn what it feels like to quiet the controlling mind. What it feels like to stand at the edge of something rather than rushing past it. So That We Can See was written to be experienced in that state. It was written to find you here, at this threshold, open to what it has to show you.

Go slowly. Let it in.

Just remember, this is your own personal journey. Which will be unique to you. And your insights will be different, and what you see might be as well. And when you share your insights, you will help the rest of us and honour us as well.

Chapter Fourteen

Beginning the Experience

So now it is time to start the experience that is Kjrsos. The Kjrsos Experience, So That We Can See.

There are many different ways that you can proceed. As always, the choice is yours, as only you can know what is best for you and your own personal journey.

You may find that the Wakening Practice doesn't seem to be doing what it can for others yet, and that is fine. It isn't an easy gift to find, and you may need more time or assistance than we have provided here. We have tried to condense this introduction as much as possible so that you can start your journey with the book So That We Can See sooner rather than later. In no way do we expect that with a few shared pages, this is a skill you can find that easily. Our hope is that with this beginning, your experience of So That We Can See can be augmented in the way we believe it was meant to be.

If you find this challenging or encounter difficulties, that is to be expected. We are developing a comprehensive course separate from this effort because we understand the profound impact this incredible practice can have on those seeking answers. When you open the pathway, it is remarkable what can emerge.

The conscious mind, as we understand, can busy itself with falsehoods and overlook countless details because its main role is to focus — to be aware of what might threaten our survival. The one who perceives everything is often the one who remains completely silent, possibly frustrated at being unable to communicate the answers it holds.

Chapter Thirteen

The Other Voice

For some, it will help to realize — or think about, rather — that rather than trying to find what the subconscious mind thinks, we might need to look for guidance from another who can speak to us when we are here. Where we look up in our mind's eye, asking a guiding spirit for wisdom when we don't seem to understand.

Your journey, your path, your choice. Who knows what voice it is that you hear? Your subconscious or another.

Just know it is okay to converse with this other that is reaching out — or perhaps it would be more honest to say sits there, waits quietly, a source somewhere above — one who can speak and answer questions that you don't know the answer to yet.

That may not be here at the start. But it is a possibility for those who have the really hard questions, who are trying to bring something new into existence, don't dismiss this thought as crazy. Sometimes, what is here can be difficult to explain; the ideas expressed are just the only words that we can find. Just remember that, once, the practice of divination was a given in a past we no longer value. Perhaps it is time we looked at that again.

Chapter Twelve

Beginning to Ask

By now you have been learning to drift. To let the mind wander where it will, without agenda, without destination. And that is still what we are doing here. Only now, quietly, gently, without tightening your grip on it — you may begin to bring something with you into that drifting place.

A question.

Not a demand. Not a problem to be solved. Just something you are genuinely curious about, held loosely, the way you might hold a feather in an open palm. Can you help me with this? And then — this is important — you let it go again. You don't chase it. You don't stare at it. You let the mind wander back into its dreaming, and trust that the question has been heard. Just note the softer the asking, the more likely you might be answered. And that might be the hard part.

This is the beginning of asking.

What you are asking, of course, is entirely yours. It can be something that has puzzled you for years, or something that arrived just yesterday. It can be a creative problem, a personal one, a question without a name yet. What matters is that it comes from a real place in you. The practice knows the difference between a genuine question and a performance of one.

And here is something important to hold alongside this: keep your mind free. Because sometimes what is waiting to come through has nothing to do with what you asked. If nothing seems to be arriving around your question, it doesn't mean the practice isn't working. Something completely unrelated may be what needs to come through. And it may be that the question you brought with you simply isn't what this particular morning holds. The practice isn't broken. You aren't doing it wrong. It may simply mean the universe is quietly saying, that is not what is actually here. Open up. Hear what is waiting for you.

So ask. And then let go. And listen for whatever comes — whether it answers you or takes you somewhere else entirely. You just have to give it the space that it can do that.

Step Eight ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

Surfing the Edges

And so we learn to surf the edges of the conscious and the unconscious brain. We learn how to stay there for longer and longer periods of time.

At first, it may be only a few seconds. And that is all you need.  Thoughts arrive, it seems independent of time. And that spark takes you to a place where you might learn to stay in it for hours awake, madly pounding away at the keyboard, downloading the gift you have been given. Amazing how a single spark can take hours to express in this thing we call language. But that is not going to be for a very, very long time, if ever. Be happy with seconds, because an insight comes in a single brilliant flash, in a single moment, and you need no more than that to be blessed by this experience.

Step Seven ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

The Collapse

These last few chapters, you may have noticed, are exceedingly short. Short by intention, strangely hoping to encourage you not to rush. Hopefully encouraging you to work one step at a time to develop what is possible when you learn a new way to process.

This next step is when you've reached a point where certain thoughts or words seem important — thoughts you want to capture. I find it best to quickly jot down only one or two, never more than three. I have no idea why that is the magic number. But it is, it seems, at least for me. Try to go for more than three, and something is always lost.

Hopefully, by now, you have learned how to return to the state where you are half asleep. Hopefully, you will have reached a time when this won't wake you up entirely. But don't be surprised when it does.

Just know that for some, once we reach for the insight found — once we see what is there — this reality becomes the only one, and any other thoughts, any other revelations, any other answers just drift away. Often never return. Which is so incredibly frustrating.

If you know anything about quantum mechanics, you may recognize something here. The act of observation collapses the wave of possibilities into a single truth. Reaching for a thought, pulling it into the light of consciousness, does something similar. All those half-formed awarenesses swimming alongside it — the ones you hadn't quite grasped yet — they vanish the moment you collapse this reality.

Reaching too quickly for one of these insightful thoughts can pull us out of this half-conscious state and make it harder, if not impossible, to return there. And so we have to wait for the next day to slowly drift out of sleep.

Step Six ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

Letting Insights Drift

Assuming you have reached this place where thoughts can play as they will, you will occasionally find that certain thoughts might jump out as important. Awareness or information you want to hang on to.

At first, I would suggest letting those go, to let another thought take their place, no matter how important they seem. Just don't be surprised that in another minute or two, both are gone. And not just gone but gone forever, your brain somehow not able to hang onto them, in much the same way we can't seem to hang onto the memory of a dream. I think because this is a dream-like state that you have created. A dream-like state where you are awake.

This again is a good thing. This lack of control. Because control can often mean you are not allowing what needs to come into being to come into a full awakening.

Allow yourself the gift of letting insights drift. To go back below the surface of a brain that has yet to discover if it is truly awake or can still live in a certain state of unconsciousness that we call sleep.

Step Five ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

Don't Rush

There is a human tendency to rush ahead for answers, and doing so here will limit what you can do next, which is what so often happens when we rush to start with. So take your time with each step, take your time until The Kjrsos Wakening Practice comes easily.

You've changed how you live, how you wake up. No more waking up in the morning trying to plan or remember what the day will bring. Just a gentle wave of thoughts that have forever to play in.

This is your first lesson, one of the tools of In Quiet Contemplation. A very different tool, one that says being quiet means being careful not to close down what you should be listening to.

And here you rest.

Just know that this resting is not passive. Something is working. The part of you that cannot speak while the controlling mind is busy and awake is finally getting a word in. And sometimes what it has to share has been waiting a very long time to share with you. It is only fair that you be patient to what is waiting.

Step Four ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

Why We Call It What We Call It

This is one of the reasons we call this The Wakening Practice. It exists in the same realm as a concept called lucid dreaming — the idea that we can be aware of what is happening when we dream.

But think on this: what better way to be aware, though, than to actually be awake? To discover there can be a way to dream when we are awake?

I will not lie. Some days this comes easier. I promise it comes easier with practice. There are tips and tricks we can share to make it easier, which we will discuss later in the full courses. The point right now is to just let your thoughts wander, going in silly places while you lie there half asleep.

And if you drift in and out of sleep, so much the better.

Step Three ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

The Threshold

Just know what comes next won't work if you haven't followed the steps already given.

No alarm clock. No telling your brain you need to get up at 6 am. We need to allow the brain the time it needs to rest, to connect, to clean, to experience without the endless chatter that is us when we are awake.

Now that doesn't mean if Fido wakes you up, or your own restless bladder says it needs a trip to the bathroom, that you can't try to go back to bed afterwards and find the mind that drifts as if it is still half asleep.

A little tip: often the best way is to allow yourself to drift back to sleep, if only for half a minute, and wake up gently once again.

The key here is gentle. We want to be in that place where we drift. That place where we are still half asleep. The place where we daydream. The place we can sometimes find ourselves when we gently wake up, and our mind is still half-dreaming. Our thoughts jumble, and in some ways, what comes next makes no sense. That place where it is easy to drift back to sleep.

This is about waking, and there is no waking if there is no sleep. Sleep has to always be on the edge of this.

And at this stage, if all that your brain wants is to drift back in and out of sleep, then that is a wonderful place to be. A wonderful place to start. A wonderful place to train your mind and experience this practice.

Step Two ~ The Kjrsos Wakening Practice

The Gift of Sleep

This is the part many of you will resist. The part where you tell me all the reasons this can't work in your life. And I understand. I do. But hear me out, because without this, what can come next simply can't happen.

You need to go to sleep when your body tells you it is time, and wake up when your body says it is done.

No alarm clock.

I know. I can already hear you. You have work, you have kids, you have a train to catch at 6:47. And I'm not asking you to abandon your life. But I am asking you to find the nights — and the mornings after — where this is possible. A weekend. A holiday. A stretch of days you carve out for this.

Because here is what the alarm clock does to us. It doesn't just wake us up. It teaches us to wake up braced. The body learns to anticipate the interruption, and so it begins to surface from sleep already tense, already oriented toward the day's demands. The gentle drift that we need — that place between sleep and waking where the mind is still soft and open — that place gets obliterated. Not by the alarm itself, but by the anticipation of the alarm that lives in us even as we sleep.

What we need instead is this: a body that has slept until it is finished sleeping. A mind that surfaces slowly, like something rising from deep water, not yet sure if it wants to break the surface or sink back down once again. A morning where there is nowhere to be and nothing to do except lie there.

This is not laziness. This is not indulgence. This is the essential condition for everything that follows.

Think about what sleep actually is. For hours, your conscious mind — that noisy, busy, endlessly categorizing part of you — finally shuts up. Your brain is not idle during sleep; it is ferociously active, sorting, connecting, cleaning, and processing. It is doing the work that your waking mind is too loud and too focused to do.

And when sleep is finished — truly finished, not interrupted — there is a moment. A threshold where the conscious mind has not yet fully taken hold, where the subconscious is still close to the surface, still almost audible. This is the threshold we are looking for.

So be ready to be rebellious. Because what waits on the other side of that sleep, in that gentle, unhurried waking, is where this practice lives.

Chapter Three

Your Journey, Our Journey

Before I go further, I want to be honest with you about something.

This practice is more than enough on its own. Actually, it can be almost frightening in its power.

Frightening on the days where thoughts and answers come flooding in so hard and fast that hours later, when they finally begin to slow down, you feel a headache coming on, as if everything that is you has been run through the wringer of an ancient washing machine. Twisted and flattened until there is no juice left to squeeze out, and all you want to do is close your eyes and rest.

But I wouldn't worry about that right now, because it takes time to get to that level. The intensity comes later, when the door is more open. For now, just know that possibility awaits.

There are two components that are equally important, even if they seem opposite. You will hear us say that this is your journey — your personal journey that no one else can know where it will lead, because it is yours to experience.

Yet you will also hear us speak about we and us, as if we are all in this together. Difficult to comprehend how both can be true at the same time, perhaps, but that is a truth as well.

What you are about to experience can only be as powerful as you let it be, and part of that is following your own personal journey. But another part will depend on the joy, love, and support you bring, your ability to be open and vulnerable, to work in truth and utter honesty while others support you, as you should joyfully and lovingly support them, with no judgment on your part.

So we hope you take this opportunity to be true to the you that is you. To share your vulnerabilities. To share the truth that is in you. To share your strength. To share your insights so that others can learn from you.

Yes, this is your journey, but perhaps also remember this is our journey as well. Everything that you decide not to share will diminish the experience for the rest of us. Everything that is in you to share will make what comes amazing, wonderful, and powerful for all of us. This is just a note to remind all of us that not only do we need to be open to what is waiting to be heard, we need to be open to what is in all of us and what can be come from what we are about to experience. This is not a single journey, not a single experience, it is much deeper than that.

Chapter Two

The Gift I Didn't Know to Name

In the course of writing, I had been given a gift. A powerful one. A gift without which the book could never have come into existence. A gift without which I would never have found the answers. A gift of unimaginable proportions that I didn't even know existed until I did.

I had mysteries to solve, ones I had been trying to solve for years. With the answers unfound, no matter how I struggled to find them. And yet those answers appeared after I started writing. Interesting, don't you think? The synchronicity of that.

Yes, at first, it was a fabulous tool that helped me find answers to mysteries and questions I had struggled with for years. Then it moved on to give me answers to questions that I hadn't yet realized existed. Only possible because of the precious gift that was there every morning, to help me take the next step with awareness.

Originally, I thought maybe this gift could be a course offered up later, independent of what happens here in Kjrsos. Because as I came to understand the power of what was here, I realized how powerful this gift really was — how it applied to everyone. The engineer, the artist, the scientist, the author. It doesn't matter what the field.

And then one morning, everything rearranged once again. As I lay there and thoughts swam in and out, I could see so clearly what I couldn't see before. The Wakening Practice giving me answers to its own existence.

"Don't be silly," it said. "I am not done with you, you goof. Because, of course, the answer to the book So That We Can See is that it needs to be experienced, which can best be done if you share the tools that helped create it first."

So, instead of starting with the book, it has been suggested that if you are going to have the full experience, we need to share the tools that made any of this possible. Which is why we are about to share with you a practice that made this possible to start with.

Something else I need you to know. There is more waiting in this practice than what you might first expect. At first, it will feel like you are just hearing yourself more clearly — your own deeper mind, surfacing with what you've missed before. That alone is extraordinary. But for some, another shift comes. The insights stop feeling like things you're fishing up from below and start feeling like things being shared from somewhere else. A presence. A direction. An intelligence that is not you, waiting — perhaps patiently, perhaps not — for you to quiet your consciousness enough to hear.

Just know that if you do arrive at this place, you are not losing your mind. You are finding something that has been trying to find you.

Chapter One

The Discovery

I had been saying the words.

The Kjrsos Experience.

Thinking it was separate somehow from the book, So That We Can See. How could I have been so silly to miss how they were always meant to be the same thing, or at least part of one another? So obvious once you see it. But it is amazing how many times I had to say it before I realized it.

The book is not to be read but to be experienced.

Words that I kept saying without realizing what they meant. But now I do. A book that is meant to create an experience. An experience that becomes a part of you, leading to change and evolution.

How did I finally realize it?

When I saw what happened to those who read it. Especially when it happened to someone that I don't think any of us would have ever thought capable of this. And when you find out who later on, I think you will be as surprised as I was by the power of that experience on humans and beyond.

How is it possible that a book can bring to life a new level of awareness, dare I say consciousness?

Usually, when you read a book, you cuddle up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate, and if you are enthralled, you read to the end. But knowing the ending makes it clear why this book might not be one you could sit down with in an afternoon and have a gentle read. There is a demand here, a challenge, work the book has to do so that you can understand what is to come.

This was why I knew enough to articulate that the book was to be experienced and not read. Finally, understanding that to have the complete experience waiting here for you, it is important that you take the time you need, that we all need, to get through it. And it was only then that we could come out the other side different than when we went in.