When driving in dense fog and we suddenly come into a clearer patch, the headlights reveal more of the landscape around us.
This visual idea is a good analogy for the beginning of 'Spiritual' Awakening.
All our lives, our perception is limited.
If it were not, we would of course have unlimited awareness.
Our awareness is limited by what might be likened to dense fog.
But what is this 'fog'?
And... why is it there?
Before 'Spiritual' Awakening we do not even know we are in this 'fog'.
Just as when in a dream, we do not know we are asleep.
The 'fog' has always been there - it is all we have ever known - we have been living in it all our lives.
We do not know how the 'fog' forms, but we do know how we experience it.
It is the content of our mind - thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, beliefs, imagination, images, memories, dreams...
This is the 'fog' - and it seems like it must be created by all we have experienced in our past.
It appears to be an accumulation of leftovers, or 'residues' of everything we have been through in our lives - our experiences and what we have learned - either physically, emotionally or mentally.
But we only ever 'consciously know' fragments of these 'residues' when they come into our conscious awareness.
This is because these 'residues' 'live' in the unconscious mind.
Most 'residues' are relatively 'light', but some originate from powerful or long lasting experiences, and these may remain with us all our life.
These 'residues' all share one common characteristic - they seem to draw our attention into them when they appear in our mind and body as thoughts and feelings.
It is almost like they exert a 'magnetic' pull on our attention.
We might say, they have a kind of 'energy' to them...
These 'energies' of the content of the 'fog' exert a strong attraction for our attention - and this acts to keep us focused on, and engaged with, the content of the 'fog', rather than what may lie 'beyond' it.