Progress on the path of awakening is entirely a matter of removing obstructions and restoring free flow. Waking in or from the dreamstate – adulthood and enlightenment respectively – is achieved not through gain but loss, not through expansion but contraction, not through triumph but defeat. It’s about surrender, not victory, and it can be a dreadful, messy business with not a lot of sweetness-and-light involved. Meditating, chanting, chakra-balancing and tantric-massaging all sound dreamy, but when it’s time to get serious you have to roll up your sleeves, draw forth the sword of thy indignation, and start fuckin’ shit up. Sorry, that’s just the way it is; no rebirth without first a death, and this is the death of a thousand cuts.