Patrick Ryan is one of those people who’s life would be improbable if it were presented as fiction. Few people die and live to bring back their enlighten perspective. His life journey is remarkable in all it’s challenges, lessons, discoveries, and the unique paths that have led to his wide awake wisdom.

Ryan died from a drug overdose in his late teens, chose to live, and embraced the path of a successful entrepreneur. Then he walked away from a comfortable life to become a Buddhist monk in Burma. Currently, he is an executive coach, trainer and author based in the San Francisco area significantly contributing to this period of awakened consciousness. This is not a man who lets much get in the way of life learning and soul evolution. As he puts it, “I love the life I am living and I feel blessed every day with the challenges of daily life.”

His newest book, Awakened Wisdom: A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance, starts with the premise that each of us has a “diamond” of hidden potential within and that we must shape, cut and polish this diamond of potential to realize our full brilliance through self-development and conscious daily living.

As he defines it, an awakened life means that “You are actively engaged in creating and manifesting the people, relationships, purpose, resources and quality of life that you desire according to your highest wisdom.”

Ryan calls himself a reluctant author. When I spoke with him he explained, “I didn’t feel the need to write this book to be complete. The book tapped my on the shoulder saying ‘You’re the one!’” He describes this as a yearning (one among many that he has followed) that invoked a response from him.

Balancing the mystical with the practical

“We all have our bundle of gifts. Me, I have one foot in the mystical, one foot in the practical. Every time I have a mystical experience I ask how I can convert it for daily life,” he says of his approach to the book’s material. He takes Native and Buddhist traditions and adapts them into a modern application.

At it’s core the book is a response to the truth that “A great awakening is upon us, it is happening, and it is good.” As a world traveler, Ryan says that in all corners of the globe from Asia to corporate offices people are attuned to the spiritual awakening happening everywhere.

Our connected consciousness

“We are so connected. As we are contributing our energy to global consciousness, we are elevating our neighbors (both next-door neighbors and global neighbors). And, as consciousness arises en masse opposing forces are in the last grasps of fighting the inevitable.”

This comment about rising consciousness creating a backlash amongst die-hard power junkies who want to maintain control through fear-based consciousness, reminds me of how perturbed my husband gets at right wing political extremists like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. Ryan believes that even these even these extremists know at their heart things are changing.

Ryan focuses much of the first part of Awakened Wisdom discussing the difference between being directed by one’s Divine Essence rather than directing your life from a ego-mind Distorted Self. The second half of the book outlines the eight states of an awakened life.

Awakened consciousness and the law of attraction

“If we don’t do our inner work we could attract all the riches in the world (ala the law of attraction) and still not be happy. Learning how to connect with Divine Essence, we can then look at all the things that we feel arise in us,” he states. “We need to find our wholeness first, and at our core some personal work wants to happen.”

Ryan explains the truth, that anytime our life is a mess something new is trying to come forth. This is usually painful, but it’s a perfect opportunity to embrace that something amazing will come through.”

Accessing our 3 intelligences

To help readers access that something amazing, Awakened Wisdom describes the three Intelligences that we all have access to and that create our wisdom field. These are heart intelligence, mind intelligence and body intelligence. “All the ideas, creativity, and solutions live around us. We just have to open ourselves to it by connecting through mind, body and soul,” he states.

For most of us this means SLOW DOWN not speed up, he remarks with a laugh. He reminds us that there are 7 billion people trying to make their dreams come true at the same time. That means that we need to give the universe a break and take a breath!

I comment that my ego mind finds it a little hard to reconcile the importance of our finding our purpose and living it, with my understanding that to the universe “it’s not personal.” So much of motivation rests on ego mind thinking that only we can bring that something special to the world I remark to Ryan.

Ryan understandingly chuckles at this and explains that the universe wants certain things to unfold and come into being, so it sends out seeds, like blowing on a dandelion. The seeds land with the people with the right talents to make it happen. Of course, not everyone who gets the seed will have the resources to make it come to fruition, or they simply won’t act on the insight or idea, or aren’t fully connected to it. So the universe has to send out lots of seeds. That’s why people from different parts of the globe will have the same idea or concept.

The importance of working together

“Everyone has a contribution, a part to play; there is no waste of energy in the universe,” he assures me, continuing, “Align with the idea that ‘yes, you’re special’ and your specialness is needed and that you cannot do it alone. We need to pull in other beings around us.”

Ryan then makes a very important point: There was a time when you could have an idea and go it alone. That doesn’t work anymore because world is far too connected now. The person doing it alone will get swept over by the people doing it together. It’s the difference between one person making a Twitter post and a group of people making it go viral.

As he says, “The key used to be location, location, location, now it’s timing, timing, timing.”

Reconciling our human nature with our spirit nature

Our conversation moves to reconciling our human nature with our spiritual nature. Ryan believes it’s important to look (observe) everything that shows up in our personal system (heart, mind, body), rather than making our human nature wrong and our spirit nature right. We can always transcend our animal nature and choose to connect to our Divine Essence, to God, the universe.

Ryan puts it into perspective saying, “No matter how far we go spiritually, we’re connected to our human nature. When I died, I realized ‘I am not my body.’ I was held in a field of compassion and love and I was still experiencing that from the human side of the coin.”

Ryan concludes our conversation with this sensible and radiant thought: “We have a responsibility that can be carried with ease and delight — to develop ourselves, to trend to higher levels of spirituality.”

3-Day Guided program

Ryan offers a 3-day guided program that takes participants on a journey to opening to relationship with selves, opening to the wisdom field and responding to what the universe is asking from them. Then participants make a plan and get practical. He also offers advanced training for coaches. For more information about these programs or his book go to www.AwakenedWisdom.com

Melissa Wadsworth is an author, inspirational speaker and creative personal growth guide, specializing in intuitive dream boards and creative intuition tools that take workshop participants from blocked to brilliant.