Who's awakened?

[blackskirt]

At some point I became awakened to my own enlightenment, everything which gives me peace. I don't remember exactly when, but ever since then, alongside my ordinary life I live as a healer, noticing many people around me are lost in many ways, and doing my best to gently guide them along through the sharing of our knowledge and experiences. Many healers are also in need of healing themselves. ^^

 

[panic in paradise]

Being alive is the awakeness. Right now this is awakeness typing on a computer, this is awakeness breathing and smiling, this is awakeness considering what another person is saying, etc. The idea that you are asleep until you are 'awakened' by some philosophy is garbage.

There is no spiritual ladder. People who are so hooked on the idea of transcending will eventually realize that they will have to come back down to earth, and still live here like everyone else. It's called post-transcendant spirituality. It's realizing that there is no "higher" or "lower" spirituality, it's all One. You don't go up or down, you stay where you are your entire life, because you were never asleep. Something in you has not changed since the day you were born, even as you grew up and changed physical form, learned and developed new ideas. That subtle presence holds the truth - it never changes. There is nothing you have to do to appease it or be worthy of it. It does not progress or regress. It just is. This is the awakeness - the love, the connection - that you always are, unconditionally.

There is nothing you have to do to earn the connection. There is no middle man. The connection is right now. This moment is as good as it gets. The only thing that makes you forget is the illusion of separation, created by your own temporary ego thinking that it is individual and separate from the rest of the universe. Once you realize this illusion, you'll realize you were always connected. And this subtle presence in you, it is the same in everything else - in humans, animals, and everything else in the universe. It is the Oneness that is you. This is not the "you" that will analyze and try to explain it away; it's not the "you" that identifies as a me/I/self that will try to write it off because it tenaciously clammers for ownership of its own self-identified reality; it's the real YOU, underneath the mask of this current drama, that makes no demand to be heard. It is peace and stillness eternal.

Don't listen to the middle men and never give them your money. Anyone who is the real deal that has something to teach you will never charge you money. Paying to be awakened is one of the biggest oxymorons I have ever heard of. You are already awake - there can only be awakeness.

I definitely can appreciate this, keep it as simple as possible because there is a fraction of trust worthy information compared to what is bunk, misleading, or partial. and partial if only to have more to offer for sale.

 

[qwe]

@foreigner, i largely agree. but as humans we have developmental stages, and there are layers of ourselves that we can peel back for greater awareness of ourselves and our universe. we have systems of behavior that are "generalized" road maps for greater awareness, different systems for different spiritualities.

there are amazing states that humans can achieve, by working with these ego layers in various ways. we've named some of these states of mind relatively "enlightened." sometimes, it feels like you're on a mountain top, but you're just deluding yourself, sure. but there are ways to see more than one currently sees, to climb, using will and curiosity, to states way beyond what could be described in any rational discourse like this one; and ways to verify that one really was on "a peak."

you're right when you say that everybody is awake in some sense. the better question is, who is awakened to what? some climb to a particular level, find that they like that state of mind, and stay there their entire lives, with only occasional disturbances to their mental-spiritual equilibrium. these people have been awakened, but not in the sense that the original poster meant, i think. most of us, including myself for some time before the inner lightning strike made possible by an amazing molecule, are asleep in that sense: spiritually stagnant, navigating the material world with varying degrees of success, playing life's games, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, etc...

 

[panic in paradise]

^ those layers over time take place as they have learned to, been trained to rather by what experiences have been had and how those experiences were rationalized. Depending on how many layers were peeled away is what helps determine the extent of culture & reality shock etc. that might occur. The 'Dark Night' 'Black Moon' phrase phenomena is the synapses of the brain, layers of consciousness attempting to now settle as never before. Every sense also responds differently once the mind does as-well, so much does not smell and taste the same either because of this.?


IDK, but it sure is interesting.

 

[Foreigner]

you're right when you say that everybody is awake in some sense. the better question is, who is awakened to what? some climb to a particular level, find that they like that state of mind, and stay there their entire lives, with only occasional disturbances to their mental-spiritual equilibrium. these people have been awakened, but not in the sense that the original poster meant, i think. most of us, including myself for some time before the inner lightning strike made possible by an amazing molecule, are asleep in that sense: spiritually stagnant, navigating the material world with varying degrees of success, playing life's games, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, etc...

You're caught in false duality of separation my friend. Everyone is awakened to the same thing, right now. There is no up or down in spiritual levels. There is nowhere to climb to, only the projection that climbing is necessary. If you want greater awareness, then all you're asking for is greater knowledge. You belong in a library then because your temporal ego (the one I'm talking to now) wants the satisfaction of feeling like it has gotten the upper hand.

All that is, is being. There is nothing you have to do to qualify. The most uneducated person on earth has the same beingness as the rich and affluent. The only problems in the world are the ones you are projecting. Take a look at what is happening in this very moment, in your environment. Anything that challenges you is showing you that you are projecting something.

Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the world so that they can be happy. This hasn’t ever worked, because it approaches the problem backward. Don't look to others. Give yourself a way to change the projector—mind—rather than the projected. It’s like when there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the picture that is projected, and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw appears on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images. Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself. This is the end of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.

What you need to do is get out of your own way from seeing what you already are: perfect, unconditional love that makes no demands, no desire to be higher or lower than anyone else, and is perfectly equanimous with simply being.

 

[panic in paradise]

You're caught in false duality of separation my friend. Everyone is awakened to the same thing, right now. There is no up or down in spiritual levels. There is nowhere to climb to, only the projection that climbing is necessary. If you want greater awareness, then all you're asking for is greater knowledge. You belong in a library then because your temporal ego (the one I'm talking to now) wants the satisfaction of feeling like it has gotten the upper hand.

All that is, is being. There is nothing you have to do to qualify. The most uneducated person on earth has the same beingness as the rich and affluent. The only problems in the world are the ones you are projecting. Take a look at what is happening in this very moment, in your environment. Anything that challenges you is showing you that you are projecting something.

Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the world so that they can be happy. This hasn’t ever worked, because it approaches the problem backward. Don't look to others. Give yourself a way to change the projector—mind—rather than the projected. It’s like when there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the picture that is projected, and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw appears on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images. Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself. This is the end of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.

What you need to do is get out of your own way from seeing what you already are: perfect, unconditional love that makes no demands, no desire to be higher or lower than anyone else, and is perfectly equanimous with simply being.

This has me think that awakening is the clear observation of ones self amidst their surroundings, and how aw-filling everything really is.

 

[Free Radical]

this dude Ivan Stang took the red pill and the blue pill, but i think it just made him go crazy

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

One time I was thinking about the biblical phrase "know thyself" and then about some random poet's response to that was to say "to know yourself is to cease to be concerned about yourself." And I let those thoughts sink in and grow inside me, and I felt an instant sense of relief and heightened senses. I guess it was an awakening. The immediate upshot of that was I was invincible at Rock Paper Scissors with everyone around me for a few days. I had the self-reflective buddha-smile going and I couldn't be beat. True story.

I've since back-slid from that event I believe. Oh well.