Is Awakening Sudden and Total? - 5th October 2017

As you have answered Emily's, but can you speak of this persistent idea that awakening is a sudden experience and everything up till then is a preparation for it? Speak of this persistent idea that awakening is a sudden experience and everything up till then is in preparation for it, meaning actually nothing can be done for that. But there is this feeling everyone who truly we call awake had this conversion, then they are doing their best to show us how simple that is already here now, but for them it was sudden and total.

Let's really look at what it means, this awakening. Now there are two things. One is that which we call the awakening, or that which we call the awakening experience. Now it is true that most of our teachers have told us that the awakening experience usually, as it happened, was a sudden shift in perspective. And they say, 'Well, there was no me, I disappeared, I couldn't find it.' It is like that. It is true that many have that, most have these kind of reports. And it is rare to have those who talk about this sober awakening where it was empty of a radical shift that happened in a moment.

And yet it is also true that all those who had these radical shifts are now saying that it is not about that experience itself. It is just in that moment nothing happened except that I saw what I always was, and you can also see that right here, right now. So it is one of the conundrums of this play of consciousness. It is the conundrum in this appearance of this world. It's like the Buddha himself did a lot of austerities and practices and then he said none of that is needed, just the middle path, moderation. So this is the way the world seems to play.

Actually, in Satsang, we have—you can say that there are many who are coming to this recognition in a very sober, not necessarily with a lot of fireworks, a lot of radical shifting. This everyday more and more clearing happens like that. At one level it is a conundrum, but it seems like most have had this kind of radical shifting and then they say, 'But it is not about just that experience, it is about the recognition of who we are and not picking up the false conditioning.' So if you were to look at it just in a simple way, what happens in that moment? What happens in that moment that it is seen where there is no individual me here, and it is seen that I am not a phenomenal object? You cannot find a location for yourself, cannot find the reference point for yourself. But that is true even now.

And yet this—I mean it seems sudden. It can seem like we were just caught up, seemingly so attached to this container of the body. I am not an object within this body, not an object. This is not here at all. In fact, it doesn't even feel like the body is an object. Nothing is an object. This feels like everything is just like that. But the main point is that now, as you're finding this about yourself, it's completely possible to drop that which is false. If you were to check now—this is what we do every day as we check now—we find that I'm not an object, I'm not a limited thing. So most of us will find this without necessarily having this very radical sort of awakening experience.