When there is an awakening, it happens both for the unmanifest and the manifest.
The unmanifest – awareness, awake void – awakens to itself as the unmanifest, and as the manifest happening within, to and as itself.
The manifest – this human self and the wider world – similarly awakens to itself as awake void, and to itself as the manifest already and always inherently absent of an I with an other.
Both awakens to its nature as the field of awake void and form inherently absent of an I with an Other.
Both can, and usually do, happen suddenly. But the second one also take time to trickle through, to reorganize all the different parts of this human self within this new context of not being taken as an I with an Other. The realization is there, but deepening into the lived realization takes time. As long as this human self is still around, it continues to reorganize, mature and develop within this new context.
I wrote a long comment, but erased it because this is better and burdened with less of my ignorance and silliness.
In Wikipedia, there is this about what Rumi believes. I am curious to know how closely this fits in with the words in your post.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism#Sufism
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, (1207-1273), one of the most famous Sufi masters and poets, has written that what humans perceive as duality is in fact a veil, masking the reality of the Oneness of existence. “All desires, preferences, affections, and loves people have for all sorts of things,” he writes, are veils. He continues: “When one passes beyond this world and sees that Sovereign (God) without these ‘veils,’ then one will realize that all those things were ‘veils’ and ‘coverings’ and that what they were seeking was in reality that One.” The veils, or rather, duality, exists for a purpose, however, Rumi contends. If God as the divine, singular essence of all existence were to be made fully manifest to us, he counsels, we would not be able to bear it and would immediately cease to exist as individuals.
When we refer to the Unmanifest we might bear in mind that there is no contrast in that “source” energy. By contrast I mean there is no light, no darkness as unmanifest created them both. The creator is not the same as the created. There is no awakening as there is no sleep. There is, however, expression of potential, and unmanifest is total potential. We, as humans are a form of expression by the unmanifest that has the unique ability of questioning everything. We are the one species that wonders about all the details of our origin and destiny. We are the one species that often misses the “now” moment in pursuit of clarity regarding our past and future. We are the one species that will take experiential consciousness back into unmanifest as each of the separated bits of energy (us) assimilate into unmanifest. We hate to consider that the finality of our journeys is assimilation into unmanifest because we feel we are losing ourselves in that transition, however, we are contributing to the true unity of all that is, thereby gaining oneness with all the other experiences. The emptiness is the fullness; the quietness is the orchestra; the stillness is progression;