In liberation, nobody awakens — the seeker simply falls away.
– Ram Dass
I rarely write or say these things, because it can be quite misleading. On the one hand, a thought may say there is a shift called liberation, and that it is relatively stable. And yet, that too is a story. It may make it appear more as an object or thing than it is, and more stable than it necessarily is.
As Byron Katie says, somewhat paraphrased, there is liberation, or not, from the thought that’s here and it cannot be predicted in advance. Another way to say it, maybe more accurately, is that the thought that’s here is liberated, or not, from being taken as true, and it cannot be predicted in advance.
And one of the most basic thoughts that can be liberated, or not, from being taken as true, is the thought of an I (observer, doer) and a me (this being, soul, human self). It’s the idea of a seeker that is seen as just an idea, an image. It may happen through identification releasing out of it temporarily. Or it may happen by it being examined and seen through to the point that mind cannot so easily identify with it.
It’s not the I or me that awakens. It’s reality or life that awakens out of the trance of identifying with the image of an I or me.