It’s helpful to look at anything that seems solid or real in connection with awakening. How does my mind create its experience of awakening, human self, non-enlightened people, confusion, separation, better than, worse than, deficiency stories, and so on.
The mind can easily use awakening, or more precisely the idea of awakening, to create a sense of safety. It can tell itself it made it, it’s safe, it’s better than others, it knows something that others don’t, it’s found approval from life or Spirit, there is no further to go, and so on. And that’s all ways to find safety. It’s good to look at.
A pointer is that if anything about the awakening seems less than ordinary, then it’s good to look at.
It’s less helpful to just list ways that an awakening is ordinary or less so. It’s mainly just fodder for thoughts, and that nourishment doesn’t go very deep. That said, here is a less than helpful list of how awakening is ordinary 😉
It has happened to – or through – a large number of people through history. Most of whom we have never heard about because they lived quiet lives without writing much or anything, and they may not even have had many or any students.
It’s what we are noticing itself. It’s presence (aka awakeness, consciousness, Spirit) noticing itself as all there is. It’s what we already are noticing itself, and it’s what everything already is noticing itself. In that sense, it’s ordinary all around.
The essential realizations that go along with an awakening are universal and ordinary in that context.
There is a flavoring to how this is lived and expressed, and that’s to be expected and ordinary. It’s colored by culture, tradition, and individual experiences and inclinations.
There are usually more peripheral or supporting realizations and pointers, and these too are colored by culture, tradition, and individual experiences and tendencies. How this is expressed may or may not appear ordinary, and that something like that is happening is to be expected and ordinary.
And a couple of ways awakenings are not so ordinary.
What’s awakening to itself is all there is. Still, that awakening or noticing is not happening in a widespread way in society. It’s not ordinary in a statistical sense.
The flavors of the realizations and how they are expressed are unique. (Even if that uniqueness is to be expected and is ordinary in that sense.)
In the best case, these statements can be used as a starting point for inquiry and our own exploration. What do I find when I look for myself? What do I find when I look in a more finely grained way, with specific examples? (That’s how it can sink in a bit deeper.)
……..
……..
……..
Initial notes……
- awakening and ordinariness
- what we are noticing itself – ordinary in the sense that what we are is what everything is, nothing is more ordinary
- who we are realigning with what we are, is ordinary when there is an awakening, a part of the process
- the insights, also ordinary, pretty universal although flavored by our unique path, culture, and other influences, and that uniqueness is completely ordinary and to be expected
Even the more peripheral insights, or the ones more colored by culture and individual experience, are pretty universal within those contexts.
………
The more peripheral insights are colored by culture, tradition, and individual experience. and that coloring is ordinary.
The uniqueness of the flavoring of realization and their expression is to be expected and ordinary.
………
Awakening is ordinary in a few different ways.
It’s happened to a large number of people through history. Or, more precisely, it’s happened through a large number of people.
It’s what we are noticing itself. It’s presence (aka awakeness, consciousness, Spirit) noticing itself as all there is. It’s what we already are noticing itself, and it’s what everything already is noticing itself. In that sense, it’s ordinary all around.
The essential insights that go along with an awakening are universal and ordinary in that context.
Even the more peripheral insights colored by culture and individual experience are pretty universal within those contexts.
And that the flavoring of insights and expression is somewhat unique is also universal.
It’s not so ordinary in a couple of other ways:
Even if what’s awakening to itself is all there is, that awakening or noticing is still not happening in a widespread way.
And the flavors of the peripheral insights and how it’s expressed are unique. (Even if that uniqueness is to be expected and is ordinary in that sense.)