Awakening and enlightenment is sometimes seen as mysterious, from another time or culture, for special people, or a fantasy.
And yet, there is a banality to it.
It’s about what we already are noticing itself. Noticing that all content of experience happens within and as what we are. And living from it.
From a conventional view, we can say we are a body, a human being, and so on. And that’s valid enough.
And yet, what we are to ourselves is consciousness.
Consciousness is what experiences or is aware of anything. To consciousness, everything – all experiences – happens within and as itself. And that’s what we are.
What we are is what all our experiences happens within and as. Including our human self, any sense of a me or I or observer or doer, and any ideas about who and what we are – including any ideas about consciousness.
The world as it appears to us – with all its content – happens within and as what we are.
It’s logical. It’s inevitable. It’s something we can notice and explore for ourselves.
And it’s quite banal.
To ourselves, we are consciousness. The world as it appears to us happens within and as consciousness. All content of experience happens within and as what we are.
And it’s all about noticing what we already are and what’s already here.
It’s so ordinary that it’s sometimes easy to overlook.
On the one hand, I understand that we humans are used to taking ourselves to be this body, a human being, and so on.
And yet, it seems so obvious that to ourselves we are consciousness and all our experiences happen within and as what we are. It’s inevitable. It’s logical. It’s not something we can get around.
So why isn’t it acknowledged more often? Why isn’t it the basics of psychology 101? Why isn’t it something that more people – including people in research and academia – explore and study?
If we allow our civilization to continue, I imagine there will be a time when this is more commonly acknowledged and explored, including through research and in academia. It’s already happening, to some extent.
So why isn’t this more commonly noticed and acknowledged?
I assume it’s because our mind is typically conditioned to think of itself as an object in the world, as a human being, as someone with identities and roles, and so on. I
It tends to get fixated on its own content. As many say, it’s a kind of trance.
And as we can discover through inquiry, it’s because our mind associates certain sensations with certain thoughts, the thoughts give a sense of meaning to the sensations, and the sensations give a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the thoughts.
That’s how the mind can tell itself that it fundamentally is an object in the world – a human, man, woman etc. – and overlook what it actually and more fundamentally is.
This is how what we are can overlook what it is. Capacity for the world. What all its experiences happen within and as.
What happens when this noticing happens? Does it have any practical value?
Yes and no. It doesn’t change the reality of our life – our circumstances and challenges.
But it does change how we see and understand it all. It changes the context for our life and experiences. And that, in a sense, changes everything.
Is this what the different spiritual traditions talk about?
I assume so.
For instance, we are capacity for the world as it appears to us, and this is the void that Buddhism talks about. We are nothing full of everything. And we can say that this is clarity, awakeness, consciousness.
It’s also oneness since all happens within and as what we are, and any ideas of an I or me happens within and as what we are – as anything else does. And it’s all love since oneness is also love. Not sentimental love, but the love that comes from oneness noticing itself as all there is.
If this is banal in some ways, is it also not banal?
Yes, it’s banal in that it’s what we already are noticing itself, and our life – in terms of its challenges and problems – doesn’t neccesarily change even if our conscious context for this life changes.
When this noticing is happening, our life goes on much as before. And as we mature in it, our life often tends to look very ordinary, and perhaps more and more ordinary, to others.
It’s also not banal. It’s the most dramatic change in our conscious context for our life possible. We go from taking ourselves to be an object in the world to that which the world, as it appears to us, happens within and as. We may experience it as magical, amazing, and even baffling.
And as we live from it, our life does transform. In a sense, we become more thoroughly and ordinarily human. We deepen into an ordinary humanness, kindness, and – perhaps – a bit of wisdom.
In another sense, living from this new noticing is extraordinary. It helps transform our human self. It helps the human parts of us still living within separation consciousness to join in with the oneness, and this gives a deep healing of old wounds and traumas. It’s not an easy process, it can be confusing and even overwhelming, and yet it’s more than worth it.
It’s also anything but banal to experience all of existence – as it appears to us – as consciousness, AKA love, AKA Spirit, AKA the divine.
Are there stages to this noticing?
Yes and no.
In one sense, the noticing itself is the same. It’s what we are noticing itself. We find ourselves as capacity for our world and all content of experience.
At the same time, there is a deepening of clarity, healing, maturity, and living from it.