Waking up is a habit.
Waking up happens any time we notice what we are. And this only happens here and now.
Any memory of past noticing is a reminder to notice now. Any idea of future noticing is a reminder to notice now. And any idea of “permanent” awakening is a reminder to notice now.
Over time, this noticing can become a new habit.
And to us, it happens here and now and any idea of time and habits happen within and as what we are.
Awakening as noticing vs shift in center of gravity
I realize I should add something.
The essence of awakening is to notice what we are, and make it into a habit.
There is another side of this, and that is about our center of gravity. What do we take ourselves to be without any effort to notice or shift anything?
For most people, it’s in who we are, in our human self, because that’s our identity and what we are familiar with.
When the spontaneous out-of-the-blue awakening happened in my teens, the center of gravity shifted into Big Mind and oneness. That made what I am easy to notice. It was always here and still is.
If our center of gravity is in who we are and we notice what we are and make that noticing into a habit, then our center of gravity will naturally shift more into Big Mind and oneness.
It’s natural and healthy to have some fluidity here. Our center of gravity is naturally somewhere between who and what we are. And in any one situation, we can shift more into finding ourselves as Big Mind or our human self.