Is it possible to be awake without realizing it?
Is it possible for the oneness we are to recognize itself without realizing it?
It sounds almost like a contradiction, but I would say yes.
AWAKE WITHOUT KNOWING
Without having any statistics, I assume many who would be considered awake are not aware of it. They may have been born that way and live their lives mostly from it, without realizing it has any labels and without being interested in any labels.
The oneness they are recognizes itself and lives from that noticing.
It recognizes itself as the field that any and all experiences happen within, including of this human self.
It may not be that conscious all of the time. There may not be the realization that this is different from how most other onenesses perceive and life. It may not happen all of the time.
And yet, there is a general awakening without realizing that’s what it is or that it has any name.
To others, and maybe to themselves, they likely just seem like a normal and relatively healthy, sane, and kind human being.
TASTES WITHOUT KNOWING
Similarly, most or all of us have tastes of it without realizing that’s what it is, or what’s going on.
The oneness we are recognizes itself without perhaps being very conscious of it or having any names for it.
It’s just something that happens. It may happen more easily in certain situations, and we may attribute it to those situations. What happens is that we forget about ourselves. We literally forget to identify as this separate self and find ourselves as what’s left – this open field of experience. This can happen any time we are absorbed in what’s happening, for instance reading a book, doing art, being in a flow state, sex, drugs, music, yoga, martial art, sports, or something else.
When the oneness we are recognizes itself, it’s not really a state. It’s the field that any and all experiences happen within and as that recognizes itself. And yet, it may seem like a state since it comes and goes in time. It’s interpreted as a state. (That’s not entirely wrong. In this case, it is a state in that it comes and goes. And it is the state of the oneness we are recognizing itself.)
WHO & WHAT WE ARE
I’ll give a brief background, even if this is included in a lot of other articles here.
In one sense, we are this human being in the world. That’s what the passport tells us, it’s what others tell us, and it’s what our thoughts may tell us. It seems real, and it’s not wrong.
And yet, to ourselves, in our own first-person experience, we may find we are something else. When I look in my own first-person experience, I find I am more fundamentally capacity for the whole field of experience that’s here. I find I am what this whole field of experience happens within and as.
This is what’s often labeled awakening.
It can happen as an intuition or a glimpse. Recognizing it can be a habit. Our metaphorical center of gravity can shift from taking ourselves as this human self (a separate self) to finding ourselves as this field. We can explore to life from this noticing. We can invite the different parts of our psyche, often formed within and operating from separation consciousness, to join this oneness. And so on.
A RANGE
This article points to a range of different things. It can be the oneness we are intuiting itself. Our center of gravity being shifted towards oneness. Mostly living from – and as – oneness. Or any combination of these. And without being very consciously aware of what’s going on or having any labels or theoretical maps for it.
That’s wonderful. It’s just as wonderful and interesting as having maps.
And it’s perhaps simpler and less contrived, which has its own beauty.