where is the ‘me’ in an awakening?
Vic Shayne
author
The Self is a Belief: The idea that causes suffering
Before discussing the flaws and follies of the concepts of awakening and enlightenment, we need to be clear about what exactly we are discussing. Is an awakening really an awakening or is it an artifact of the egoic self making an interpretation about its own feelings of elation?
It’s inevitable that words will be come corrupted. Everything becomes corrupted in this world of form and matter. It’s a matter of course. We can blame it on entropy, the faults and limitations of human beings, or the way of the Tao.
In any case, when certain words are used often enough they seep into the common lexicon and are then used out of context so that the original meaning becomes dull, twisted, or even completely unknown and unremembered. Even dictionary definitions begin to accept a new meaning for an old, established word. Examples are the phrases “home in on” (that has somehow become “hone in on”) or “heart rending” that has morphed into “heart wrenching;” as well as the words love, compassion, enlightenment, and awakening. Out of ignorance, the word myth has become synonymous with the word lie, and this has eroded the power of myth as much as the loss of a spiritual compass in our modern society. The internet speeds up this process of skewing and redefining language, and it’s a problem for those who are seeking the truth about the sense of self, consciousness, and what lies beyond.
As a writer I am curious about other people’s experiences, interests, struggles , and the words they use — they spur me on to look deeper into things, even if only for my own edification or a way for me to explain the pitfalls of thought or the depths of experience.
what does it mean to have an awakening?
Now what about this idea of awakening that is bandied about so carelessly so that everyone is having a series of awakenings and every popular speaker on the internet is called an enlightened being by those in no position to make such a determination?
People use the word “awakening” in many different ways, although only a very, very few (especially on the internet) seem to understand what enlightenment is, or to be truly awake. To use a phrase popular with Jiddu Krishnamurti, people are accepting, internalizing, and expressing “secondhand information” — ideas they learned from sources outside themselves and which they have accepted as their personal beliefs and truths. When we fail to observe our own sense of reality we tend to surrender our lives and ideas to others.
is the mind clear enough to be awake?
There are many things that we experience, including intense love or joy, but such feelings do not necessarily equate to being in an awakened state. When you feel compassion to the point where everything is alive, including a piano, a rock, a dog, a tree, a chair, and even the air, then you are immersed in the state of a clear mind that actually knows reality. But there is a caveat. This feeling of compassion — to have compassion with —must come from a clear mind, which is a mind not directed by, consumed by, attending to, or tainted by thought emanating from the sense of a self or a “me.” There are really no good words that can adequately explain this differentiation. One experience is conditional and the other is unconditional. To the experiencer the difference is often not known, especially if he/she is misled by misinterpreted ideas floating around the internet.
the ups and downs of the self
Does it matter that an experiencer is having an ecstatic experience of love and compassion even if it’s is only a perception of the self? It only matters if the experiencer is interested in awakening. Because a crash in mood so often follows an ecstatic experience based on thought, people are apt to wonder if life has any purpose, why they are so depressed or anxious, and so on. And here we see a typical example of the workings of the self as it wavers between pain and pleasure — ecstasy today and suffering tomorrow.
We all experience suffering and pleasure as we go through life. Sometimes we are in the throes of psychological agony, but at other times we are on top of the world with glee. Both states are reflections of thought. They are two sides of the same self. But when the mind is totally clear of the sense of self, really and not intellectually, then a newness comes into play. This newness is the capacity that we have for all that appears to exist, in an unalloyed, unattached, impersonal way.
What happens in this state is that you know that all of what you are looking at is actually you as consciousness. You are consciousness and what you see is yourself as consciousness; the seer is the seen. Have you ever known this as your reality?
the subject and object; seer and the seen
When you talk about self-love, you are still objectifying your world; the personal self (the me) is looking at itself, which is an example of the way it fragments reality into this and that, the seer and the seen, the me and the you, etc. When the self loves, it can only be out of attachment to some person or idea, even if the idea is an idea that the self is capable of love. This does not mean it’s a bad thing; it just means that there is no real awakening going on.
To reiterate or further clarify, there is a difference between the self seeing itself in all things versus consciousness seeing that it is all that it sees.
The “I” of the separate self must disappear for awakening to occur.
what are people seeking?
It is obvious that many people are seeking something, and one day they will realize that the seeker and the sought are the same thing, and when this happens this duality will meld according to their perceptions. The seer and the seen, the lover and the loved, are already one, but people generally cannot see this because their view of reality is from the self that has been created out of the limited thing we call thought.
Following the glee or bliss that is in the extreme is often followed by feelings of depression and disappointment that comes from the self, which is the conditioned egoic mind, because it has desires that are not fulfilled. In essence, we feel the ecstasy, and when it is gone we get sad that we don’t have it any more. It is only when the self is fully realized to be an illusion that the desires to have or not have, to accept or reject, etc., are understood as well. Until then, all experiences have the duality of the experiencer and the experienced, and this is an example of the fragmentation into a separate self that is caused by the self.
how do we avoid the tremendous fall that is sure to follow the peaks of elation brought on by thought?
To be happy and pull out of the darkness, we must simply observe. No thinking, analyzing, criticizing, judging, interpreting, or trying. No effort. We must just be what we already are, including a body, a conditioned brain, and all thoughts. Be all of it. Be the wholeness and not the fragmentation. Or, if you have no interest at all of moving beyond this artificial world of thought that has us on a roller coaster, any form of distraction, depending on the dose, will work to quell the conditioned mind until the next cycle of ups and downs. It all depends on what you want.
I leave you with this to take inward: If you find this message to be depressing or hopeless, it is only because thought is observing it from its own limited vantage point. If you can escape the sense of self then the mind will be open and unencumbered; and in this state is the true sense of compassion, love, or whatever you’d like to call it.
