To Be Awake: Ocean of Being (Part 1 of 3)

This is the first in a three-part series about my own personal experience with awakening.

Some of this experience is common with others, whether they consider it to be an awakening or not.

"To be fully alive, fully human,

and completely awake is

to be continually thrown out of the nest."

~ Pema Chödrön 

To be awake is to know with 100% certainty that there is only now. To have perfect faith in What Is, past, present and future. To barely identify with the tiny “me,” except as the slightness of ego that keeps the body-mind operational. To understand there is no central locus of the Self. To understand the perfection in all creation and happenings – that it’s perfect, even when it’s not. And there is an understanding that everything is a happening according to God’s will (Cosmic Law).

Daily life as an awake person functions pretty much the same as many people with highly-evolved consciousness, except that the concept of a small self, a ‘me,’ seems to have dissolved. There are more periods of simply sitting, staring off into space waiting without expectation for the next moment to arise.

There is an absence of a 'me' identifying with the pain or pleasure. If/when contraction arises, it is clearly seen as a witnessing of latent suffering also known as samskaras or vasanas (latent karmic or habitual tendencies) and often transformation into pure consciousness through awareness. It is like Ramana Maharshi and many other sages have described: once there is no longer identification with the ego, it is like a ceiling fan that continues to spin round for a while once the electric power has been turned off. The unwinding continues for as long as it continues. This is karma – apparent cause and effect – but there is no individual karma; everything is related to everything else for all time, all at once. Karma is not personal; it is not separate, except as an appearance.

The evolution of consciousness continues. Apparent seeking, or curiosity may continue if only for experience or deepening. Life is “Time Pass” as the Indians call it – simply the passing of time. Spiritual, psychological, social, emotional, mental and physical development and changes and growth usually continue. Pleasure and pain are felt more intensely, immediately, without filtering of “this should happen” or “this should not happen.” There is a clear understanding, seeing, knowing, that the ego is a drop of water in the Ocean of Being.