Photo by Takuin Minamoto
Question of the Week: 8/18 - 8/24
What happened to lead to your realization?
I have resisted answering this question because there is really no way of saying that anything happened. A change cannot be seen. But still, this question persists. 
So, on today’s podcast, I go into some of the things that happened during the final moments of realization. This is not meant to be a road map, a design, or anything that another should strive to attain. This just happens to be the way things transpired on that particular day.
It also goes into ideas of enlightenment, and finding out beyond outer or inner influence.
(NOTE: There may be a problem with using the podcast player in Internet Explorer. If that is the case, please download the file by right clicking the download tab.)
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9 Comments
asking someone what happened
that lead to their “realization”
is akin to asking a caterpillar
what happened that lead it
to spin a silky cocoon
it happens just as
a butterfly happens
to emerge from the solitude
of something that’s no longer there
how do we see an evolution from happening
when one can’t separate the movement
from the one that moves?
Thanks for sharing that, Takuin. I find it fascinating how unique each persons ’switch’ is. It’s deeply true that any ideas of it will always be wrong but as you know, I still find some value in that so that people allow for it and have a sense of what is happening when it happens.
I can think of several examples of people who awoke naturally and had no sense of how they got there so could not support anyone else on their ‘journey’. You stepped to it remarkably simply and without framework but carry a clarity about it that can support others. A clarity that shines through your words.
Part of that clarity also was in the fullness of your switch. Many people have more of a transition after the switch where aspects or habits of mind keep coming up. For many, that clarity takes time.
I know what you mean about memory. (laughs) I find many things make little impression. I have to be more alert to where I parked the car, for example, or the information simply won’t be there.
Indeed, much of what was once “my life” is now just some background to what is.
@ Sass
…and yet, the questions persist.
That desire to know,
To build the system,
To make the plan…
A bleeding wall,
For the head to strike against.
That is what the self seeks.
To feel its weight,
Its center in this universe,
Is more important than truth.
@Davidya
I often think about that very thing; whether the involvement of time is at all necessary. Many people say it is. Or, “For ME it was.” Those sort of things.
Let’s say, someone has a taste of what is to come, so to speak, only to slip back into themselves. They may then work on it for some time, maybe a number of years. Then, through no fault of their own, they are zapped into nothingness, having reached that end which is a beginning, the beginning that is the end.
If we look at that as a chronological progression, it certainly seems that time was necessary. Let’s not say necessary. It seemed that it took time to get to that ending. There is the initial opening, then one searches, clears out, does whatever, and presto, the end.
Now, if one is at the ending (let’s use that word), and if you ask them, How long did it take? how do you suppose they might answer? Can time come into it at all?
If we look at the phenomenal progression, we can say YES, it took time. But that is only apparent to the person on the outside, looking in. To the being at the end, how can they answer? How can they say whether it took time or not?
It is very interesting to Takuin.
“To feel its weight,
Its center in this universe,
Is more important than truth.”
isn’t that as one seeks its center
one creates its own periphery?
and this periphery is what encages the center? one can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of this center-seeking self:
it seeks freedom from the cage of its continuous making
center and periphery is such a chicken-and-egg situation:
which came first the center
or the periphery?
- but,sorry by using a harsh language,
when you kill either the chicken
or the egg (my apologies to the
chicken), both cease to exist
perhaps, just perhaps, the self
continues to seek its center for
it fears its death OR worse realize
that it’s nothing but a puff of
fiction - a very seductive and
convincing one
this, this self is one big cosmic
joke…and it just just hate
to laugh at itself….
sass - the periphery. The observer arises and in the process of observation, creates. The Center is its observation back to self, return.
On the other hand, if you see center as origin, the center is first, the silence from which awareness arises. (laughs)
From a larger perspective, the difference is only in where you are standing. Further back, the answer is neither or both.
Takuin - I would say no, time is not necessary as there are examples of instant switches. But many do experience it as a process. How long is partly about how how one responds to the change. Adyashanti observers that many have a period where the mind tries to reassert. How successful that is depends on the approach and understanding of the person. Some reinvest, some see it and step past it.
There is one point though - the actual switch is instant for everyone. A switch from being the person to being Itself. What happens after that is what varies - some have a complete switch, some have some shrapnel to clear.
This is NOT the same as what you mention - some taste. People will often have many tastes before the grip of the mind is willing to let go. Indeed, I know decades long meditators who glow with silence but are too invested in their mind to let go. They don’t even realize this is a step. Or even the switch happens but they refuse to recognize it as it does not match the concepts.
There is also this element of what some call grace. Where waking has nothing to with anything that has been done. Self decides to wake through the person. But if you look more broadly, you see that what was done is also being done by Self, it only appears to have been a person. So the process was not the person doing but the Self doing through the apparent person. Grace is simply the Self acting in ways the person cannot take credit for.
As for ending, both times I have found it’s not an end at all. It is a beginning. I am back in kindergarten again. As for the question of how long, I can say thousands of years and no time at all. Both are true depending on how you look. Time exists but not as we tend to think. It is dependent on perspective.
My slow brain is finally getting this aspect of inclusiveness. Mind tends to ask is it this or that? What is the right answer? First we start to see that it depends on from where one is looking. Then we realize that what looks is the same in every case. Thus, it is not no time, but that linear time exists fully in the moment. We can run up and down time or step up and see it all at once, or collapse it into the current moment alone. Just different ways of experiencing it.
Interesting indeed.
@Sass
It seems you clearly understand the truth of this movement. Let’s be careful that the movement remains alive, and never becomes static and unchanging through belief.
It is seen as it is, but never is there a need to believe it is so.
I look forward to seeing more of you here.
Davidya
I understand what you are saying. I use the term ending because it is the end of the person that is accumulating all of these things in order to bring about a change. Maybe not person; ending of that need, desire, or movement. The person cannot be separated from the movement itself, so the language is a bit difficult here.
That is not to say that one can’t gain more knowledge, learn new things, or fine tune a certain skill. That is something different from what we are speaking of here.
Whether it takes time or not is unimportant. But problems may arise if the seeker believes it will or it won’t. Then there is the expectation, the looking forward for what is believed to happen in a certain sequence, etc.
One way or another, if a person gives over their very heart and soul, putting energy into seeing what is actually real, they will find out.
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