Awakening by Adyashanti ...

A: Good evening. Are you enjoying yourself? Yes. I hope so. Welcome. We're awful glad to have you here. So there are two qualities or two aspects to awakening. They don't always occur simultaneously with awakening, with the realization of our nature. And one of these aspects is to put it in something so trivial as words or explanation, one of the aspects of awakening is the realization of your own nothingness, your own no-thingness. It's the direct realization that there is no separate individual being called me. It's the realization that what you are is much more akin to simple and pure awareness without form, without attributes. This is one aspect of realization. It is the most common aspect of realization. The second aspect of realization is the realization of Pure Being. It's the realization of true Oneness. Whereas to realize your own nothingness is in a manner of speaking is to go from somebody in particular to being the transcendent witness. And seeing that since there is no one in particular that is separate, that all things happen quite spontaneously in this witnessing state. It's not a state where you are being aware, it's a state where you being Awareness itself. Where you realize you are Awareness itself. Not someone or something that is aware. That's the trance state, I am something or somebody who is aware, who possesses awareness or who possess consciousness. With this aspect of awakening to our true nature we realize that conclusion that we are someone or something who is aware or conscious, is an illusion. It's much more true to say if we are anything we are awareness itself. And awareness is what is aware, consciousness is what is conscious. Not a separate or individual person. One can have that realization without having the realization of being. Being is the realization, it's not caught in the realization of emptiness. It's not caught of the witness. It is that realization where we see that the "I" is universal. That everything is an expression of being or I often call it spirit. Everything, literally everything is an expression, a manifestation of or full embodiment of spirit or being. Everything has the quality, almost as if you look in the mirror it has the quality of self-recognition. You see self in all. Or if you were more religiously-minded you may say you see God in all, as long as God isn't seen as something separate from what you are. So this is Being which is true Oneness. Everything is actually of exactly the same essence and that essence is, that substance is what you are. You are that substance, that substance is you and everything and everyone else. You can have either one of these realizations without the other. It depends. Some people get them as a package deal. You realize that you are nothing and you realize that you are everything all at the same time. Some people get the realization of nothingness without the realization of Oneness really, of pure Being. That will maybe come weeks, months or years later. In fact it's more common to realize the transcendent witness than to realize Oneness. You realize that first and the other later. Or sometimes quickly. For me they were almost simultaneously but one came about two minutes after the other. With other people they come all at the same time. But I think this is important to understand because as you start to wake up, as you start to unfold, if there is no understanding of this, it's possible to be confused because you can wake up as awareness itself without really getting the oneness part. Unless you get that Awareness itself is what everything is then that would be Oneness also. But as I say they don't always come together. It's much easier to point to one's inherent nothingness, it's much easier to point in the direction that you are awareness or you are consciousness in its witnessing aspect. That's a very easy thing to point to, it's a very easy to talk about. To point someone in the direction of Oneness, it's literally impossible 'cause there's nowhere to point. If everything is One where are you pointing? It sort of get's very difficult. That's why theres not that many pointers toward real Oneness except to say that its really what the spiritual quest is ultimately all about. Pure Being. Or as they say in India: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. It's not just Being, it's not just Consciousness, it's not just Bliss. These things aren't actually as separate as they sound when I'm talking about them. It's sounds like they are very distinct and separate but it's just the way it comes through language and it may actually come this way through experience. You may experience one to the exclusion of the other. But ultimately it's all one thing. Or as I image allot of you have heard the very famous phrase that Nisargardatta used to say: "When I look within and see that I am nothing, that's wisdom. When I look out and see that I am everything, that's love and between those two my life turns." Looking within we find that we are nothing. Looking out we find we are everything. That's the completion, that's both sides. That's a fully formed realization. And often the doorway to Oneness, to pure being is through the doorway of pure awareness, of no-thing-ness. That's why it's often talked about. It's often the doorway. To dislodge the identity from its false image and to realize that you are not the image but the awareness of the image is a much easier step in one manner of speaking than to realize that everything is one being, one spirit. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, it will. Don't worry. Everything makes sense eventually.

Adyashanti
Omega 2007
Monday Evening Satsang