For all who have Awakened to their True Nature,
or are on a path to Awakening,
it is essential to embrace these 3 truths:
- ‘you’ can never Awaken
- ‘your’ Awakening or spreading of Awakening to others is not needed
- It does not matter whether or not you Awaken
At the relative or illusory level (unless we are experiencing the constant conscious Awakened ’state,’) we experience ourselves as seemingly-separate, ‘individual humans’ or body-mind-egos. I look out at the world through my eyes and think, “I am me, I am not you. We have separate bodies, minds and personal identities living separate, different lives and having separate, different experiences.” In Absolute terms, there are no separate beings – there is only One, there is only Pure Awareness.
Directly experiencing this Oneness, this True Reality, behind the false illusion of separateness, is Awakening, Enlightenment, Self-Realization.
We can use the term ‘you’ with a small “y” to include everything we think we are as ‘separate’ beings – our bodies, minds, thoughts, feelings, souls and personal identities or egos. Another fun term to include all that is the “mego.” And we can enclose relative terms like ‘you,’ ‘separate human’ and ‘state’ in quotes, to distinguish them from the Absolute, wherein separate humans, experiences and states are not real but merely an illusion, a temporary projection of the One.
‘you’ can never Awaken
NO ONE wakes up, or ‘attains enlightenment,’ or gets Self-Realized. This entire temporary projection we call the “creation,” and the emptiness that holds it, is already awake, already perfect. Including ‘you!’ Any part of that projection that seems to come to its own ‘personal’ “realization” of what it Really is, that seems to have woken up to the Truth that ‘it’ is actually the Pure Awareness behind everything, is merely stepping out of the way and letting go of its false identity long enough for the fully complete & awake Awareness to be revealed as having always been there. Nothing happened, nobody “reached” enlightenment, nothing changed. Read that again: Nothing happened! This is a very useful perspective when we still believe we’re not yet enlightened and awakening is this thing that’s going to happen, one day.
You could say, in the locus known as ‘you,’ Awareness momentarily just dropped its projection or story of being this or that false identity, and let Itself ‘be known’ as the One Reality it Is. But even that’s saying too much…because it implies time (past & future happenings,) subject-object (someone the ‘experience ‘happened’ to,) and duality (the experiencer was a separate ‘other’ from the One, and wanted or needed to ‘rejoin’ it,) none of which is ultimately true.
Since the entire creation & non-creation is already fully Awake, ‘you’ (this seemingly separate body/mind/ego) can do NOTHING to awaken. ‘Your’ efforts to awaken can only fail. Awareness may ‘seem’ to guide ‘you’ through a series of lifetimes, events, challenges, practices and teachers that seem to bring ‘you’ to an irresistible point where your sense of your false identity can’t help but fall away, revealing the Pure Awareness You always Were…but Awareness is driving that impetus, not ‘you.’
‘your’ Awakening or spreading Awakening to others is not needed
Since the entire creation & non-creation is already fully Awake, ‘your’ waking up is NOT NEEDED. An already-fully-awake creation doesn’t care if one particular seemingly-separate part of it ‘strives’ to wake up and succeeds or fails, anymore than the vast Ocean cares if one wave ‘strives’ to merge back into It. It’s all water.
If ‘you’ do ‘have the experience’ of having a full Awakening to your True Nature, that already-fully-awake Creation doesn’t need ‘you’ to broadcast it, call attention to it, or become a ‘teacher’ that helps others wake up. As a ‘mego,’ creation doesn’t need you to share it with 
one other individual, because it is Awareness that is waking everyone up, on it’s own agenda, not you in yours. Enjoy your Awakening, but don’t think, from the ‘mego’ standpoint, that you’re special or a needed gift to humanity. DON’T walk around looking to see if people notice you are now an enlightened being. DON’T think “Now that I’m awake, I can & should use every interaction & conversation as an opportunity to extol that ‘state’ and guide the conversation towards non-dual wisdom and helping these people to be enlightened
like I am.” Get off your ego-trip. To Pure Awareness, they’re just as ‘enlightened’ as you, and need nothing from you.
It does not matter whether or not ‘you’ Awaken
The only way to ‘experience’ full Awakening is to be One (experientially, not conceptually) with the Absolute. If that Awakened realization dawns in You, You will ‘notice’ that You and Pure Awareness are One, always have been One, and have always been fully Awake. At the Absolute level, We could never have been ‘not Awake,’ so naturally it could not matter if ‘you’ Awaken. Since our ‘human’ existence is ultimately just a projection of this always-awake One, even if you still feel identified with your ‘human’ body, mind and ‘separate identity, it doesn’t matter whether or not ‘you’ Awaken.
Meditate in the morning, or never meditate. Eat healthy or eat a big plate of meat and unhealthy fried foods. Spend your days working a job and making money, or renounce the material world and spend a contemplative life in a monastery. Spend your evenings studying spiritual wisdom or holy scriptures, or spend it watching a bunch of silly comedies and crime shows on TV. Doesn’t matter.
Just as the illusory ‘you’ cannot cause ‘your’ Awakening to happen through any efforts of ‘your’ own, ‘you’ can also not keep it from happening. Because Awareness is already Awake, and it is lighting up every part of it with full consciousness of the Truth. When will that happen, ‘you’ might ask? “Hey, I look out at this crazy, very-unenlightened world, and at my own very problematic, unenlightened existence, and it doesn’t look like that’s happening yet, to me. So when’s this global Awakening suppose to light up?”
Your beautiful, poignant question is full of judgment about what Awakening and Perfection is supposed to look like. This is what it looks like, because this is what Is! And, more importantly, the question is couched in ‘time,’ which is just as much an illusory projection as the troubled world you’re judging. When will Awakening happen – yours, the world’s, Creation’s? Now. It’s happening right Now. There is no time; it’s all happening all at once. Which means there is nothing happening! In order for there to be something happening, there needs to be a start point and an end point, There needs to be time. Since there is no time, nothing is happening, or more accurately, everything just Is. If everything just Is, and nothing is happening, there could never be an un-Awakened ‘you’ that ‘eventually’ becomes and Awakened You. Already ‘happened.’ (That part of ‘you’ called ‘your mind’ cannot grasp this, cannot wrap itself around “no time,” or everything happening simultaneously, so don’t worry if ‘your mind’ reels a little at this.)
So don’t think that it ‘matters’ whether you be a ‘spiritual person’ or become an Awakened Soul, or not. Do whatever you feel called to do. I promise ‘you,’ ‘you’re’ not doing any of it; Awareness is doing it through you. Which means, whatever ‘you’ choose, ‘you’ could not choose otherwise. If ‘you’ already have deep spiritual leanings and feel a strong ‘call’ to Awaken, just try not to. Try to eat a lot of crap, be a couch potato, and get lost in the material world and your dying body’s identity. You won’t last a month. Conversely, if you heard that getting enlightened is the way to end all your ‘mego’s’ suffering, or became convinced that Waking Up really matters, and ‘you’re’ gonna renounce everything else and meditate till ‘you’ are fully enlightened, just try doing that. Put your head down, strive and strive and strive till ‘you’ are weeping tears of frustration that ‘you’ just can’t ‘get there.’
As long as you think ‘you’ are going to Awaken, Awakening will never reveal Itself to ‘you.’ The moment you get that ‘you’ can never Awaken, ‘your’ Awakening is not needed, and it actually doesn’t matter if ‘you’ Awaken or not, and give up the ‘you,’ You will Awaken. Instantly.
