Abiding and Nonabiding Awakening

Uh myself and others I have heard of seem to be awakening slowly as in over time, not an instant realization. >> [snorts] >> Rather, there is the experience of realization, but then one falls back into the experience of the personal and back and forth. From what I recall, this is not how you describe your own awakening. Can you perhaps shed light on what might be happening for me, us who are going through these back and forth states? It's pretty disturbing. These are not peak experiences. It is an understanding of well, the absolute self as opposed to the limited self, but it swings back into the limited personal again. I hope you read this. I love your work. Can you please advise? Best regards, Ali. Thank you, Ali, so much for your question and thank you for stating it in such a clear way. Very helpful to me. [laughter] Um yeah, this is kind of along the lines that we were talking of. Yes. I have talked in the past in teachings. I've taught on it quite a bit about, you know, abiding and non-abiding awakening. Non-abiding awakening, I think it's fairly clear where you have a an awakening experience of some sort. And then the aperture, almost like a camera lens, seem to close down and we seem to be stuck in our in our you know, our our our limited selves again. Only to at some point, at any point, who knows when, to have the aperture open again. But once it's opened, there's a kind of knowledge that's with you. You you kind of you know from that point, you you you know your true nature even if experientially it gets kind of covered over, there's still some knowing. Um but even that can kind of come and go in a shaky way. With something that's more abiding, an abiding, you know, realization, abiding awakening, um it doesn't mean that you never go into your little human stuff, you know, ever again because you're in this abiding awakened state. Um that's not exactly what it means. I think at least when I'm talking about that, what I mean is is that the the our true nature is is established enough, bright enough, um however we want to categorize the why that it's as as obvious as it is, but it's there. And through the thick and thin of our experience, so even if we get sort of caught in a loop of human experience, that at the same time that true nature is also known. Right? So it's not like one makes the other completely disappear necessarily, but that that that with the abiding, the awakening sense that the feeling sense of it is just is is with you. Yes, sometimes it's much more clear. Sometimes you get, you know, it's obscure if you're confused or you're feeling challenged or whatever it might be, but it's still accessible, I think. Um So, to kind of vacillate, uh especially when we first had an opening and for a while, this is very very You should expect it. It's not pleasant because, you know, it's like kind of being shown a piece of heaven. Like, here it is. Oh, no, we'll take it away. Oh, but later we'll show it to you again. Just Oh, no, it's gone. You know, that can be very sort of frustrating. That's just part of the way this unfolds. And again, what we really need to encounter is all along the way, when we run in when we're sort of interpreting our own experience, which we're doing constantly, it's important to remember that our tendency to is to interpret our experience along the patterns that we were conditioned to, which means we very well may not be interpreting our experience correctly. Especially our spiritual experience. So, you do go through these back and forth. And as you said, it's pretty disturbing. It is disturbing, but what makes it more disturbing is you if you think that you're going to get to this place where your little human being personhood thing never really disturbs you at all. You're just in this bliss of infinite consciousness forever and ever, amen. And all human, you know, challenges and difficulties you just sort of float above. I I'm probably overstating the case, but for some people I'm not. But the faster we let that go, I don't mean you're settling for something lesser than that. That's not my point. Let that go and there's going to be something else there. It's not lesser than. It's just more real. It's true. So, start to see, Ali, if you can feel the the your true nature in the midst of sort of a human moment of confusion or reaction or whatever. Don't assume that because you have a sort of human moment of challenge that your true nature and the and the knowing of it has just disappeared or isn't there. If you look closely, you'll start to notice more and more that that true nature is there in the midst of your human challenge. Even in the midst of feeling like you might have, you know, lost something because of course our minds will will reference big expansive moments. And we'll we'll we'll want to live in that big expansive moment. So, you see, all along the way, we keep running into what our minds want this to be and what it is. And it's not that what it is is lesser than what we want it to be. It's actually more than. It's actually better than because simply because it's more real. It's more grounded in our actual lives. In one sense, the point is, like I said, going back to this idea of having a foot in both worlds, the limited, the the unlimited selfless nature of pure consciousness, and the somewhat limited nature of me consciousness, right? Or even if you don't have the me as an identity that you're holding on to anymore, there's still that human person's perspective that it plays out in the world and it has its hang-ups and it has whatever. And and we can use our true nature to progressively get ourselves over deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper hang-ups and free ourselves up more. The important part here, Ali, is that what your experience is part of the process, you see. It's what happens.