Awakening Oneness III

If we are awakening, what is awakening? Is there some thing that is awakening or is there a bright spirit that cannot be said to be any thing? Is it impossible to say of spirit, "Here it is but there it is not?" I say, "Yes!" to all the above.

What is awakening? You can try to conceptualize an answer to that, but there is some part of us that simply feels, "Yes!" It can seem at times completely unnecessary to try to think out an answer, unnecessary to move one's attention from that feeling in the slightest. Just live YES! Just do it--it doesn't have to matter so much what we might say. Except, in the same way that we might question Ramana, there is some part of me that is genuinely and deeply curious about this question: what is awakening? And this is why I say "awakening oneness". There is the advancement and opening of my self-concept and my understanding of what it means to be human, so that is awakening, my mind and thinking awakens. There is also the question of whether spirit might be free of my mind and my thinking. While there may be no decisive way to answer completely, I say, "Sure, why not?" Formlessness--not being trapped or contained by any form or forms--is freedom. Freedom from being trapped, freedom from being just this body or that one.

The Heart Sutra says also, though, "Emptiness (formlessness) is not other than form." Oh, this is where it's supposed to get tricky, right? Ha, ha, ha! This just means it's okay to be who and where you are. I have a body, but I'm not this body...and yet, I am. This is me right here. It's in this body, as this body, in this lifetime or moment right now that I am able to feel freedom. So while formlessness is freedom from, form is freedom with. If I know I am not limited to being just this body, I am able to feel perfectly at home here. Why should I feel some other way if this body does not constrain my spirit?

We are awakening oneness. We are awakening to the fact that form and formlessness have never been separate, that matter and spirit have never been different, that I/we can feel inspired and peaceful abiding as spirit-body right here and now. But, again, beginning to recognize this is not the same as keeping one's awareness open and present. Not only do we get to enjoy the process, but by being forced (in some sense) to actually struggle through the process, we get to value it as well as experience it. Why is that important? Most of us want meaning, and value lends meaning. Another way of answering is to say that only the tested can inspire the fearful. When we have struggled on this path, we become more capable as guides on this path. We are awakening awareness of the oneness of the beginning and the end (of this path, of self concept, of spirit and matter). The Bible says, "I am the alpha and the omega." If spirit is the beginning and the end, arguing over who or what is greatest is pointless but it may be amusing.

So there is a difference between enjoying flow states and fully realizing or establishing one's awareness in the actualization that spirit and matter have always already been not-separate (nondual), realizing that I am completely free within all these apparent limitations. There is a path to inspiration, which involves effort and is like climbing to the top of a mountain. Oh, beautiful view from here, neh? And from a point of accomplishment, where the view is already beautiful, we are ready to really spread our wings, leap up from the path, take to the air. Beyond the heady rush of inspiration, then, there is another heady rush. (Where does it end?!)

While soaring up on high, we might look down at the tiny people below us. They look like ants toiling away. If we take the next step, we see that not only was that us, not only was that me, but it is me. It is hard to say whether the egg came before the chicken. Without one, the other doesn't exist either. That struggling person down below is struggling like I have, like I still do at times. And, if we do not feel ourselves to be some strange Phoenix flying high in the sky already, we can look up from where we struggle like ants and still see that that strange bird already is me. The oak tree is not separate from the acorn it once was. Spirit is not trapped in my form here and it is not only existent in that form up there. Spirit is not-separate, this formlessness is freedom within form and as form.