Rational for this topic can be found here, page 3:
awakenetwork.org/forum/2-general-forum-t...etwork-participation
Lets get clear about final awakening. Lets make this a collective approach and pull no punches. For those who had an initial awakening, what to do next? To use Adyashanti's lingo, you are indeed enlightened after your initial awakening where the aperture opens up, but then it closes again and ego fights back. Then you have a (~10 years of it by a few reports) post-awakening period where you are now changed forever but not quite fully done.
Post-initial awakening is all about getting that damn aperture to stay open. This means that we are working towards an abiding state of awakening. There is not much information about this phase. I don't accept that it is because it is highly individualized or mysterious. I purpose here that we attempt to develop it anyways. Lets shed light on all the dark spots that we can and see what we come up with.
For the first part of this process I suggest we state our current assumptions, goals, and definitions for all to critique. In this, I hope we get a baseline on where we are at, where we are trying to go, and are we all experiencing the same truth? This will have to be a non-religious (sorry buddha, but you dont own enlightenment) and non-traditional approach. Enlightenment theory is obviously very contended and hotly discussed (many practices, teachers, methods, sudden vs developmental, etc.) but my main objective here is to maybe find out what we all have in common. What is the lowest common denominator in all of this? Perhaps getting clear about some aspects of this path will be helpful for us to make progress again.
Here are some questions to start:
1) Where are you at currently and honestly tell us where your end goal is. Do you believe there is an end goal (It depends how you approach this philosophically)
2) Defend/explain your experience(s) of awakening. What is it like for you not being in this state 24/7 once having experienced it at least once? How do you know it was the real deal? This is dangerous but it can be helpful to compare notes
3) What is your definition as final awakening/enlightenment/done? How do we get there? Who has this info sufficiently spelled out?
Me:
1) I hit what I unabashedly call fourth path (or, my first real deal-nothing more to attain awakening) around 2011. Since then my interest in nanas went to zero and I've made some slow progress but mostly I've lost most of my fire to go further. This loss of fire is curiously juxtaposed with my desire to go further, finish it out. Forth path awakening was the real deal for me, my eye were open for about a day, and in the subsequent years since then I have only attained a handful more fully awakened moments, each one making an important impact. My end goal is for the abiding state of awakness where ego is always seen for what it is, doesn't pull me into division, and I feel perfectly done with the awakening process itself. In other words, you can't go any further than knowing/experiencing truth. Whats more true than true? Im not pushing for the end of suffering or fear or desire, just the end of the process of awakening.
2) You know it is when its there. It's self-verifying. All concerns and questions are instantly self-correcting and made whimsically and perfectly all in their correct place. I don't see me as doing anything, there is just awareness of things happening. Fear and anything else unpleasant can arise, but I'm not invested in it like before. I am still a flesh and blood human with thoughts, emotions, desires, and ego- yet, it is all perfectly fine just like that- there is no part of me that seems to be driving it. In this state, desire for even one single more gram of Awakening is impossible. If someone told me that what I was experiencing was only 1% of the real thing, I wouldn't care to go any further. I suspect that this experience can evolve but I haven't had much time spend in fully eyes open mode and not many people have written about this. Currently, I am in the post-awakening part of this were my eyes are not always open, I do not feel done or satisfied with my progress. Fourth path, despite others reporting so, did not feel completely "done" to me. I question that I really am enlightened and despite knowing what it is and what it was like, I fall into delusion most of the time. I understand fully the no-self concept post 4th path. That knot was untied and can never be-retied like it was, yet ego seems to still be winning all of these years later. I've gone back to sleep mostly and I fear that I am being fake and did not really attain anything. However, even when I go through phases where I do no practice at all, something seems to still be going on. Small insights keep happening and ego does seem to be slowly deteriorating. Im not doing enough and the old practices do not seem to change much at this stage.
3) Done means there is a world of more life to live sure, but full knowledge of truth is persistent and your eyes are not likely to shut again. Hell, I would even agree to 90% of the time and call it good. I don't think that ego could never be agle to get back into control- you still have to deal with it everyday. Done just means not even being concerned with that. Final awakening is not the solution to all your human problems, it is just the finalization of the awakening process. How long does this take post-initial awakening? My current understanding of the teaching for this phase is to keep going like usual. Investigate truth until everything else is burned away. Adjashanit's End of your World and Way of Liberation are the most straightforward sources on this topic that I can find. A bit more cryptic are Jed McKennas books. There has got to be at least a bit more on this. The burning fire that pushed me to get to 4th path is gone and one might say that going for full abiding awakening is just a slow burning process that you can't do much about except let it unfold. Yet, I am curious to explore exactly that. Is there more we can do? I am not seething with suffering, but I will admit this: I know I can never be truly satisfied not being in that wonderful fully awakened state. That sounds very ego-driven as I type it. But that is what I am working with
-Anthony