Awareness, Self-realization, Enlightenment

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Yeah, nice. My experience, Michael, is that each of these three realizations can be experienced independently. In other words, there are people who have one realization, be it awakening, self-realization or enlightenment, maybe two, or possibly all three, but there is no pre-ordained order to the process. We can decide which to pursue in any order, or let nature take its course. Would you agree?

We could create a sort of realization nomenclature, like this:

Awakening = A
Self-realization = S
Enlightenment = E

My own path was thus -- first E, then S, then A. E... S... A.

This also makes me wonder if there is any correlation between personality type and the order of realization, or is it random? Might be a good study for some future psychology doctoral candidate

"My experience, Michael, is that each of these three realizations can be experienced independently. In other words, there are people who have one realization, be it awakening, self-realization or enlightenment, maybe two, or possibly all three, but there is no pre-ordained order to the process."-cmarti

Yes, this is my observation as well. Some people are drawn to the timeless 3rd Gear perspective long before they make much headway in awakening to arahatship, which is 1st Gear. So the three understandings can probably happen in any order or combination. But without the 1st Gear awakening, people never feel quite settled; they can see that everything is perfect right now as long as they are cultivating the timeless perspective, but as soon as they allow time again they feel unsettled and they sense that there is still something lacking. Only arahatship brings the sense that one is "off the ride."

Similarly, one can become an arahat, but without access to the timeless enlightenment of 3rd Gear, they will lack the stability of knowing that no matter what they do or don't do, things are perfect just as they are.

"But without the 1st Gear awakening, people never feel quite settled..."

Absolutely! I've been telling others aiming at first path awakening that it really helps to get a third gear perspective. I hope I'm not causing trouble but that perspective really helped me with the rest of the path toward awakening. It was like being able to climb to the top of the highest mountain and look down on my life and my practice and know "IT" from that height. For quite some time I was so enamored of third gear that I sort of lost the desire to finish the first gear path. But since first gear has its own inertia it just kept going without me helping it along (which now that I type it sounds kind of silly, as if any of it was something "I" was responsible for).

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I found in my experience that as I am now obviously 3rd pathing it, third gear has become available to me when previously it was quite an elusive and unavailable experience. The Witness just never dropped away. But now as the mind has truly calmed down, and a lot of the "mental noise" that was there before (although there wasn't that much even at 2nd path) has also dropped away, it does not take much to incline the mind towards the pristine ISness of primordial awareness.

I started my journey focused purely on 1st gear. Then after 1st path and 2nd path, the Witness became much easier to dwell in. Then 3rd path kind of opened up the mind to experience 3rd gear. It certainly is something you can get enamored with, like Chris says. But I am sure you would progress to arahatship anyway and probably faster dwelling in 3rd gear endlessly. In my experience, each gear "seems" to activate the flowing energies which seem to be cutting out a path up the body to "complete the circuit" resulting in arahatship.

In 1st gear you dis-indentify with phenomena and all this dis-indentifying causes the energies to flow upwards within the body. The 2nd gear Witness also has this effect, and in my experience the energy flows very fast and wildly up the body. The sense of "I" becomes objectified even more so and "steps out of the way". 3rd gear....there ain't nothing in the way now. So I reckon you would go all the way to arhatship by just practicing 3rd gear. It's just real hard to maintain that awareness of awareness itself when the "I" still feels so inclined to embed itself and identify with phenomena. Just playing around with thoughts of my own experience.

Michael, I agree. The whole, as Kenneth says, is much larger than the sum of the parts!

Nick slipped in....

Nick,

When I transition from infinite space, to the witness I definitely feel a shift in focus which seems to be centered in the head and then a building feeling of concentration. I've been noticing this quite a bit actually, that just dwelling as the witness builds concentration (and the feelings I get when I am getting to a concentrated state are palpable when dwelling as witness).

I still want to verify with Kenneth that I am doing this right, but to me it certainly appears as though I am.

"Nick,

When I transition from infinite space, to the witness I definitely feel a shift in focus which seems to be centered in the head and then a building feeling of concentration. I've been noticing this quite a bit actually, that just dwelling as the witness builds concentration (and the feelings I get when I am getting to a concentrated state are palpable when dwelling as witness).

I still want to verify with Kenneth that I am doing this right, but to me it certainly appears as though I am."

Right, so cultivate the Witness and see how far it takes you. I am sure it will take one quickly to stream entry and beyond. But when you feel that the Self is too embedded in phenomena, note once again. I am also still doing this. The combination of dwelling as the Witness and noting during the dark night and equanimity of formations even, so as to dis- embed from the pleasantness, will no doubt speed up progress. 3rd gear will become available when it's time. The Witness will drop away when it is ready to. All this from my own experience of course.

Mumuwu, please don't take this the wrong way but it might be a good idea to allow this thread to be one that focuses more on what Michael is getting at and the reason he started this conversation. This is just a suggestion but I think it will help us stay on track for both these more philosophically oriented discussions and more tactical practice questions.

cmarti,

Noted. Again thanks for the honest advice, and I couldn't agree more.

Also to whoever has control of the admin of this thread, feel free to clean it up by taking my post out. I could have easily pm'd nick for personal discussion rather than posting it in a topical thread.

Hi Michael,
Thanks for starting this thread. It has clarified a few confusions I had concerning the difference, between Awakening, Enligthenment, etc that I didn't understand before. I was confused by thinking they were terms that alluded to the same thing. I didn't understand for example where the Advaita Turiya and 'waking sleep' fit into the whole model of Arhatship. I understand the three speeds a lot better now. See, when I read Nisgaradatta and Sri Ramana I couldn't quite relate the whole thing to Daniel's MCTB, didn't quie know either how awareness during deep sleep fit. I read an ebook called Autobiography of a Jnani where the 'process' leading to enlightenment only began after the yogi (Rajiv Kapur) attained to fourth path and the closing of the physio-energetic circuit in his heart. I found that weird because up until then I thought 4th path was it!! So, thank you very much. It's all a lot clearer now.
Paul

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Michael,
I really enjoyed reading your Evolving Spiritual Biography.. I was sad to see it removed. I hope you will consider continuing it

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