Awakening is actually something of a misnomer. What we’re speaking of is simply the recognition of your true nature–seeing/being that which you already are. As explained in FAQ 1, there is just “one thing going on,” and awakening is the seeing of this truth for ourselves. We no longer have to rely on hearsay or second-hand information. We may not yet be clear, but we know a deep truth that we can never fully un-know. When this occurs it tends to feel like an awakening from a dream. However, what is ‘experienced’ is that which is always already awake–which in fact never was asleep to begin with. The easiest way to put this is to say that it’s not the ego which awakens, but rather Life itself which awakens from the dream of exclusive identification. In short, we see that what we are includes the body (and everything else!), but that  our true nature is not limited to the body.

This is not something we can figure out; it has to be seen directly for ourselves. This seeing can come as a glimpse, or as a full seeing–with a whimper, a bang, or anything in between. Awakening can seem to come quickly, or slowly.  Most often it’s a combination. It may appear to require special spiritual practices, or be shown to completely transcend them. It can and does happen any way it wants to, any time it wants to, through any body it wants to. Any attempt to explain what awakening really is, including this one, will ultimately fail. That which is always already awake is also that which is beyond words.  Still, we try!

The personality–the one looking to wake up, get enlightened, find liberation–whatever you want to call it–will never actually awaken. The personality, the character of the so-called individual, and hence that entire play, is precisely what is seen through. In the absence of a personal me, reality is shown to be spontaneously arising.  It’s right here, right now: nowhere and nowhen else. This is it, but it’s so close, so obvious, so incredible that we can’t see it. Until we do.  Once we do, if it’s thoroughly seen, we can see nothing else. Our story is like clouds in front of the sun. In the presence of clouds, the sun is shining, but it isn’t seen. In the absence of clouds, the sun is seen, but the clouds never actually affected either the sun or its shining. In the absence of story, only truth remains.

If you mean, what can the non-existent character do to bring about a change in its hypothetical sleep state–well you see it right there in the words “non-existent” and “hypothetical.” In the end there’s nothing we can do, not directly. However, don’t despair. While it’s true that from the absolute view there is “nothing to do and no one to do it,” that’s just a view. It feels like the whole, but it’s really just half; it’s 180 degrees of seeing out of a possible 360 to be experienced. It could be said that taking this fatalistic viewpoint is tantamount to absolutely denying the existence of the relative, which happens a lot, especially with glimpses, or less than full awakenings, which are by far the most common sort. After spending most of our lives identifying as the relative, we get a glimpse of the absolute and completely shift our loyalties–to the other side of limitation! First I thought I was Fred. Then, after a true seeing, I thought I was Not-Fred. Now, I know I’m both. If we embrace this “I am the vastness and only the vastness” limitation after our own experience, or borrow it from others, then our view remains incorrect, but in a wholly new way. Now we get to suffer from a higher level!

The true Nondual view, the 360, as I call it, denies nothing. Nonduality means that there’s just one thing going on; how can we deny any part of it? The absolute and relative, the real and unreal, the permanent and temporary are all just halves, which is the tip-off that, although our view may have significantly broadened or deepened, we’re still seeing from duality. Neither yin nor yang is true or complete, but the pairing of the two is both true and complete, so to speak. Let me add that there are fully awake teachers who employ this “no-method method” as a teaching strategy. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it. I get it. When this strategy works, it works well, but it only seems to work with a fairly narrow band of seekers. My teaching is based the Law of Large Numbers: how do the most people wake up most of the time? Let’s do that!

Regardless of what we may see, know, and experience from that absolute view, there is nonetheless a body still here on a planet we call Earth, and it’s still going to want lunch and a nap. We can, in essence, enlist the dream character to work within the dream toward the apparent goal of awakening, and to carry out skillful living in the relative world. From a higher view it could be said to all be part of a spontaneously unfolding script, and that’s fine. None of this makes any logical sense. If we insist on putting everything into neat, logical boxes, then we are lost, because at that point even doing nothing is seen as a practice!

Again, this is not something we can figure out.  We have to experience it first-hand. This is what Direct Pointing is all about.

Neither. Both. Actually, it’s a moot question.

Once again, this has to be looked at from the larger picture. Once we enter Nonduality, we have left the land of easy answers and entered the land of difficult questions. Who is it that is supposed to either have free will, or not have free will?

Ah, yes, we’re right back to our old friend, the imaginary character! Answer in the negative, and we’re saying that no, I as a separate being do not have free will. Answer in the positive, and we are stating that yes, I as a separate being do have free will. The trap is successfully sprung either way we go.

This is precisely the kind of question that human minds love to get involved with because we can take a stand and battle over it forever. In fact, we have already done so: clerics and philosophers have had an ongoing argument over this for several thousand years. We’re just the latest generation to address it.

Ego delights in all of this, because it gets to keep churning along no matter which side has the temporary upper hand. All ego needs to survive is resistance in any form, which is why war in its ten thousand costumes is the single most common phenomenon on our planet.

Nonduality is not declaring that you do not have free will. Nonduality is not declaring that you do have free will. Nonduality is declaring that you, as a separate entity, do not exist.

This question is a doozy. I say that because it haunted me for so long. We get a glimpse, or maybe even have a major seeing that lasts for days or weeks, but gradually we begin to see it soften and slide, and the next thing we know, we’re right back in the mud. We had it, but we lost it. We have lost our “connection!”

In order to answer this question, I have to ask the used-to-be-enlightened human a couple of questions of my own. “What was the primary knowledge you received from your “awakening experience?” If it was for real, there can only be one answer. (Of course you can now fake this answer, but that’s a whole other bucket of misery.)

The only legitimate answer is, “I saw that there was no separate me. I saw that there was just one thing going on, which left no place whatsoever for an individual. From that view, bodies are true, but persons and personalities are stories, nothing more.”

Very well, my used-to-be-enlightened friend. Then let me ask you a few more questions that you don’t even need to answer.  I really hate to do this, but I have no choice. Who is it that has lost the connection? Who is it that feels like it has “fallen out,” or become “disconnected” from the one thing going on? It couldn’t be that imaginary character creeping back into the picture, could it?

Of course it is. Not every question that arises in Nondual teachings comes back to this one question, but damn near every one of them does.

One more quick note here. The chief reason we feel like we’ve lost “our connection” is that we’ve lost our buzz. Humans are hooked up to love their buzzes. Sometimes the apparent penetration of reality is accompanied by waves of energy, blissful highs, hallucinations (which we call visions), and any amount and variety of fireworks and candy. We confuse that with the awakening. We confuse the bugle with the sunrise, and we happen to like the bugle a lot. And who is it that likes the bugle? You tell me.

But does the bugle actually have anything to do with the sunrise? Is it causation, or is it accompaniment? The answer is clear. Having said all of that, let me end this by saying that there are things we can do to encourage stable awakeness, so there is no reason for despair.