I’ve finally got a chance to get Part 3 of the four part series with author Colin Drake on practice up on the blog. Admittedly I’ve been quite busy writing a book lately and haven’t been able to put a lot of focus here on the blog beyond a few meditations and notes from research for the book.
In Part 2 we looked at whether or not practice is necessary in awakening to awareness. Part 1 of the series can be found HERE. This week we want to consider whether or not awakening is sudden or gradual. That is, are there in reality different degrees of awakening? It seems that from the point of view of the individual there does appear to be a change in the state of life from a position of identification with the separate self to identification with the natural state or Awareness. But enough from me, let’s see what Colin has to say about this important topic.
Are their Different Degrees of Awakening
and is it Sudden or Gradual?
Awakening, that is becoming aware of, and identified with awareness is an instant recognition, and in this is sudden rather than gradual. However, this is readily then submerged by old thought patterns requiring a new recognition and this ongoing process could make it appear to be gradual. Full awakening requires a firm commitment, for as I say in Beyond the Separate Self:
Be committed to completely identifying with the deeper level of pure awareness, for in this there is always perfect peace and repose. Before this complete identification with pure awareness is established one will flip/flop between identifying with awareness and identifying with a mind/body. Awakening is an ongoing process with complete identification with pure awareness as the final goal. For it is in fact a series of awakenings, which is very necessary due to our natural tendency to go back to sleep! Every time we ‘flop’ back to identifying ourselves as mind/body we have nodded off again; and so the ‘flip’ to identifying with the deeper level of our being is another awakening. The author knows this only too well, and makes no claim to ‘lack of sleep’. As one investigates and cultivates this deeper level, the periods of ‘wakefulness’ are prolonged and consequently one ‘nods off’ less. The period of time between one’s first awakening and being completely ‘awake’ is indeterminate and varies greatly from being to being. However, this is not a problem, for as the periods of ‘wakefulness’ (which are totally carefree) increase so will the commitment to identifying with the level of pure awareness. This will lead to more reflection and investigation, resulting in further awakenings which will continue the process. To call it a process may seem a misnomer for when one is ‘awake’ there’s no process going on, but the continual naps keep the whole thing running.1
So when you are ‘awake’ (identified with and as awareness) you are ‘awake’, and when you are ‘asleep’ (identified with the body/mind, thoughts and sensations) you are ‘asleep’! The more is revealed the longer you stay ‘awake’, just as the longer in the day you are awake (in the usual sense of the word) the more you can accomplish. So in this sense it could be possible to argue that awakening has degrees, see chapter 16 in Beyond the Separate Self, which discusses ‘The Full Potential’ of awakening. However, as long as you are ‘awake’ you have transcended mental anxiety and suffering, it’s just that the more investigations you have carried out into the nature of reality when in this ‘awake’ state the more you have discovered. Thus it might appear that awakened beings vary in their degree of awakening but this is not really so, for when you are ‘awake’ you are ‘awake’ however long this may, or may not, have been the case and however many discoveries you may, or may not, have made.
1 C. Drake, Beyond The Separate Self, 2009, Halifax, NS, p.89-90.
So that’s what Colin has to tell us. In the last part of the series we will tie up everything Colin has presented and address a few final thoughts. I highly recommend you follow the links below to Colin’s books if you find his insights in this series valuable. Thanks for reading the blog and a big thanks to Colin for making this series possible!
For e- books click each book cover or scroll down to read excerpts and to order/download these books right away. They are $9 each, two for $14 and all three for $18. Alternatively these books may be sampled and purchased at www.nonduality.com
To buy in paper back form at $17 each from www.lulu.com follow the links above given below:
Humanity Our Place in the Universe
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08/16/2011 at 1:33 AM
Kristopher Grey (@KGrey_Com)
Awakening leaves no doubt, no room for such flip flops, as there is no experience that is not this. Realization is not attainment of anything, so there is nothing to develop or deepen, nothing to gain or lose. If realization comes and goes, it is something else. Glimpses maybe, not realization.
States change, attention shifts, so what? That’s normal, what mind does. We change “after”, much as we did “before”. Adapting to what presents, as humans do.
Colin writes: “Awakening is an ongoing process with complete identification with pure awareness as the final goal.”
Rather than dissect that, I’ll just suggest you compare that definition to your direct experience. Do you experience “identification with” awareness, or are you this very experience? Do you seek a “final goal” in this, or are you already fully this experience however it presents?
I’ve resisted commenting on this series, as I don’t like to comment on teachers specifically and know you love the guy HD, but this deserves a more critical eye. If I didn’t love you, I’d let it ride… Besides, it looks like you could use some traffic/controversy to gear up for future book sales!
Just sharing. Expressing what comes directly as I read this. Please don’t feel this is an attack on your guru or that you need to defend anything. In person I doubt there’s any substantive disagreement. Something just doesn’t resonate for me in all this. Maybe it’s just a language issue, a style of expression thing, but I can’t see it. He writes clearly enough.
Besides (what caught my attention), it didn’t really address the question, so I will: Sudden/gradual are stories. Can be told either way, or as something beyond such dualistic/relative measures. Example: 1. I had a sudden and unexpected realization, that 2. Revealed I have been on a “path” my whole life, and 3. I have never been anything else but what I realized.
“Sudden” offers false hope, “gradual” offers false prescriptions, “never anything else” offers nothing but this.
Details of the expression of this varies, as do we all, but realization is more recognition/remembering than a discovery, and never partial or intermittent. Nothing attained, nothing to separate by space or time.
Sorry, when long there. Why I’ve been sticking to Twitter lately.
08/17/2011 at 7:38 AM
Hanuman Dass
Below is Colin Drake’s response to K Grey’s comments which I am posting from his email.
Reply to K Grey
Quoted text, in line response:
K Grey: Awakening leaves no doubt,
Colin: I agree when one is awake there is no doubt.
K Grey: no room for such flip flops, as there is no experience that is not this. Realization is not attainment of anything, so there is nothing to develop or deepen, nothing to gain or lose. If realization comes and goes, it is something else. Glimpses maybe, not realization.
Colin: I agree that realization is not an attainment, and when established there are no flip flops. However, when it first occurs it is easily submerged by old thought patterns and habitual identification as the mind/body. Call it a glimpse if you like but this is just splitting hairs, maybe ‘a glimpse of realization!’
K Grey: States change, attention shifts, so what? That’s normal, what mind does. We change “after”, much as we did “before”. Adapting to what presents, as humans do.
Colin: Sure states change, but how we adapt to what presents depends on whether we are awake or asleep at the time.
K Grey: Colin writes: “Awakening is an ongoing process with complete identification with pure awareness as the final goal.”
Rather than dissect that, I’ll just suggest you compare that definition to your direct experience. Do you experience “identification with” awareness, or are you this very experience? Do you seek a “final goal” in this, or are you already fully this experience however it presents?
Colin: This is just quoting out of context, if you keep reading you will find: “To call it a process may seem a misnomer for when one is ‘awake’ there’s no process going on, but the continual naps keep the whole thing running.[Note:1]” Identification with awareness means: the realization that one is awareness itself, rather than remembering anything.
K Grey: I’ve resisted commenting on this series, as I don’t like to comment on teachers specifically and know you love the guy HD, but this deserves a more critical eye. If I didn’t love you, I’d let it ride… Besides, it looks like you could use some traffic/controversy to gear up for future book sales!
08/18/2011 at 12:20 AM
Kristopher Grey (@KGrey_Com)
Appreciate your taking time to reply Colin.
Just form of expression stuff, my taking your use of words like “identification” too literally, etc. Nature of the game so to speak.
That leaves us with the only really cogent thing I said so late last night: “In person I doubt there’s any substantive disagreement” – though I suppose we could discuss the relevance of “substantive” in any of this! *L*
Kris
08/19/2011 at 8:37 AM
Hanuman Dass
Firstly, I agree, we are playing with words. We are ‘dancing with words’ so to speak. Each of our styles is somewhat different. So we can’t always dance together!
I have developed a tendancy to analyze anything I read or hear on such topics via two perspectives. I always ask myself is the author speaking from an absolute frame of reference or a phenomenal frame of reference.
To speak to a person caught in the manifest world of a ‘me’ on a journey to realization it is helpful to use language they are acustomed to. So in talking on their level it is possible to slowly push them into a recognition that their whole paradigm is flawed. We show how seeking, paths, goals, etc. are fictional. Hence we reduce the seeker mentality to absurdity using its own rules.
Conversely it is permissable to speak from an absolute perspective as we often do who have dropped the seeker mentality. But still it is not inherently wrong to say the person in the story who is located in this specific time/space locus appears to change. This is merely the fluctuation of energy ‘me’ in a much larger energy pattern of ‘what is’.
We ought not to shy from the words of dualism imagining that we always speak nondualistically. You and I know awakening is not a process. But we also know that to the rest of the unawakened world they are looking at you thinking ‘hmm, this guy seems different as if he is changing’.
I find it fun to play with the mechanics of the phenomenal world. There is a danger of being sucked back into attachment to this story but if we are ‘aware of awareness’ it is not possible to be made un-aware at the end of the day. At any rate I’m not afraid of saying Hanuman Dass seems to have changed from a seeker to a being that has dropped the self-assertion.
Of course we never want to give false hope to those still bound to the seeker paradigm. But if we are mindful of our language we can undo the paradigm with its own tools.
I am absolutely certain that if we all sat down for coffee we’d all agree…’We’re all saying the same damned thing!’
Thanks for commenting K Grey.
P.S. Colin is a guru? Come on man!
10/28/2011 at 12:13 PM
A Dialogue with Colin Drake on Practice Part 4 of 4 « Hanuman Dass
[...] everyone of Part 3 Are There Different Degrees of Awakening and is it Sudden or Gradual? Found HERE. Colin clearly points out that awakening is sudden rather than gradual. I might add that talking of [...]