Awakening vs Self-development

[integral]

5 Stages of Spiritual Awakening... Which Stage Are You In?

I just saw this video and it reminded me of how easily people use the word awakening on the forum when what they are experiencing is mostly self-development and a new state of self-awareness or even just altered default states and mood. 

How do we clarify this? I see alot of people that experienced a increase in self-awareness to then relate to it as "i had an awakening". I guess we can say awakening is a verb to use to describe a increase in self-awareness, but i feel thats a overuse of the word, it should be reserved for something more profound?

Give me a clear definition here and how it shows up at different stages of development. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by integral

[Leo Gura]

Awakening is a very radical, non-ordinary shift in your state of consciousness in which you become aware that you are not a human but God.

There is no mistaking it for development or even ordinary self-awareness.

Awakening is NOT a stage. It is a state.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[integral]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Awakening is NOT a stage. It is a state.

Yes perfect, what about the confusion when we determine if someone is awake or not? A statement like "sadguru is not awake"? 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, integral said:

Yes perfect, what about the confusion when we determine if someone is awake or not? A statement like "sadguru is not awake"? 

It's possible to make some state changes stable or "permanent", thus turning a state into a stage.

[Buck Edwards]

I think it depends more or less on the quality of consciousness. 

I consider Sadhguru as a very awakened being because he is consistent with his content, I never saw him say something that was in direct contradiction to reality, he is quite sharp and to the point, I would expect something like that from a highly awakened being, his composure is always consistent too. He could be a genetic freak for all I know, but an outstanding fact about Sadhguru that  I never notice with the plethora of spiritual leaders out there, is that he has never played victim to the masses, never been antithetical to criticism no matter how harsh, always volunteering to teach people in the most compassionate thoughtful ways, I see this quality of him as outstandingly brilliant and exceptional. It's like the energy or vibration you feel simply feel in his presence, even through a screen, you can feel his energy has all encompassing rejuvenating compassionate and almost liberating. This I will consider as the quality of consciousness and since he has been consistent for years now, I'll call it a stage rather than just a temporary state. 

I'll call that awakening versus development. 

 

[Buck Edwards]

@Leo Gura you shouldn't go around calling others (especially highly revered and appreciated ones) as unawakened. It creates a bad impression amongst folks. It's repelling sort of. Yea people get it you did a lot of work, but so did other teachers and gurus too. They aren't simply wallowing shit. It gets frustrating when you repeatedly do this. 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Buck Edwards

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, Buck Edwards said:

@Leo Gura you shouldn't go around calling others (especially highly revered and appreciated ones) as unawakened. It creates a bad impression amongst folks. It's repelling sort of. Yea people get it you did a lot of work, but so did other teachers and gurus too. They aren't simply wallowing shit. It gets frustrating when you repeatedly do this. 

 

In a certain sense, it’s a great thing that they aren’t awake. So that they can help humans raise their consciousness!

[Breakingthewall]

It seems that there are as many definitions of awakening as there are people. for my awakening it is the rupture of the appearance of finitude. reality is no longer perceived as flat and manifests itself as depth without limit. in that depth is everything, and that is what you are. from here the real understanding can start, the verbal logical mind is recognized as the limited software that it is, the energetic limitations begin to dissolve, and you begin to flow as the reality that you are. not being awake is limitation and stupidity, it is necessary to wake up as deep as one can. 

[integral]

6 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

I consider Sadhguru as a very awakened being

I was mostly trying to understand how to properly use the word. It seems to be used in 3 ways to describe:

1. A non-human god state (temporary then you default back to normal)
2. Used to say that someone in a normal default state is "awake" 
3. Used by people who take 1 step into spirituality and change there perspective of life (I had an awakening!)

Its not consistent.

Edited August 7, 2023 by integral

[Leo Gura]

@integral I don't think anyone here is using the word awakening to refer to personal development.

I think people here use it to refer to a mystical experience of one kind or another, but the problem then becomes to what degree, what kind (because there are many kinds of awakening), and how long-lasting? On this there's much disagreement and confusion.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[caspex]

I mostly use the world 'realization' instead of 'awakening' because that's more accurate in most contexts. I only use 'awakening' when the state in question literally feels like waking up from a deep sleep, becoming more lucid. Awakening seems to me like a very literal word.

Using 'awakening' to describe simply peering through some relative illusion, or discovering a new way of life, is not using it literally, which I think one should. In such cases 'realization' is more accurate.

[How to be wise]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Awakening is a very radical, non-ordinary shift in your state of consciousness in which you become aware that you are not a human but God.

There is no mistaking it for development or even ordinary self-awareness.

Awakening is NOT a stage. It is a state.

If the state becomes permanent, isn’t that a stage?

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

If the state becomes permanent, isn’t that a stage?

All stages are actually just states. There exists nothing but states of consciousness. Consciousness is an infinite state machine.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Water by the River]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

All stages are actually just states. There exists nothing but states of consciousness. Consciousness is an infinite state machine.

That is true.

Yet a stage can be defined as a structure, which means a certain probability distribution of states, which means that a certain states appears more often or pre-dominantly, or in a certain structure. For that, see Chaos Theory and Structuralism.

If there is a pattern/probability distribution to it (like certain states most of the time), it can be called a stage. Yet, its not a "hard" thing where only one state can appear. There is also appearance of "higher", "lower" or just other states (or configurations of the system, see Chaos theory) possible, and yet an overall structure to the probability distribution of the states can be soon.

When a certain developmental order of these structures/stages of state-probability-distributions can be seen, the stages align across a development structure, or ladder of stages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Water by the River

[Leo Gura]

Yes, some states are very stable over long periods of time. Like this state of being human. Those states we call stages.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[integral]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, some states are very stable over long periods of time. Like this state of being human. Those states we call stages.

How awake is your default state? Or what are the qualities of it that you consider to be awake vs others who are partially-awake? 

[Anonman90]

Anyone who is in this forum, reddit, etc is not 100% realized, and I'm mirroring and talking to myself. 

 

A realized being wouldn't come here talk to himself in different masks, they'd be in non-duality

Edited August 7, 2023 by Anonman90

[Ajax]

My metric is simple. I either know or I don't know. 

Viewpoints are infinite; thus, my main activity is in perception and making distinction. Points of comparison. 

Words, are merely for collaborative efforts. To teach and learn. Thus, they are of limited value. 

The only thing that is true is what is true for your according to your viewpoint that is continually changing. 

A lie is a separation (or alteration) from the original unchanging truth. You can add meanings and interpretations, however as they are changing, those are also lies.  Thus, all awakenings are lies. Because total awareness of truth as truth is a nothing. Human or even spiritual perception cannot conceive of nothing, because all physical must be a something just as a human body must be glued to a planet or grounded to a solid object. Human perception must be grounded to a "something", but as soon as they can perceive a nothing, they are immediacy pulled into something it is an automatic response, just like gravity and the human body. This is not to say a "nothing" is nonexistence. Which is something as it precedes or succeeds "existence"... A Nothing is nothing, we can identify the nothing as consciousness, but consciousness itself is a something, thus "nothing" is imperceptible to human consciousness. 

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, integral said:

How awake is your default state? Or what are the qualities of it that you consider to be awake vs others who are partially-awake? 

My default state is not much different than it ever was. But I understand what I am looking at, which is God. The more I focus on it the more I get in tune with God, so to speak. But many times throughout my day I am not focused on God, I am busy with other things.

What I have more of is not a state but an understanding of what everything is. Understanding is different than a state. Understanding has been the core of my work. In the future I will work more on my state because now my understanding has started to max out. But this required years of work.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Francis777]

@Buck Edwards if you dont say it how it is, people will start focusing on back patting/ego stroking and truth will be brushed off as a secondary intention, instead of what it should be as the primary. truth doesnt care about its impression amongst folks.