Many people are very ripe for waking and waking up is now very easy. The problem for many long term on the path is that they are seeking their ideas of what enlightenment is. They are using their mind to seek what is beyond mind and these expectations are getting in the way.
Self is very simple, natural, quiet.
So sometimes, an event comes up to shake us loose. Or the perfect things is heard. Or there is a teacher/vehicle that comes along and says – there it is. But really its usually a combination of things. And then the right moment appears, we are able to let go, just a little, and grace comes and the Self steps in where it always was.
In waking up, we become what we have perhaps so long experienced. What we have been all along.
People wake up many ways. Through the intellect. Through the heart. Through the body. Through a combination of things. But in the end, only through the Self Itself. We become who we already were. We may feel a sense of freedom, incredible bliss, and/or deep peace. Release,
joy, love.
But It cannot be described. It is beyond the mind and senses so has no features. Its “without form and void”, yet it contains all potential. It is limitless.
What is an awake person like? Its a meaningless question. Waking up changes everything but changes nothing. The individual remains. The bus driver, or senior, or golfer, or healer… They remain that. Recall the old saying about chop wood? (Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.)
What changes is the relationship you have with who you are. The sense of Me changes. The idea of ego is forgotten. You are no longer who you thought you were. (this is why the mind resists it) Instead you become something so much greater. At first this immensity can seem like the “emptiness”. And it can take some time to adjust and for the old bits of ego to fall away. Nadeen calls this the deliverance. (He woke up in jail) But as Self begins to move forward into your
experience, it becomes fullness. And fullness becomes everything.
Then it is just fullness and resistance to fullness. Love, and resistance to love. And slowly the resistances fall away…
AdyaShanti calls it emptiness dancing…