The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment

by Adyashanti

But because we’ve awakened does not mean that consciousness has gotten past the gravitational pull of the dream state.

While the moment of awakening is instantaneous, there is a process that unfolds thereafter—the process of getting beyond the gravitational force of the dream state.

The process of going beyond the gravitational force of the dream state

In terms of awakening, all that matters is right here and right now.

awakening is right here right now

Awakedness woke up from the “me.”

Awakedness woke up from the “me”

it is much more painful to act in a way that we know is not true once we’ve seen that it is not true.

process of awakening as climbing a ladder.

With each step you go, you have less and less tendency to look down.

We think that awakening will be a get out of jail free card.

We realize that to behave from any place other than our true nature is destructive to ourselves

Most human beings derive their entire sense of self from their conditioning. They are literally conditioned, told, and taught who they are.

If you’re good, if you’re bad, if you’re worthy or unworthy, if you’re lovable or unlovable—all this is conditioning, and all this creates a false sense of self.

This is one of the hallmarks of the awakened state—the sense that one could never again identify with the conditioned self. It seems unimaginable that we would ever go into a state of separation again.

And it does no good to complain about your karmic load, whether you perceive it to be greater or lesser than somebody else’s. It is what it is.

The process here becomes one of coming into right relationship with yourself and looking deeply at what it is that causes you to go back into the trance of separation.