The app for independent voices
When awakening is actually remembering
Awakening is nothing new, but only a letting go of acquired, temporary habits. What is remembered in awakening can be at least that you awakened countless times before across unimaginable time -- a broad memory of that 'final approach' when letting go really took hold and in seconds you noticed once again the reality of what you are.
But there is also a more specific memory for many people: remembering a specific time 'in this life' when you had awakened and noticed the exact same reality. These memories of other times in this life are difficult to willfully recall because they have no good 'handles' with which to call them up -- no words, no images, no associations; and at the same time, they permeate the memory almost absolutely, like the cosmic background noise, but too simple and too obvious to care about.
Sometimes, people recall the moment they took their first breath when they were delivered from the womb. I remember it quite clearly. It was an explosive realization that I was none of the things that had ever happened to me and nothing that ever would happen to me.
Instead, I am only the 'place' where all these things happen all around and in me. The continuity of everything and not really the content! It seemed hard to recall that, but more recent events in my life in my 20s gave me a model awareness of a possibility for which I could look. And there it was, the simplest of all memories all throughout me!
Since then, I have also been able to recall many times when I let go just spontaneously but failed to notice the significance of the view. "How silly," I thought to myself while recalling those many moments of clarity, that I just ignored or dismissed it on account of 'more pressing business.' But such realizations are easy to dismiss when I realize they have always been there waiting patiently for me and always will be there.