Some spiritual traditions claim that enlightenment is achieved after a long, arduous path. Some traditions hold that enlightenment can occur suddenly, in an instant. Others concede that we might reach enlightenment in spurts. Whatever the claim, most traditions imply that once you dive into the awakened state, you never go back. This leads seekers to ask, “Am I there yet? Am I enlightened?” But perhaps awakening is more fluid than that.
I recently read a book for class about sexual orientation in women called Sexual Fluidity. The major finding is that women have more flexible sexual identies than men. Searching for a fixed label rarely captures a woman’s variable attractions, which seem to depend more on the particular person they are with than on gender.
The concept of fluidity resonates with me not for its applicability to sexual orientation but for its insight into spiritual identity, particularly awakening. In the midst of a devoted spiritual practice, periods of awakening and luminosity are not uncommon. Awakened mind is utterly clear, formless, and timeless. Awareness shifts from the coil of the small self to the expanse of all that is.
With this shift in consciousness, the temptation is to relabel the small self as something more, but the small self remains itself, always. Even when you see you are the light projected on the screen, the character never leaves the movie. At times, awareness returns to the coil, boxed in by the concepts and mental structures of the small self. Sometimes awareness descends into this coil so deeply, moments of awakening are forgotten. Yet, as awakening deepens, even the small self cannot escape the lingering impression of the expanse.
Eventually, awareness begins to encompass both the small self and the expanse simultaneously, and there is the odd paradox of being both mortal and non-existent at the same time. I am simultaneously selfish and no self, wrong and perfect, human and goddess. Or rather, there is this small imperfect self, and there is the expanse which knows no imperfection, and awareness imbues them both. I cannot point to any corner of awareness and call it “I,” although the small self calls herself “I.”
Awakened awareness has happened in this self (me) many times, oscillating almost rhythmically between transcendant clarity and the mundane, and always when I “lose” that pristine, open consciousness, I wonder what went wrong. I wonder, am I awake or not? It’s like asking, am I gay or straight? The answer should be obvious. If I enter a certain situation, do I experience desire or equanimity? According to the author of Sexual Fluidity, many women adamantly refuse a label, because the existing check boxes cannot encompass the complexity of who they are in a given situation. Awakening seems just the same.
I am neither awake nor deluded nor some chequered combination of the two. The search for a permanent identity often overlooks the interdependence between who we are and the context in which we are embedded. In the realm of identity shifting, or awakening, the search for a permanent identity is even more confused. How can you identify your small self as one which has transcended itself? Such an identity does not belong to the small self. It belongs to the whole.
