Becoming Divinely Human
by CC Leigh

Chapter 10: Divinely Human Awakening

Our Story: We took whatever actions were necessary and appropriate to grasp the means of our own Realization—the irrevocable whole-being integration of Infinite Conscious Presence with finite local matter (our humanness)—and became divinely human.

Consciousness awakens
There is a distinct, identifiable shift-point that occurs when your transpersonal Presence, which up till now has felt like a visitor that comes and goes, takes up permanent residence or “lands” in and as Who You Are. Your identity shifts from thinking yourself to be a separate human to a dual identity as both human and divine: simultaneously the conditioned self and the unconditioned, infinite, sublime essence that permeates all things and all beings. Over time, these two identities come to be experienced as “not two” and merge into an inseparable unity or Onlyness.

There is a difference between having an awakening experience or glimpse and having a permanent, irrevocable whole being realization (a.k.a. “second birth”). The latter is a non-reversible shift, whereas illuminating experiences are transient. Illuminations may bring life-changing new perspectives, but your divinely human, embodied awakening will completely shift the foundation from which you live.
Divinely human awakening is founded upon a profound, experiential, whole-being recognition of your divine nature—that part of What You Are that is immaterial, infinite, unbounded, and without form or limitation. This is what brings the “divine,” or Conscious, part of your divinely human self to full, lively awakeness, whereas prior to this realization it will have been as if sleeping. It was always there, but not an active part of your experience of yourself and your life on an ongoing basis.
There are two principle types of Consciousness awakenings:
transcendent or “witness” awakening, in which Consciousness registers everything without identifying with the body-mind, and
embodied-feeling awakening, or “sacred marriage,” in which Consciousness registers everything while also being fully present in and as the feelings of the body-mind.

Witnessing
“Witness” awakenings are frequently the result of medita- tion, or Advaitic-style inquiry into the question, “Who am I?” As you work your way through all the levels of who you have taken yourself to be in the past, you discover that none of the particulars are really adequate to convey the “you-ness” of you. There is an ineffable essence at the heart of who you are, and it isn’t definable or objectifiable at all. As you contemplate the phenomenon of “you,” you begin to realize that the patterns of your psycho-physical self are being observed by something or someone that stands somehow apart from them – at least suffi- ciently to be observing them. What is this? As the inquiry ripens, you may begin noticing that your very sense of you – the center that you live from – shifts over to this very ineffable essence that is witnessing your life as it unfolds. It is a real mystery, because everything you have studied up till this point has been some- thing that you could look at, examine, and describe. Now you are sensing the very place from which the looking happens. Only it’s not a place at all, of course. It’s nothing. But it’s a very rich nothing, a field full of potential that feels both totally familiar and totally new at the same time.

This “nothing” is your Conscious nature. It is also called Witness Consciousness or Awareness. (Some authors use the term Presence interchangeably with Awareness, though I use the term Presence more specifically to refer to embodied Awareness—that which has the quality of being warm and caring.) Some people experience a vivid enlivenment of their Conscious nature as a result of transmission, inquiry, meditative cultivation, or even spontaneously out of the blue, when it is shining so brightly (so to speak) that it is unmistakable. Though this outshining may be a temporary phenomenon, it becomes a stable awakening when your sense of Self shifts out of its conditioned, historic way of experiencing your life to the free, unbounded essence-nature that is, instead, the field from which the conditioned self arises.

The awakening of Witness Consciousness is a significant accomplishment, but it alone does not complete the transformation into the divinely human condition. And what’s more, it isn’t required, as a separate, distinct experience, for embodied awakenings to happen. Useful, yes, but not required. Not everyone will have a distinct Witnessing experience where their sense of identity distinctly shifts from their human personality to their essence nature. Some will awaken directly in the midst of their human experience.

Three avenues of embodied-feeling awakening
The term “embodied-feeling” is sometimes used to point to the manner in which your Conscious nature can come alive and awake right in your bodily experience.

Though Consciousness has no manifest qualities in and of itself, people’s experience of embodied Consciousness as it is awakening tends to be somewhat tangible via the felt sense of one of the three primary “flavors” that were described in Chapter 9. Remember, when Source-Consciousness approaches embodiment, it refracts as through a prism, creating Awareness (felt in the head), Being (felt in the belly), and Heart (felt in the area of the physical heart). Each of these aspects has the quality of being infinite, ever-existent, and without boundary, yet simultaneously can be experienced as energetic sensations within the body. Another way of saying this is that, from the relative human perspective, Consciousness is typically discovered through one of these avenues of experience—whichever one becomes activated through spiritual cultivation.

The type of awakening, and the terms you use to describe it, will vary according to which of the three avenues you awaken through. This is useful information to keep in mind as you read other people’s accounts of awakening: they may sound quite different from one another. But whether awakening Consciousness shows up as the light and clarity of Awareness, the subtle vibrational energy of Being, or the unconditional love of Heart, what is common to all these awakenings is that they remove the illusion of being separate or incomplete, and they open you to a dimension of your being that is infinite, unchanging, and without boundary.

Expectations can get in the way
One of the obstacles that can come up during this passage is an attachment to the more sublime or flashy experiences that you might have experienced along the way. If you think that awakening will land you permanently in a state of vastness, deep peace, sublime ecstasy, or other juicy quality, you might not recognize something less impressive as a real awakening. Or you might expect that awakening will leave you unbothered by the emotional turbulence of being human—the frustrations, the grief, the constant desiring, the volatile anger, the fears, etc. As long as this expectation is causing you to look “over there” for an awakening, you will tend to devalue or overlook what might very well be a true embodied awakening, right here, right now.

Mind cannot know, or figure this out
It may be useful at this point to simply accept that your mind will not be able to figure this out in advance—or even, possibly, for some time after. The way your awakening will synergize into conscious embodiment will surprise you. It may seem as if something new has come into your lived experience, and at the same time, it may feel pretty darn ordinary. As one student put it, “I’ve got to say, I’m under-whelmed.” This is not to say it’s less than an extraordinary shift. It is extraordinary! But generally it’s not as flashy as our ever-desiring minds would like it to be, nor does it remove us from our humanness and the challenges of our day-to-day lives.

Paradox of simultaneity
So, if it’s not about attaining a permanent state of detachment or bliss, what is it? One thing that changes upon embodied awakening is that, before a permanent shift, we seem to experience only one state at a time; either we’re caught up in very familiar human thinking and emotional responses, or we’re in an expanded state of bliss, peace, equanimity, infinitude, etc. There is an either-or quality. For the person on their way to becoming divinely human, these states tend to oscillate from one to the other. At times we’re sure we’re “it,” and at other times we feel like we’ve “lost it.”

A key element of embodied awakening is that we begin to live in the paradox of simultaneity. This means that our capacity somehow shifts, and we begin to know ourselves as infinite Being at the same time as we might, for instance, be experiencing irritation at being in the slow line at the supermarket. It’s not really possible for the mind to imagine how this could be, until it can. One day you notice that no matter what you are experiencing at the surface, your sense of your divine self is never really gone. It might slip into the background of your awareness during periods of intense activity or emotional upset, but if you just stop and check inwardly, you recognize that it is still right there, humming along, confident in its own existence.

This quality of both/and—of being both infinite Conscious- ness and a very individual human—is one of the hallmarks of the divinely human person. Instead of waking up into a Conscious nature that is somehow detached or silently witnessing from a remote location, unperturbed by all things physical, you find yourself awakening right into your human experience.

“Landing” in your divinely human condition
Sometimes embodied awakening comes with a vivid sense of “landing” right down into your heart and whole-being—belly, legs, toes, fingers, or simply all of your body. Some describe a sense of activation, or energy, in the area of the heart on the right side or near the center of the chest. There is a correlation be- tween the physical location of the sino-atrial node of the heart— that special nerve plexus that is the origin of the signals that govern the heartbeat—and what some spiritual teachings hold to be the seat of the soul in the human body. It is also a place where many feel the tension of the core wound most acutely. Awakening correlates with the release or relaxation of this tension, and is often accompanied by a shift in the felt sense of the heart area in the body.

Some people describe a phenomenon where it feels as if their eyes are looking out from the middle of their chest, rather than their usual location in the head. However, it is not essential to have special effects for the awakening to take place. Each body is unique and will experience this shift of Conscious embodiment in its own way.

“Popping” vs. “oozing”
Sometimes a wholesale shift will occur in one fell swoop. Some have described it as if a bubble they had been encased in suddenly burst and the sense of being separate from everything else just vanished. Others have described a sudden shift from feeling like a person inside a universe to feeling like the Universe itself, with a person inside.

It is more common, and perhaps more trustable as a permanent awakening, for people to experience a series of smaller shifts and “aha’s” over time, as the pieces of the awakening puzzle come alive for them. Perhaps they have an illumination that reveals the inherent Onlyness of everything: how still Witnessing and dancing manifestation are all made of one Conscious principle, and are inseparable from one another and all things. Or perhaps they feel their heart touched by divine love and compassion for all creation, and now realize that everything shares a fundamental unity. Perhaps they gradually come to realize that the Presence they have been using to explore their inner process is Who They Really Are—and everyone else is, too. Or perhaps they just gradually clear away the resistance they have been feeling, and discard the myths they’ve been hanging on to. When they take a fresh look, they realize the truth of what is— that they are divinely human and could not be otherwise.

Stories of awakening
I highly recommend a wonderful compilation of personal stories put together by community elder Bob Valine, called Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening in the Heart of Community. Find it on amazon.com, and then prepare to be amazed by the remarkable variety of awakenings that have occurred in “ordinary” people who are a lot like you and me.

The elements of whole being realization
Because everybody is unique, and every body’s experience of be- coming Conscious will be unique, it can be difficult—in fact it is an art form—to help someone clarify when he or she has awak- ened into divinely human embodiment. While not meaning to discount anyone’s awakening experiences, it is valuable to make some discriminations because focusing attention on all of the el- ements of a divinely human awakening can help to make it real and solid—a “realized” condition—rather than being a glimpse that is not yet a steady state.

The key elements that comprise the divinely human condition are 1) living in the paradox of simultaneity, 2) the end of seeking as you knew it, and 3) a recognition of the non-separate nature of Consciousness (Awareness, Being, or Heart) and phenomena. These aspects might arrive separately in random order, or they might happen all at once without the components standing out as distinct. But, however they happen, these three elements should be present and clear to you:

1. Both/and. I discussed the paradox of simultaneity earlier, and will not belabor it too much because either you will automatically resonate with that framework because it is true in your own experience, or you won’t. Prior to this shift, you are only able to experience one state at a time, and after it, you become able to experience both your infinite divine Self and your finite, limited humanness at the same time. And by “experience” I don’t mean simply “conceptualize”—it has to be your actual, lived experience.

2. Seeking ends. The end of seeking happens when you begin to trust that there fundamentally isn’t anything more to “get” by seeking. I put it this way advisedly. Some people have a strong sense of having “found” what they were seeking, yet others may not have such a clear sense of that. However, everyone reports that their impulse to keep striving for a fundamental spiritual understanding has come to an end. Growth continues, but something very important and intrinsic to their sense of being whole has come alive in them and no longer has to be sought.

3. Personal to transpersonal. Initial experience of your Conscious nature may feel quite personal, as if you are having a peak experience, or an expansion of consciousness that really doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else or the world at large. Even the sense of living the paradox of simultaneity can seem quite personal and internal to you.
The transpersonal shift involves deeply contemplating the spacious, unlimited nature of Consciousness. Is it a personal experience only, or does that infinite quality occur without any demarcation points, such that what seems to be personal to you might be universally true for all beings and all of life? When the universal quality of Consciousness becomes real for you experientially, you will begin living fully as a divinely human being.
The challenge of conveying “simultaneity” using a linear language
Our linear language is an inadequate tool for conveying simultaneity, or the both/and experience that comes with embodied awakenings. For instance, it’s difficult to express my current thoughts and emotions while at the same time conveying my sense of being existentially free and trusting of Being. When I try, it takes a lot of words to do so. This is one of the reasons why people have been led to expect that awakening will be all about being free and transcending of their human dramas— because people experiencing the shift into an awakened condition often speak or write from the perspective of free Consciousness only. Unfortunately, if a spiritual teacher ONLY speaks from the perspective of Consciousness, they do not give much help to the ongoing struggle to integrate human thoughts and emotions with the radical shift into a new mode of being.

Other types of awakenings
Not every awakening is oriented to embodiment. Becoming divinely human is NOT everyone’s goal or result. It appears that there is a choice point where you can move toward mutuality and embrace humanness, or dissociate from your humanness in order to live predominantly in transcendence. As in a cave in the Himalayas. That type of awakening may require continual vigilance lest the thinking, reacting mind comes in to disturb the inner equilibrium. Because the conditioned tendencies of being human are quite entrenched for most people, it seems that few people are able to become truly established in transcendental awakening for very long. Besides, when you are hanging out in the transcendent, who is supposed to be living your life?
The core paradox is the gateway to embodied awakening

The path to embodied awakening is through the core wound/ paradox, which was introduced in Chapter 3.
You may remember that the core paradox is the result of our existential condition of being both infinite Consciousness and finite human being. When unconscious, the core “wound” is that feeling of distress at the core of your being, that subtle driver of human endeavor and escapism, that “ugh” that we REALLY don’t want to feel. You must consciously enter the core wound, in order to enter the kingdom of the divinely human life. Sure, experiencing the freedom and bliss of your Conscious nature can be an important step along the way, one that will give you a much bigger sense of the totality of Who You Are. But we are talking here about nothing less than birthing that infinite Consciousness into your very finite human body to inaugurate a whole new way of being and acting in the world. Instead of your small self reaching upward to contact the big Self, you are now inviting that big Self to come home and inhabit your body in a much more direct and empowered way than ever before.

That embodying will necessarily include inhabiting the core wound. And as long as your sense of self—your human, personal self—is averse to feeling the core wound and is actively avoiding it, it will not be possible for your Bigger Self to fully land here. (Work with me here on the language, okay?) That’s why a big part of the work of divinely human awakening is facing your shadow parts and welcoming them home, thereby releasing bound energy and increasing your capacity to be with all of your feelings—the uncomfortable ones as well as the pleasant ones. As you go deeper with your inquiries, you get down to the impersonal aspects of the core wound itself, the feelings of “not-good-enoughness,” or incompleteness, that have kept you from being able to fully own the wonder that you are. You have to fully drop into these difficult places. You have to let yourself realize that the discomfort of being Infinite within the boundaries of a vulnerable human body is not due to your personal failings, but is inherent in being human, and more or less ever-present and inescapable. You have to face all the ways you have tried to jump out of these feelings, and truly give up that effort in order to prepare a home for Being to abide in and as you.

A final note: even though you may understand that you must encounter the core wound in order to experience a new birth, you cannot do it as a technique to get out of your human predicament. Then it would be just another strategy for avoiding the real impact of that very predicament—to avoid really being here. And as long as you’re avoiding being here, you will be working against the impulse of Being to come awake here. You are working against your awakening. But hey, that’s only natural, given that you ARE a human being and can hardly avoid your intrinsic tendency to want to avoid discomfort.

So you will avoid the core wound as long as you are able to. That seems to be how it goes. But at some point, you will run out of the ability to keep doing that, and become more interested, and more able, to contemplate the predicament of your human condition. As you realize that it is okay to feel the core wound, you surrender all of your struggle, your fight, and your impulse to escape. You find yourself accepting that you are the limited one you are, that it’s not your fault, that it’s really okay, and that you’re lovable exactly as that.
And it’s not so bad after all.

Try this: Inseeing into your core wound
Take a moment to bring your attention to your body. Perhaps sense the feeling of your feet contacting the floor, and the feeling of your clothing against your skin. With a nice full breath, feel your chest expanding and the sense of enlivenment that comes.

Next, take some time to register the complex feeling of all of you—all of your life right now. You may feel any variety of body sensations, and thoughts or images may flash through your mind. If you become aware of any issue, say an inner hello to it and see if it would be okay with your coming back to it later. The core wound isn’t about issues, even deep-seated ones.

Take a moment to think of the good things in your life, be they material things, the work that you do, or people or pets that you love. Notice how you want to hold onto those things, even though you know they will not be with you forever.

Now think of things in your life that you’d like to be free of—those things that are irritating or painful, or the ways you feel stuck. Include feelings of insufficiency, incompleteness, or “not-good-enoughness.” Notice how difficult it is to live with these things.

Invite any fears that you might have about scary events in the future: loss of income, ill health, or the loss of loved ones. And include any feelings of being separate, either from Source or from other people, and how cut off and isolated that can make you feel.

Now consider all of these things as a whole. Can you see how all of these elements together create a continual stress or tension at the core of your being? Continue to bring your attention inward, ever more deeply. As if, out of all the sensations you are mindful of, you could distill out the core feeling of being you.

And now take a moment to remember Presence. You are also that which can be mindful of all these things, that which can bring interested curiosity and deep caring to anything and everything that arises in you throughout the course of your life. You are the tension and also the field in which the tension is occurring. And that tension is only the feeling of a paradox that does not need to be resolved.

Grasping the means of your own awakening
Because your body is unique, and comes to this point of ripeness for awakening through its own novel path and history, you will need to find your own individual route to and through this transformative passage.

This doesn’t mean that you should steer away from people who offer you support and advice, but that you should stay in touch with your own inner knowing and sense of rightness and let that be your ultimate guide. You may be drawn to explore any number of different avenues of inspiration for your awakening process, some of which I described in Chapter 9.

You may want to experiment with letting go of any formulaic practices you have been relying on, at least for a while, to see what comes up if you aren’t using them. Again, this doesn’t mean those practices are not useful—they may have great value for you, and you may wish to either continue them or pick them up again after a period of experimentation without them. But any spiritual practice that you have been doing by rote that hasn’t brought awakening might be working at cross purposes in some fashion, and it can be worthwhile to see what comes up when you just let yourself be, exactly as you are, for a while.
The most important point here is that when you are becoming divinely human, what matters most is who you are and what is arising in you, in this moment, that needs to be addressed in order to help free up energy and attention for completing your awakening.

Clearing away final resistances to awakening
There may come a time when the various elements of this transformation appear to be in place—experientially known by you—but there is no discernable quantitative shift. Perhaps some places of resistance need to be addressed before your human self will feel safe enough to permit this shift. You may find yourself wondering about some of the following issues. If any of them res- onate, why not bring them into your next Inseeing session to find out what they’re trying to accomplish or wanting you to know?

Will I find myself alone? This is a natural, instinctive fear that if you change, you will be unable to relate to your family and friends as you have in the past—or that they will be unable to see and relate to the new you. There is some basis for this fear, because relationships that were built on your conditioned personality relating to their conditioned personalities may indeed change as you become more able to live from your natural essence and less willing to keep living out of old patterns that are no longer relevant to your newly-emerging Self. The bad news is that some relationships may end, but the good news is that those relationships that end were ones where you were not seen and appreciated for being who you really are. And whenever something moves out of your life, space opens for something new to enter. Those who are drawn to the awakening you will be people who DO value who you now are.

Will I have to become someone else? The patterned, conditioned aspects of your personality may be afraid they will be replaced by some mysterious Other that might not do as good a job of keeping you safe (which has been their job until now). It may take some time for them to come to trust that the Self that is awakening is the deepest aspect of who you are, and who you have always been. Rather than feeling like a personality transplant, the new quality of Being generally feels like what’s most truly “you”—yet was previously held under wraps or in the background. The birthing of this essential nature doesn’t automatically do away with patterns that function to promote survival—and this simple recognition may give enough reassurance to the vulnerable self for this shift to occur.

Will I have to step up to some special destiny? Your awakening may come with a sense of destiny, as if you are stepping up to a new level of being and contributing in life. This might feel enlivening or it might seem scary, as if there is some grand purpose lurking on the other side of awakening, a purpose you might not want or feel ready to undertake. Simply being willing to BE HERE fully, in a world that does not generally see or value such awakenings, is a heroic act in and of itself. You may be intuitively sensing the cosmic importance of such an act, and feeling it as a sense of destiny. And you may indeed have a calling to make a bigger contribution than you have in the past. What’s important to know is that you won’t be required to do anything you are not ready or willing to undertake. Most likely, if there is something new coming into your life that is part of your destiny, it will feel tailor-made to who you are and what you most value. You will feel excited to take it on, and the qualities you need to fulfill it will show up in a synchronistic way.

I’m not ready, adequate, or good enough. Many people will encounter self-doubt as they find themselves changing and opening to what feels like nothing less than their own divine nature. And given that many of us have been told throughout our lives that we have to be “good” to earn spiritual rewards, it’s no wonder that we would harbor some deep-seated doubts about whether we’re good enough for this shift. Fortunately, embodied awakening is not something you have to earn through merit. You are already everything you need to be, and it is enough.

Who am I to think I’m worthy of this? The flip side of self-doubt is a concern about being arrogant, which is taboo in many religions. “If I say I deserve this awakening, I am being arrogant and that’s not allowed; people will find out that I’m nothing special and put me down” (or some variation on that theme). The truth is that if you find yourself in the midst of this transformation, Being has determined that it’s your time. It has nothing to do with thinking you are worthy, or with what anyone else might think. It is taking place at a deeper level than that, a whole-being level that has little or nothing to do with what your mind thinks about it.

If I claim to be awakened, something bad might happen to me. There is a primordial fear in our collective psyche that may turn up as you approach your awakening. In the past, people who dared to reveal their special qualities of insight or intuition, or their sense of being a divine person, were sometimes feared, persecuted, or killed. Perhaps foremost in our Western cultural history is the story of Jesus, who was crucified for proclaiming himself to be the son of God. It is good to bring fears of this type into full awareness, where they can be held up to the reality of our current situation. At least in the West, we have unprecedented freedom of belief, practice, and speech right now, which is a great blessing and opportunity.

I think I still have to do (fill in the blank) before I can awaken. This is especially likely to crop up if you have been oriented to doing extensive spiritual practices to refine and purify yourself in order to attain special states of consciousness. You may not think you have done enough yet for an awakening. Perhaps in the past extensive purification work was necessary. However, what we have been discovering and have many examples of is that extensive purification is seldom necessary, and this awakening is just bursting out all over the place in the most un-purified people. This is not meant to minimize anyone’s attainment, but to emphasize that a highly refined degree of self- improvement does not appear to be required for this awakening.

This can’t be it—it’s too easy (and too ordinary). This concern can be a real block to recognizing a divinely human awakening, especially in its early stages before it has been established, deepened, and integrated into a settled self-knowing and confidence in Being. Most seekers have created an expectation of something quite extraordinary, because much of what’s written about “enlightenment” is speaking about a) peak experiences,
b) transcendent conditions that have particular qualities of bliss, peace, disinterested witnessing, etc., or c) awakenings that have matured into a fully-developed condition. Remember, becoming divinely human will not be like anything you imagined, so what is most helpful is to stay attuned to what IS true in your experience, without comparing it to what others have described, or whatever your own expectations might have been.

If I validate this awakening as it is, I will be settling for something less than I want. It is very important to make a distinction here, that the second birth is just that—a birth. Yes, it is a deep reckoning with what is, and it is a profound realization of your divinely human condition that encompasses both an exquisite infinity of awareness or aliveness and a very sobered appraisal of your human limitations. Yet in its early stages, it may feel pretty ordinary, as if you haven’t changed at all but merely have a different perspective on what was always the case. But you HAVE shifted into a new capacity of experience and perception, and it will continue to evolve and refine itself over time, as you integrate all the elements that make up who you are now. This awakening is not an end point, but rather an entry point that will reveal many more dimensions as you continue to evolve over time.

My process isn’t as (dramatic, flashy, juicy, special, etc.) as so-and-so’s, so it must not be an awakening. It’s easy to get caught up in comparing your process with what’s happening in someone else’s process, and to feel dissatisfied with your own. Remember that every body is different, and every awakening process is unique, so bring your attention back to your own experience, which is all that really matters for you.

Your landing platform
I spoke earlier of this awakening as a landing, as if your essence-self lands in your body and begins living here, as you. Well, much like a helicopter needs a flat, solid surface on which to land, your awakening/landing will be facilitated by having good support structures in place in your life. While there’s no hard- and-fast rule, it seems that Being tends to hold itself back a bit when your life is unstable or in times of major transition. Ideally, you will have an established home space that feels good to you, a job that’s not too stressful or other source of income to meet your needs, the support of family and friends who understand what you are undertaking, and enough health and free time to devote to inquiry and mutual explorations with others of like mind.
It’s not necessary to have everything just so, however. Being is resourceful, and can make do with a wide range of situations. However, if your awakening seems to be stalling, this is an area to look at. Perhaps some changes will be in order to create just the right kind of platform for your awakening process to unfold in an optimum way.

Divine timing
Remember, no matter how far you’ve come in your understanding, no matter how many illuminations you have experienced and resistances you have cleared, the timing of awakening is always by grace alone. No one can control it or predict it with accuracy.

Some people just seem to pop into awakening fairly quickly, with seemingly little effort, while others spend years and get utterly frustrated at how awakening seems to elude them, despite their best efforts. It’s easy to feel jealous when others around you awaken more quickly! What gives?

The timing of awakening is a mystery, pure and simple. Perhaps it is a karmic thing, or perhaps it’s related to particularly difficult conditioned patterns that persist in getting in the way.

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Whatever the reason, it is unlikely that it has much, if anything, to do with whether you are a “good practitioner.”
Keep in mind that awakening is an ongoing process, and that you are “becoming divinely human” all along the way. For everyone who awakens, there will be a gradual process over time of bringing greater light, and greater depth of awareness, into the life they are living.

Oscillations
As mentioned in Chapter 9, a natural part of the awakening process is that times of illumination, or times when Being flashes forward into obvious embodiment, are typically followed by periods that feel most ordinary, as if you had “lost” whatever awakening you had experienced.

If you are beginning to think that you already have most of the elements of an embodied awakening in place, but are concerned that you still “lose it” from time to time, it may be a good opportunity to do a little research. In the early days following the shift, it is still easy for reactive patterns to get triggered and temporarily obscure the felt sense of the awakened condition. In other words, what is in the foreground of your awareness when you are calm and un-triggered naturally recedes into the background when you’re in the midst of some emotional or mental storm. This does not necessarily mean that you’ve lost your awakening.
You might check it out. As the storm abates, sense backward. Might there still have been an inner knowing of your divinely human nature, even during that period? If you could have hit the pause button on your reactivity, would your awakeness still have been present? Do you have a sense that it never was really gone? If the answer is yes, it might be time to consider whether you’ve experienced the second birth: the permanent, irrevocable shift of divinely human awakening.

Second birth conversations
There is a tradition in the Trillium Awakening community of inviting people to have their awakenings vetted by a Trillium Awakening teacher. Several teachers have developed particular skill in the art of helping someone determine whether a perma- nent whole being awakening has occurred, and are available for clarifying conversations. You can find them at www.trillium- awakening.org/contact-us.

Evaluating second births can, understandably, be a controversial practice. On the one hand, awakening is, practically by definition, self-validating. If you aren’t convinced, what’s the point? If Being is really awake in and as you, it will very likely be proclaiming itself internally: “I’m here! I’m here!”

But humans are complex, and even when awakening is shining forth, there may well be other parts of you that haven’t yet got the message, that may still be doubting or resisting what is occurring. In that case, it can be most useful to have someone to talk with about the changes you are experiencing, and where you can explore the various aspects of awakening with someone who can help you discover what is really true for you. It’s not about passing or failing, or getting some kind of stamp of approval. Your awakening is your own experience, and the idea is to help you gain clarity about the process for your own benefit.
Many people report that the second birth conversation is a powerful rite of passage for them. In the act of finding words to describe the changes they’ve been undergoing, and then claiming what’s happened as true for them, there is often a further deepening of the awakening itself. Speaking it makes it more REAL.
Another benefit of clarifying your second birth is that the focus of your inner dynamic will be shifting from seeking to integrating. Resolving any confusion can free you to take the next steps that are most appropriate for you now.

Of course, no one is required to get this kind of external validation of what is, essentially, a very private, personal experience. Confirmation of your second birth is only required if you are interested in taking the special courses offered by the Institute of Awakened Mutuality for people in the second life or if you are considering becoming a Trillium Awakening mentor or teacher. But whether required or not, you may well want to take advantage of the opportunity, for the many benefits it will bring.

Confidence in Being
Although it’s an important milestone, this divinely human awakening is called “the second birth” for a reason. In many ways, it’s just a birth into a new capacity and framework of living—a birth that is going to require a lot of growing before it becomes full-grown and fully-expressed. It is important to remember that this awakening will NOT immediately transform you into someone with all the answers and who is free of all conditioning and ego. Sorry! There is still work to do. It’s an awakening because our essence does, indeed, awaken and become an active player in our daily lives. But keep in mind that this is “only” an initiation into a new stage of life, a beginning that will take much loving attention before it comes into its full fruition. No doubt at some point your “where’s the enlightenment?” button will be pushed—and that’s because divinely human awakening is a beginning, not an end point.
Confidence and trust in Being increases over time, eventually becoming unshakably stable, permeating and informing all of life. How that happens is the topic of our next chapter.