Staying Awake
Waking Up Again and Again – and Learning How to Stay Put
Part of the architecture of awakening—at least for me—was the repeated discovery of that within me which is unlimited, infinite, and eternal. And then, almost inevitably, finding myself confused, contracted, and back inside the prison of my separate self—wondering what had happened and how to get back. Sometimes I’d even forget the moments of liberation entirely.
I began jotting them down in my diary as an aide-memoire—surprised by how many times I’d woken up… and then fallen back asleep.
Read: Bumpy Landing (poem)
The passion and commitment to continue kept the search alive. But eventually, the penny dropped: staying awake was never about chasing a particular experience—it was always about choice. The moment I saw that, something fundamental shifted. I stopped defining myself by the content of whatever was arising. Experience, after all, is always changing. And as long as I let it dictate who I was and how I acted, I remained on a manic rollercoaster—unreliable to myself, to those closest to me, and to life itself.
I’ve watched myself trip over the same wire again and again. And I witness others in the group forum I co-host fall into the same pitfalls. It seems that one of the hardest lessons to learn is the radical austerity of not identifying with how we feel.
“staying awake was never about chasing a particular experience—it was always about choice”
Because feelings don’t just whisper—they insist. Thoughts can be abstract, even spacious—unless they trigger emotion. But feelings arrive with a visceral tag:
“This is Me. Ignore at your peril.”
The most liberating discovery of this path is recognising that the essence of who we are is already prior to whatever arises. It is the transparent, silent awareness that registers every thought, every emotion, every moment. It cannot be stained by what passes through.
But let’s be clear—there’s no spiritual bypassing here. The moment we try to grasp this essence as a new identity, or wear it like a badge of awakening, we start avoiding life. We pretend we no longer have to engage with the messiness, vulnerability, and complexity of being fully human. But avoidance is never the doorway to freedom.
In fact, the deeper the realisation, the wider the emotional bandwidth becomes. When we no longer filter reality through self-image, we feel everything—from ecstasy to despair—in full, unfiltered technicolour.
The challenge, then, is this: can we let all that arises be there, without letting it cloud the innate clarity we’ve come to recognise as our natural birthright?
Read: Handle With Care
What supports this is not detachment but grounded presence—lived through acceptance, trust, commitment, and compassion. These aren’t lofty ideals; they’re the human muscles we must grow if we’re to live from real surrender.
Because the truth is: we’re not the ones doing the letting go. We’re being lived. Everything is already as it is—and we’re no longer under the illusion that we have a choice about that. At some point, the final choice has already been made. And what remains is the razor’s edge—a life walked with vigilance and integrity.
That’s where humility is born. Radical humility.
Not as self-negation, but as the quiet recognition that we are already dissolved into the flow. We are the stream. And the stream has no beginning, no end.
Read: No Avoidance
These are the bumps, the bruises, and the blessings of the path. If you’ve walked this terrain—or are walking it now—I’d love to hear how it shows up for you.
