I didn't become pain-less, emotion-less, vulnerability-less
after Awakening, if anything, I became more open
to pain, emotion and vulnerabilities, without hiding.
What I can assure you that the commentary from the mind
about pain, emotion and vulnerabilities does fade away with time.
Because there is more open space for emotion and pain to be,
mind's suggestions get less and less laud with time.
The suggestions like: "Why this is happening with me",
"You are not worthy", "This is not going to be good", "You shouldn't do, be, talk, walk, live like that", "You will fail", "You are too old, young, too tall, too short, too skinny, too fat", "You do not have what it takes", and hundreds of similar suggestions that mind gives from his file storage, fade away, they really do.
This is the most visible, beneficial, life-giving change that anyone can experience after awakening. With time.
I do not want to miss-lead here, and tell you that it does happen the next day you wake up. Though yes, there will be some changes in the brain immediately, for sure. The event of Awakening is one of the most profound events that can happen to a human being, and it surely re-align the human in one strike of the Grace.
I want you to understand also that everything in nature is in the place of equilibrium, and if that equilibrium was broken, it will take time for the organism to find a new equilibrium within it's systems.
I saw how re-calibration of mind goes in cycles (without any suggestion to the order): peace, bliss, upheaval, suffering, great suffering, peace, bliss, and so on, for years.
Did you ever meet people who right after awakening claimed they were in peace and bliss, and this is what they expected to be to the rest of this life? I did. I never believed it. Because I learnt on my own life, my own existence in this body, what impermanence is. The only permanent while we are in this form, is impermanence. And understanding impermanence deeply does help to understand life, with the mind awake or not.
Then what is that many teachers talking about that is not changeable, and we are THAT? In the experience of awakening this very unchangeable nature of us comes forth suddenly, without doubt it is seen at that moment that I am not separate from anything else, I am not the body-mind organism, I am not the thinking mind, I do not exist as anything that I thought I am. I just AM. I am not something, not somebody, I am not any characteristics, I simply exist as existence itself. Little i as somebody does not exist, what only exist is I AM, Consciousness, God.
Even if you never had your mind blown up to such an opening, you might understand how big this event is. It also lasts from a split second to hours and days. Depends on many variables, and in some way, on a duration, for sure, the changes in the organism can be tremendous. This is an atomic bomb to all that one lived so far, and to what one was identified so far. Everything is detonated at that moment. The broken pieces of the personality, the dust of all the knowledge about yourself - this is what one experience in the Awakening.
The post-awakening depends on "what is in the air": how strong the detonation was, how broken the personality is, did it re-arranged into something else at the moment of experience, or it is hanging loose, and many many many factors. Many. I am not a supercomputer to calculate the trajectory of the re-aligning of the personality for continuation of life until the death of the body.
The organism will try to come to homeostasis, where there is a certain equilibrium, and this is not one shot deal. There will be all kinds of life events to support and make it happen. They might not necessarily be easy and blissful, please do not believe those who claim such nonsense. Maybe they are in a cycle of bliss at the moment, but wait couple of months, years, and you won't hear them anymore, they will hide from speaking publicly what they actually living. Until the next round of bliss.
Do not believe also those who focused on suffering, because this is also limited perspective. Give this one couple of years to go through a Dark Night of the Soul that usually follow the Awakening, or precedes it.
Believe nothing anyone says how you should live and be, because your experience surely will be unique and different, just live what is true and present for you, do not get lost in someone's limited perception at the certain point in time. Trust that the necessary knowing is always available in a form of a teacher, a friend, life event, circumstances, and this is the only lifeline that can be trusted: your own life in this human reality of impermanence.
The pain will be here to experience, and so are emotions, and vulnerabilities. Unless the body has been shed, we are here to live in the reality of impermanence, but in the knowing of who we are beyond the personality. Like the rotating stage set in the theatre, and we are in the set in this personality and it's roles to play. It does not mean we are them, but aren't we are great professionals, that in the middle of the scene we are so involved in a role, we become it!?
Anyone who lives engaged in the world and claims they are beyond personality, they are just great actors in the role that plays just that. They know their lines perfectly, and their play is so flawless, they themselves lost in that role of someone who is beyond personality, but everyone around watching the scene knows that this teacher is on the stage, in a set.
"If you see name and form, you are in a dream", said one wise man. Experiences of pure consciousness are not the one we live in, operating as human beings. Mind has an amazing capacity to expand to limitlessness and contract to the limitation. At any particular moment mind is in a certain state, it can be expanded beyond personality, or focused into personality. This is a play of Impermanence.
Those who know God, and do not make distinction and evaluation of what is a better state to live, those who live what is here at the moment, and act from the best part of themselves available, they are the awake and the noble ones. Anyone striving for awakening will benefit by observing them in life, as a living teacher and a friend.
