Hi all. I'm still progressing on my journey - or so I thought until I had a conversation with a Redditor here (you know who you are!) which propelled me into a sudden realization.I was at the point where the realization dawned on me that "everything cannot exist. but because it does, everything must also exist." Which made no logical sense, but there was an emptiness before thought, before words. At the heart of things. Before even things came into being.That was what was understood as awakening.I was all set to progress through more stages and models, but I also realized that if I wanted more obstacles, there would be obstacles. Why not just settle into the is-ness of Being?A lot of what was read before (Angelo Dilulo, Eckhart Tolle, Zen etc etc) all made more sense. It felt that it had been comprehended more deeply.(a chance post on the AtR blog made sense - you can only get to this AFTER anatta. Before anatta, it doesn't make sense = how can everything exist because it does not exist?)There was a sense of knowing in the body (and spirit) of what was emptiness, dependent origination, all that stuff. I'm still processing it now - but there is also the asking - what is there to process? Inherent nature is the same as it has always been. Now the veil is just parted. .I haven't felt the need to do self-inquiry since, just settling into Being. I do have more questions, but I thought I would post this first. (I'm also trying to let my questions answer themselves by quieting the mind. The voices still speak to me but they seem more integrated into myself.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/awakened/comments/152z0ga/an_awakening_has_happened_spontaneously/

Formatting always gets messed up

So you say you attained sense of knowing?
Can you at least visualize it or are you as deluded as to think you actually know anything?

I obviously don't think I know everything, no one does.

It is like now I can drop into Being, and then it is empty and full all at once. I can "see" and feel the dance of atoms in creation. It's kind of wow.

I'm still human, need to do groceries and go to the toilet! 

I rather suggested you just have experience of knowing something - it is common effect.
Unfortunately rather than person fooling around few days or even week they can spend decades until they die and they will usually never investigate what they feel they know.

It can be some fabricated experience eg. experience of "anatta" which arises with the same sensations which indicate knowledge and they think they know something. Experience can arise with "doneness" and they will believe they have done something - what is it they have done doesn't matter for them. This is called fetter of ignorance. It exists from the get go.

Usually there are some meaningless and even downright stupid golden thoughts like the one you quoted - since they are meaningless they are perfect target for the kind of qualities people seek because normally all dharma is full of these things - then when someone spends enough time trying to understand it and as soon as quality of understanding it arises they think they understood it and it being as nonsensical yet having qualities of knowing it feels very deep... just like all other dharma.

I see it all and people who cannot see thought these things as stupid and idiots respectively.
Just do not take it personally - for one I do not know you and I do not know your long term abilities to dispel nonsense and secondly it is part of "normal" among human population. So normal in fact that everyone has this issue of being led by empty experience to some degree - it ttakes actual effort and knowledge it is a fetter to dispel this nonsense even within my own mind. Experience with knowing built-in are very convincing and convenient. Especially versus spending extra effort to point out BS in your own mind.

IIn any way I expect you to have bunch of these "awakenings" until your learning rate is high and then it will drop down to zero as you think you are Arhat/Buddha/God/etc. and you will dwell in your unchallenged self delusions and without any actual insight or attainments. Experiences will be wow-ing you because it is easy for mind to visualize wow qualities and if you never risk loosing these experiences for higher goals you will get fettered by them.

That said I do not say you need to get actually awakened - other than actual knowledge how all these things work there is nothing to be gained extra - and number of people who are more interested in knowing truth is small compared to number of run-of-the-mill people who just want nicer illusions.

Ni Nurta --

How should people distinguish between what you call stupid/idiotic knowing and whatever you call real knowing? Is it just your opinion or is there some independent observation one can use?

This sounds nice. It often seems to me that getting to this, understanding (groking) this, is of more practical utility than many other outcomes of meditation. My suggestion would be to do just what you are doing. Let it deepen. Cultivate it. Give it room to be known. 

Chris,

If you experience knowing but cannot say anythign because it feels your knowledge is experiental and one has to experience it to begin to comrehend it then it is empty knowledge - or just being led by mind's delusion.

When you can explain what you mean then it is most likely knowing.

It doesn't need to be automatically perfectly capture known topic or being understood by people whom you tell it to but it is at least some knowledge - some effort went in to it beyond just visualizing mind state with experience of knowing buit-in.

Remember - all dharmas are empty.
Me eg. rambling about eg. tired neurons is not dharma - it is theory. Dharma is visualized mind state - dharmas in form of words are designed to induce visualized mind states. They usually include knowing as anything plus quality of knowing something deep feels like awakening. If you take nonsense sentences but really believe there is deep insight embedded in it then spending effort on meditation (especially already having higher learning rates) will lead to experience of awakening of sorts, knowing something mysterious with sensations arising in ways which indicate something about what this sentence was about - it is an illusion, empty dharma. Experiencing such dharmas is okay but clinging to such dharmas for too long is what is stupid - and my previous post was just a kind of warning against clinging to these awakenings described because they are nonsense. If seen though they can be even useful but when clinging to them they will become just another thing to strengthen fetter of ignorance preventing seeing important things.

Okay, are you saying experiential knowledge is delusional? When you use the word "empty" here what does it mean? Is it empty in the Buddhist sense, or empty as in "contains nothing, no information content?"

Thanks!

EDIT: It seems to me (but I need you to clarify) that you're saying that direct experience cannot lead to awakening. Is that correct? It's difficult for me to understand your language use. Maybe try another way to explain what it is you're saying? Can't direct path teachings like Zen and Dzogchen lead to awakening? Those teachings typically involve getting as close to non-conceptual experience as possible. In my experience, vipassana leads to the same place but using a different path and methods. 

In my models of mind it is totally possible to have experience of knowing and assume it means something whereas the reason for this experience are broken experiences with lots of aversion. One can craft mind which operates on aversion and it being seemingly better than what was before and on top of that feel there is this incredible indescribable knowledge - yet due to aversion it cannot be penetrated.

Otherwise "experiential knowledges" are not delusions by itself - especially if the knowledge is about experiences themselves eg. that given experience causes some specific effects/experiences or how to induce experiences.

Delusion-wise there is also tendency of mind to take concepts/definitions and create experiences of them and assume the experience is the meaning of the concept/definition eg. anatta is often made in to experience of anatta and people act like this experience is meaning of anatta - it is delusional because anatta is concept of "nothing you can point to is you" and while it can easily lead to rather specific experience this experience is not a meaning of anatta. Same is true with experience of emptiness - it has definition. Creating experience of emptiness is like totally misunderstanding emptiness imho

As for awakening - I do not like this term.
By itself it is an okay term but it is used to refer to some kind of singular realization - this thinking is not pragmatic.
If there is use of term awakening there should always be definition what person awakened from and what they awakened to.
Lack of tendency to define these things when talking about them suggests these things were never defined and person just assumes awakening because something in the experience changed and it is more akin to what supposedly enlightened person described in their book so it must be this glorious awakening. Then definitions when stated look like quotes from the books.

If "experiential knowledge" is visualized mind state from the book then what was attained is visualized mind state - not awakening.
If experience is good - better than what was before - then great but it doesn't make it awakening by itself.

So what is the real awakening?
Nothing - it is bad term and person should not seek awakening but self improvement and right understanding, to become better person, just as Buddha taught. Eightfold Noble Path is by itself "awakening". If person seeks experience to confirm their awakening they didn't exactly awaken, now did they?

I thought this topic was dead lol.

Been a while since then, had many more experiences. I try not to get attached to them, as Adyashanti says "Awakening is mundane, realization is ecstatic" or something like that. The experiences just fade and deepen.

I have a good teacher now, I'm basically just doing more self-inquiry all the time. 

Simplicity seems to arise. Normally I would write reams of text about what I meant to convey. Now it just doesn't seem necessary, just being in being.