Many people I’ve met over the years – including some spiritual teachers – claim to be awakened, beyond the personal, free from the ego, or ‘finished’ in some incomprehensible way, and yet they still get triggered, still react, sometimes with anger or even emotional violence, to the words and behaviour of ‘others’ (who they then claim do not exist!). Then, they may even justify their behaviour by claiming it was ‘impersonal’.
Does this mean they are not truly ‘awakened’? Or does it mean that we need to totally revise our ideas about what being ‘awake’ in this day and age really is?
Is awakening a goal to reach, an ideal to live up to, a claim to make about oneself, a story to repeat to others? Or, is it the present-moment rediscovery of who you really are, a vast non-dual ocean of awareness that is already deeply and unconditionally welcoming all thoughts, sensations and feelings as they arise and dissolve in intimacy?
Getting triggered does not mean that you are ‘unawakened’, or that you are doing something wrong. It simply means there’s something more to look at; that something isn’t being fully allowed in this moment; that you’ve temporarily forgotten who you are, even if you are holding an image of yourself as an awakened nobody!
Don’t be downhearted, though, dear friend. Even Jesus momentarily forgot who he was.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Oh, what humility! There’s hope for us all.