How do you measure "awakeness"?

Questioner:

gary weber

How do you measure “awakeness”? How can you tell if someone is “enlightened”?


Gary:


When you asked this question when we were skyping, an answer arose around awareness and consciousness. “i” had no sense that there was anything else to be said.


Sitting the next morning, an answer to the “awakeness” question arose, unexpectedly, from primary consciousness, along with a more complete answer to the second question.


As we’ve discussed before, “awakeness” is a developmental spectrum, not a yes/no situation. However, it is, for most folk, impossible to tell if someone is “much more awake” just by looking at them. Since they don’t know what “much more awake” is, or what it feels like, or tastes like, that is not surprising.


However, they may get a feeling or a “vibe” that there is something different, quiet or still, but are not sure what it is. They may notice that they are strangely drawn, that they feel different when they are around them, or that they feel quieter, more still and less troubled with thoughts, or have fewer thoughts. There is no distinguishing physical characteristic or mannerism that manifests as folk get more awake.


As far as measuring “awakeness”, the only things that matter to “me” are what the nature and energy of thoughts are, how many thoughts occur and how troubling they are. i recognize that there are some contemporary “spiritual teachers” who say that these things don’t matter; that has not been my experience.


As Ramana said “"In samadhi there is only the feeling “ I am" and no thoughts. The experience "I am" is being still.”. “There is a state when words cease and silence prevails.” Similarly, Nisargadatta said ““To be free from thoughts is itself meditation.”


Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras echoes this with “yogas chitta vritti nirodaha” or “Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind”. The Zen folk are of a similar opinion; thoughts are what matter.


Using thoughts as the criteria also gives everyone an already downloaded and installed, personal “awakeness gauge”, close at hand and constantly available for monitoring. There is no interview with an expensive guru or wise being required. It is a do-it-yourself measurement.


If you have long intervals with few or no thoughts, and the ones that you do have are weak, scattered and of little interest or energy, there is a movement naturally and organically beyond bondage and suffering into stillness and peace. That stillness is of another dimension, sweetness, fullness and presence, so compelling and complete that nothing else can compare or compete. It is complete happiness, unconstructed by and independent of thought.