Over the past few weeks, I have had several conversations about awakening, seeking, and the places where people sometimes get stuck. You may have watched a few of these interviews on YouTube.
It is fascinating to me how easily we can take a position and set up camp there, calling it, “I know how it is.”
This can happen in any area of life, but it becomes especially interesting on the spiritual path. The mind wants certainty. It wants to know what is true, where it stands, and whether it has finally arrived.
After years of seeking, this is understandable. Seeking can be exhausting. There may have been years of reading, watching videos, going to retreats, trying different practices, and hoping that the next insight will finally bring the peace that has always felt just out of reach.
Then something shifts. A clear recognition happens. The familiar sense of being a separate self is seen in a new way. There is relief. Something important has been understood, or perhaps directly seen.
It can feel deeply satisfying to land on a conclusion: “I am awake now.” “I understand.” “This is it.”
And yet, sometimes the conclusion quietly becomes a new place to hide.
A new identity forms around the experience. The words change. The story becomes more refined. The mind may start to speak with confidence about awareness, nonduality, liberation, or the absence of a separate self.
The language may be accurate. The recognition may have been real. But the need for certainty can still remain underneath it all.
The mind wants to know where it stands. It wants a map. It wants to say, “I have arrived.” "I am done!" Only there is no done.
And that can become a trap that is extremely difficult to see, because the position now sounds like truth.
There is a reason certainty feels so attractive. The unknown gives the mind nothing to hold on to. There is no final explanation and no guarantee about what comes next.
When the old identity begins to loosen, the mind may quickly create a new one. The seeker becomes the one who has found the answer. The one who felt lost becomes the one who knows.
But life has its own way of showing us where something is still held tightly.
Fear appears. Old patterns return. A relationship touches a painful place. The body contracts. Something unexpected happens, and suddenly the certainty feels less secure.
This does not mean that something went wrong. It does not take anything away from the recognition that has already happened.
It may simply be an invitation to keep looking. The crystallised positions are the place to look.
Seeing through the self-illusion is important. But life continues to reveal every place where we are holding on, resisting, or trying to protect an image of ourselves.
Even the image of being awake can become something to protect.
Perhaps the most useful question is not, “Am I awake?”
These are not questions that need quick answers. They are invitations to notice.
Real looking stays open. It does not need to defend a position or reach a final conclusion.
Perhaps there is nowhere final to land.
And perhaps that is where the real freedom begins.
