When awakening happens, people are tempted to make it about themselves — “this is the better way,” “this is the way I want to go through it,” “I earned this.” Joe insists none of that is personal. How quickly it pops, what triggers it, and which form it takes are not a measure of merit. The only thing consistent across everyone is that the sense of self has been eroding over a long period — through meditation, seeing through thoughts, moving through trauma, having kids, depression, or just life.
“It’s as personal as you have a flower bed and like some flowers bloom at different times… Again, it’s not personal. It’s just the way that it works.”
The same 5-minute exercise can crack one person open while twenty others feel nothing — not because that person is special, but because the ocean had already eroded their cliff for years beforehand. Joe says he once collected at least 26 or 27 distinct means of eroding the self. The flower always blooms; the species, color, size, and timing simply differ.
This matters for both the person going through it and anyone witnessing it. Depersonalizing the experience removes the pride, the comparison, and the pressure — leaving room to simply let it be what it is.
Related Concepts
- The dissolution of self happens through many paths
- Awakening is not a conclusion, just part of the journey
- Peak experiences become goal traps when co-opted by ego
- Making awakening a goal slows the process down
- Awakening is not a finish line — evolution keeps going
- Awakening happens through the head, the heart, and the gut
- Enjoying the sensations rather than bracing eases the integration