Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

To me, at the time, awakening was something
extraordinary that happened to you which totally
transformed you into something superhuman, having
acquired some transcendental state of nonattached
wisdom and bliss, such that any intrusion from
everyday life would simply be a contamination.
In the early 1990s when I was with my greatest
teacher, Robert Adams, often people would ask him
how he saw the world, what was his subjective
experience? They would ask, “Is it all Oneness, do you
only see the Void, are you in ecstasy all the time,
etc.?”
Robert replied, “I see the world much as you do. If
I did not, I could not function in the world. The only
difference is that I know that everything is
consciousness. I am consciousness, you are
consciousness, the trees and sky are consciousness.”
He went on to explain he that knew the objects in
consciousness were not real, because they came and
went and did not stay, only consciousness stayed, only
consciousness was real.
I was not awake at the time, and therefore this
talk was also lost on me. As long as you identify
yourself with your body, the concept of Universal
Consciousness just does not make sense; you have not
experienced one-consciousness yet.