Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

When entering the causal body, the mind becomes
hard like a rock. The brain feels heavy. Thinking stops.
There is no room in the brain for thought to enter. One
feels as if one is going unconscious, because in many
ways, thinking and awareness go together, and when
thinking stops, awareness sometimes stops also. One
feels that one is sinking into sleep, into nothingness,
non-existence. We are self-aware that our awareness is
getting dimmer and dimmer.
Then a moment passes, and we recognize for a
period of time, we were not aware at all. We
“remember” that for a moment we were not conscious
of anything, we were not self-aware, yet we know we
existed because something in us remembers that we
did not exist for a period of time.
The same with sleep; is it not true that we can
have dreamless sleep and awaken during the middle of
the night and feel “in our guts” that some hours have
passed? We may not know how many, but even if in a
dark room we know it is not time to get up yet. Our
body is not yet rested enough. We know we have been
asleep for more than 10 minutes, but do not know
exactly how many hours. However, we are aware, that
we were not aware of anything or of ourselves during
some period of time. That is, we know it in our gut so
to speak, that we existed, but were not aware of our
existence for some duration in time. We know that we