after spiritual enlightenment the big, clunky machinery of preference is wiped out, the very subtle, quiet and nearly undetectable mechanics remain. 

While there are those who truly are indifferent — just as enthusiastic to eat a wood fired pizza or a plate of pigeon guano — I am quite certain they are not reading this blog.

Let’s look at a few of the experiences that people tend to have post awakening, and how they can arrest their development by getting fixated.

Loss of the personal “I”

This is huge and can take quite some time to adjust to. However, you might fail to adjust to it, and instead get trapped like a piece of existential lint in the bellybutton of No Self. People can fixate ever so subtly on the absence of a personal self for a lifetime.

Noticing the world is populated by automatons

You wake up and realize that most people, if not everyone, around you is a zombie — totally asleep and plugged into the Matrix. You go through a period of feeling misanthropic, anti-social. You feel you have nothing in common with people, you are an outsider. You might fail to adjust to it and live the rest of your life feeling out of step, out of place with everyone in the Mugglesphere.

The cessation of normal emotions

You stop experiencing “normal human emotions” in response to life situations, like excitement, happiness, sadness, worry, feeling “hurt” (as in, you hurt my feelings). You subtly fixate on this inability to have normal emotional responses, assume it is permanent and fail to adjust.

What happens naturally is that you notice these changes, and you might freak out for a while. That freak out might be pretty subtle or include a full on gnashing of teeth, complaining to everyone who will listen, searching out books and blogs to confirm your experience, etc. After this is adjustment.