Why do you talk about awakening's presence as if it were always there/here?
The idea is that Self is both timelessly awakened and also yet to awaken in time. A both/and situation.
Then what about our awareness of the ever-present part?
We're locked out of that awareness because we're locked in to our ego-mind, that part of us that's living in exile, that has no way of being in touch with true Self.
And meantime this awakened Self animate us?
The Self animates us like the dreamer animates characters in a dream. How Conscious and Unconscious Self can coexist is a total mystery to ego-mind's way of thinking and goes beyond any stretch of its imagination (see Overview). Still, imagine that in our very core this Self's radiance is attracting us (Itself in the forms of each of us) to Itself.
