Eckhart Tolle describes spiritual awakening as progressively knowing less, not falling into unconsciousness but transcending the conceptual mind entirely. The awakened state moves beyond concepts while staying fully conscious, a distinction he emphasizes against misunderstanding it as regression.
Spiritual awakening means that you know less and less, and you become comfortable with knowing less and less until you come to the place of not knowing. But that is not the place of having fallen below thinking, which is the state of the tree, or the animal, but we're not going there, we are not falling below thinking and moving towards unconsciousness. This state of not knowing is transcending the conceptual mind.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
