One of the main paradoxes of enlightenment or awakening is that one awakens to what had always been the case and what they had always known.
Several mini-paradoxes are born out of this one, such as "what is a spiritual journey if there's nowhere to go?", "how can desire for freedom lead to freedom from desire?", "what is there to seek if you already are what you are looking for?", etc.
One day in 1666, so they say, Sir Isaac Newton saw an apple fall from a tree and realized that gravity was a universal force. Nothing changed, but someone realized what had always been the case. Nothing changed, and everything changed.