What is this “awareness” of which we are attempting to recognize? We might term it consciousness or oneness, but in any case it is the natural state of the apparent person. Awareness is what you are, if we can loosely speak of a what.
To term or call it anything is fundamentally to miss it. When we attempt to discuss what Awareness is we can only speak in negatives; we say what it is not. The great sages of India called it at once Brahman, Atman, or even Om. But in the same breath they testify that it can only be approached through negation, what they call neti neti. Anything posited in the positive concerning Awareness is just more illusion piled upon an already existent delusion of self-hood.
In fact the whole process of what I’m discussing here and in the previous post is neti neti. The phrase means “not this, not this”. In other words, “Awareness is not this“. Recognizing that you are only Awareness is simply an exercise in negating every-thing you are not. Whatever is said to be a quality of who we are essentially is a this or that…an objectivication.
We discussed the “self-assertion” yesterday in attempting to get at the fact that you are not who you think “you” are. I pointed out that “you” is merely a thought construct in an apparent mind that thinks. It is such a forceful thought that it is taken for granted and regarded as a basic belief about reality.
If this “self-assertion” or apparent entity you claim as yourself is not your true identity but only a fiction, what remains? There is left then only the awareness or consciousness of a thought construct which thinks it is a separate entity. You are that awareness which beholds the mind, the body, the ego-self, and the world of objects.
It’s a bit like the analogy of the human eye trying to look at itself. It’s completely impossible for the eye to see itself without some form of aid. It may know that it is an eye and have a thought of what an eye looks like from having observed other eyes but it can’t admit that it has seen itself. Minus a mirror to reflect the instrument of seeing there can be no objective knowledge.
Your natural state as Awareness is likewise. We can use the aid of thought, language, and symbol to try to get at what Awareness is but we can never look in on who we truly are and say “ah! That’s it!” There is no mirror to reflect awareness for Awareness is transparent. It’s not able to be grasped or colored by any distinction. This is of course why we say Awareness is “not two” or nondual. So it is that we can only say what Awareness is not.
You are Awareness. Behind the “you”, you walk around in phenomenal reality being, is a conscious witnessing of all of that happening. In your natural state “you” arise and recede like a gentle wave upon the ocean. Your mind, senses, and body are simply experiences floating by like foam on the sea. That phenomenal world you are so concerned about experiencing and controlling is nothing more than a temporary ripple on that same ocean.
When the wind dies down and the waves recede there remains only you. This you is Awareness, it’s Beingness. You simply are. No attachement, no name, no history, no future, no doing, no thing-ness.Take a moment and relax into the ever present nowness of the reality of Awareness. Simply recognize that you are aware. When you loosen the clinging to the ego-self and the mind that turns incessently what remains? Is it not purely the awareness, the consciousness that witnesses the arising of the waves. What is still present when thoughts recede into nothingness? What is present when you forget yourself?
Recognize that you are ONLY Awareness!
Filed under: Recognize Series
