The problem of first cause

Obviously the big bang does not answer the question of first cause. The big bang is just the evidence perceivable to science -- the first measurable evidence of a beginning.

There must be an energy that is not measurable currently by science. That energy is that which spiritual traditions call the "Unmanifest." As unmanifested, it is outside of time. A reality that does not have a beginning, or an end.

For example, in the experiments where paired particles are separated by thousands of miles, a change in the spin of one particle is immediately reflected in the spin of its separated twin. This happens faster than the speed of light. Faster than any measurable time.

So we have evidence of power, or energy, that is not currently measurable by science. That this energy is not perceivable by science does not equal its non existence.

This unmanifested power is the first cause. Spiritual traditions have called it God. Although difficult to describe in linear terms, it is knowable. The mystics of all ages have proclaimed intimate knowledge of this power. It is the underlying reality, the first cause of all that exists.

The Eastern spiritual traditions have called the manifest world "Maya," which is described as illusion, or the apparently real. It does exist, it is measurable, but it is not the ultimate reality.

If you define reality as that which never changes, one can begin to see it as the screen on which everything appears. Reality is the unchanging screen and first cause of all that apparently exists. The operating principle for the screen is awareness. That awareness allows anything and everything to be experienced, or known. What we are aware of we call consciousness.

The conclusion is that unmanifested source, call it God, is the first and only cause. Awareness is the knowing principle of source which underlies all knowing. Science itself knows only via awareness, and therefore must bow to the reality of the unchanging unmanifest source as the ultimate reality.

Who is Hiding the Light

Who is hiding the light? You are - with your thoughts, your feelings, your prejudices, your likes and dislikes. You are the clouds hiding the sun.

You could think of clouds as being opinions, emotions, reactivity. These impositions form the clouds of ignorance that hide the light.

The light is love, for it accepts all things. It shines on the so-called good, and the so-called bad alike. It doesn't discriminate.

But you discriminate. You judge. You don't accept. You hide the light with your personal drama, forming the clouds that obscure the light.

No one is hiding the light from you. The clouds are of your own making. The clouds are nothing but your own ignorance, obscuring the light.

Ignorance is simply putting your own spin on things. And the clouds will persist as long you insist on maintaining your own spin on things.

But the world is not here to be according to your likes and dislikes. It is what it is. The best you can do is clear away your ignorance by stepping aside.

The light is simply Awareness. You, as a body-mind, are but a reflecting focal point of that awareness. And you are experiencing according to your likes and dislikes.

Ignorance will keep you in the darkness as long as you insist on believing things should be as you expect. But sun is shinning.

The light is Awareness. It has the potential to experience any and all things. Any like or dislike, any emotion, good or bad, all is fodder for the light.

Enough suffering will get you to take a look at why the clouds are forming, and why they remain. Do you ever wonder what would remove them?

Knowledge of who, or rather what,  you really are, will dissipate the clouds. As Awareness, you know the body-mind, but as Awareness, you are not the body-mind.

As Awareness, I experience the body-mind, but I am not the body-mind. The body-mind is an appearance only. From this knowledge dispassion arises, and freedom is known.

When you see that you are not the body-mind, but pure Awareness itself, the clouds will dissapate. The light will shine, as it always has, And you are free.

Not of This World

How well I do in the world and how contented I am, has nothing to do with the world at all. For the world is an effect, the result of a dream. What goes on in here, the silence creates. The world is but an out-picturing of choices made.

A contentment covers all, not touched by what appears. And what seems uncalled for, really was called. I would have known it, had I been paying attention. A lesson to be learned.

Where I am unconscious, still I create. Any suffering is to be listened to. How did I call it into being? From the silence, where all things originate.

We may look for cause and effect here, but it comes from there.

I do not live in the same world as you, because we see different, and call out different. Awareness brings light, and with it, what was called is seen. It is all effect. I know not to turn away.

Contentment seems uncaused. It is not of this world. It came from intention, surrender, and manifests here. How sweet to see myself here, reflected in the mirror.

The Natural State

"I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine." In his essays he compared primitive society to civilized society and found that natural society surpasses what man has wrought in many respects, that "pre-civilized man is possessed of natural virtues which civilization has obscured, perverted, or destroyed ..."

~Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Many call enlightenment "The Natural State." We might say that the natural state is the state prior to the original sin, which was the knowledge of Good and Evil, or judgment. To judge without suspending belief even for a moment, is the royal road to your own private mental prison.

The sages speak of discernment, not of judgment or condemnation. To see without judgment opens vast vistas of uncharted territory. To be in that open space is a joy, a relief, a contentment.

Discernment enables a quality of being which is able to grasp and comprehend that which is obscure. That which is obscure, has simply been covered up. It would be helpful to take care with our thoughts, looking at them from a space that suspends judgment. It is a means of seeing the truth.

The "Natural State" implies something that was always there -- before it got covered up.

The human condition seems to be one in which we are born into obscuration, the original error, a process of judgment which quickly veils the Natural State. Our judgments may help the body survive, but it is the royal road to suffering.

If we could take every act of perceiving and hold it without judgment, we might be able to discern what is usually missed. Suspending our own prejudices opens a door to pristine territory.

Our lack of discernment leads to disastrous choices. At minimum it leads to an unexamined life. Socrates said "An unexamined life is not worth living." Yet the Natural State is eternal and the fear of death is undone.

A lack of discernment may result in the inability to know a true friend -- to be a true friend to ourself. A lack of discernment leads to the failure to see who we really are. Who among us knows the Natural State?

Enlightenment is the Natural State. It can only be discovered. It is not new, it is not alien. That is why when the Natural State occurs, it is known as coming home.

 

Surrender Leaves Nothing But Love

This body is here and I am well aware of it, but I am not this body. I have a body. It is not the same body I had years ago, so it is obvious that it is not who I am.

And this personality that I seem to be stuck with is here, but it is not who I am. It used to be different, not so subtle, more critical, and not as forgiving as it is now - both of self and others.

No matter where I look I don't seem to be able to pinpoint myself. Where am I but everywhere?

No perfection in this bodymind from the human perspective, yet perfection is here and all around.

Surrender leaves nothing but love. Can't you feel it?

Abide as yourself

As a particular body-mind expressing yourself at the highest level of truth currently known, you serve the world. You do not need to go on adventures to find a better place to express yourself. Right here, right now is good enough.

At the highest expression of consciousness you are capable, be yourself now, here, where you are, This is all you need do. Going around anxiously trying to change the world abruptly expresses disgrace.

Wherever you find yourself, it is enough to be love and peace there. You do not need to find a different place where you think you are needed more. You will only create drama. Abide in yourself, as you are, you are already one with all.

Loving Light

The world is full of sleepers and dreamers, and the dream seems real, even in waking life.

The drama plays, the egos whirl, the winds howl and wind chimes sound.

While the dreamers dream their walking sleep, you take a look behind the curtain and there is only you, only love.

All the dreams and all the fuss were only to this end. To awaken love and go out to play.

This is the Great School of the Blind. It teaches light.

The darkness is not a substance, but only the lack of light. It immediately gives way to light, for darkness has no power. It is only the absence of light.

In the presence of love there is no darkness, but only light. And the light is awake, and alive, and present when the dreaming stops.

The awakened one walks always in the light, for wherever he travels, love is there. Darkness he sees, but does not take seriously.

The dream is in the dark, but love is in the light. So love does not fear, and it does not hide.

Being the love and being the light is all that is asked. Waking is all it takes.

Spiritual Boot Camp

There is a continual dieing until dead. We are not talking about death of the body, but the death of ego, persona -- the little self that wasn't, can't be, and isn't.

As that little self dies it leaves a trail of dusty memories that seem like fantasies, a trail of habits that seem unusable, a trail of something that used to be that just can't be found anymore.

When the little self is seen through as dust glittering under the lamp shade light, what signifies the dust? What causes are there to be examined and analyzed?

Change the world? Save the world? To what end? If this is a training ground, and not a Monopoly game, is it not perfect already?

If this is where we come to evolve, to find meaning in apparent chaos, is this not the perfect place? If we are here to choose amongst unknown results by doing the right thing, is this not perfection in action?

Existential angst is part of the course. At twenty, it has its place -- at forty-five, still being there is a travesty. It is but a right of passage.

This world was never meant to satisfy. It is only a pointer, pointing beyond itself. It points to spirit, to the unmanifest, to awareness. It requires the evolution consciousness; to rising above effects. 

As wisdom teaches, we are responsible for the effort, not  the result. That leaves only the moral high ground, which we must choose, and choose again.

We save the world only by changing ourselves. Do not discount the effect of doing the inner work. The work of each of us is to become what we want the world to be. The world does not change until we do.

We are the evolution of consciousness. The world is our own projection and the necessary change is inside, not outside. The perfection of our inner world is the only hope to a brighter future. The world need not change, but each of us is responsible for ours.

Does the world seem hard? It was meant to be that way. It points beyond itself, and that beyond resides in you. Don't look out there, it is only a reflection of in here.

The world is perfect as it is -- boot camp for the evolution of consciousness. You are the only one required to graduate. Look within and all that need be changed is there.

Remaining Knots - Kundalini

Dear Anonymous,

Funny that you should ask. Some symptoms remain. Just lately the nerves in my right arm were inflamed and causing problems, mostly at night. It seems to run along the nerves inside the muscle and surfaces in small sores. Could be kundalini, but it could also be too much use of the mouse at work. Anyone's guess.

I continue to have a feeling of fullness, pressure, and fogginess in my head. It is as if I can feel my brain physically in my skull. It feels like there is much going on physically, but no thinking. The physical reaction to the pressure in my head leads to resistance and therefore a stiff neck. Going to the Chiropractor every couple weeks helps a lot.

When spiritual work is intense, the intent is conscious, but all that is being worked on may not be. This may be why my dreams have been waking me up and becoming conscious. I have related some of them to a wonderful madman who remembers my dreams from thirty years ago. To him they are dreams of individuation. My experience is that there is almost no one here at all.

The ongoing spirit work leaves little left for engagement with the world. I go to work every day and function well, but it has little meaning. There is a physical tiredness. Dealing with the world is a drag and contributes to feeling tired. Of course, this could be just getting older.

It seems that what people say is coming from a distance, through a veil. Not just like being hard of hearing, but as if they are speaking in some other language that I am unfamiliar with. Makes me feel like I am slow to respond.

Having no expectations seems to exacerbate this.
No other knots, or symptoms that I am really aware of.

I have not written on my my blog in several months as there seems nothing to say. Opinions don't matter. The truth is already present and nothing is really happening anyway.

My mind is silent. So silent, if I didn't have a physical body, I wouldn't know I was here. The silence is full, like completeness that has already happened. There is no useful pursuit of meaning in the world.

As far as gurus go. I have some correspondence with several. All are my teachers. The most profound for me are the works of Dr. David Hawkins. I can go back to his books, "The Eye of the I," and "I: Reality and Subjectivity repeatedly. A few pages is enough to unconsciously contemplate during an entire day, or even a week. I have met Dr. Hawkins and he is the genuine article.

I have no compunction to write at all. Responding to a question seems appropriate. God bless.

The Seekers Last Prayer

What is left are the tattered rags of a flag at half mast. Nothing left but the dregs from the bottom of the barrel.

The old wine has long been drained. This vessel is empty, needing to be refilled.

There is no will left to cross over. The other side is only dimly in view. A world away. Only grace will do.

Fill this empty vessel with new wine. Fill it to the brim with divine fuel. Let it overflow.

Stuff this newly filled vessel with these tattered rags. Shake this bottle and soak these rags.

Light this broken hearted Molotov cocktail and burn it with your love. Let divine light burn brightly evermore.

Free as a Bird

As long as the ego, the person, is in the foreground, free will appears to be there. For a person, "free will" is highly prized, and regarded as essential.

I remember a few years ago, while out to lunch with a couple of associates, having a conversation about free will. I was explaining that from my personal investigation, there was none. Well, you can imagine, this did not go over well.

In fact, the other two could not even believe that I was serious. "How could you not believe in free will," they said.

One of them, quite seriously said, "If I thought I had no "free will" I would get a gun and shoot myself."

I replied, "You wouldn't even be able to stop yourself because your ego couldn't abide the thought. Where is your freedom in that?"

My two associates just shook their heads and looked at me as if I was from another planet.

I knew of course, that from the position of a normal person, to not believe in "free will" was absurd. If you don't believe in free will, how can you be a separate person?

No "free will" pretty much assures that one is part of a whole, a spoke in a wheel, a cog in a giant machine. The ego is not going to accept that.

It didn't bother me not having free will. In fact, I was at peace with this position because I was committed to truth. My conclusion that there was no free will was arrived at through painstaking consideration and contemplation.

I can agree that on first realizing that there was no free will, there was period of angst and a long period of adjustment. To be sure, if one's meaning is tied to being a person, free will is essential. Discovering that you have none is a rather existential moment. Loss of meaning is not only possible, but highly likely.

In time, however, instead of seeing myself as a little being with no free will, living out a proscribed life, I came to see that I was bigger than a little body, and a little mind.

I came to see that if I had no free will, no independence, no choice, then I must be part of, or at one with, something much larger. How could I be separate from that?

On examination I could see that the larger self could be nothing but the whole thing. If there were no separate independent parts, everything was an integral part of the whole.

The only thing left to do was to discover what embraces the whole world? Or, another way to look at it, what is the world made of?  What perceives everything, from any angle, from any position? Can it be anything other than conscious awareness?

That which creates the universe and perceives it does not have an issue with bondage or freedom because it is everything. It enjoys the varied perceptions from the many beings it creates.

That which is everything must certainly enjoy the varied egoic positions and viewpoints of each human being. But, it is not limited by any particular form, perception, or egoic pattern.

As I am That, freedom or bondage is not an issue. I am That, which is everything, free as a bird, a tree, a star, a universe.

Always That

Everything you experience is That. To go looking for an experience of the Self has to be self defeating because you cannot find what you already are. You cannot experience anything that is not the Self, so where can you go to find it? What is really required is recognition, often called realization.

Realization is an understanding, and the beauty of this understanding, is that you don't have to be experiencing oneness or bliss to know who you are. This is why Vedanta is considered knowledge, and why it is the knowledge that ends the search.

Of course, if you want to pursue experience, you can find ones that are blissful and unitary. Experiences of mystical union, however short, can have profound effects. There is probably nothing that feels better than the ecstasy of the experience of oneness. These experiences, however wonderful, may not lead to understanding.

To chase after the experience of oneness can be frustrating, because, as an experience, it doesn't last. And if you make the error that the experience of oneness is enlightenment, you will set yourself up for a lifetime of searching, because no experience lasts.

Experiences of oneness, bliss, and ecstasy can, however, point to understanding. They become part of your understanding. They can contribute to the knowledge you need to understand who you are. It is a boon to experience oneness, as opposed to the limited experience we typically have.

When the experience of oneness is gone, understanding is what keeps you on an even keel. What really helps is firm conviction and sureness as to our real being. The knowledge of our actual beingness as Awareness. One with all that is.

Knowing oneself as Awareness keeps one from continually looking for a particular experience. With understanding, one doesn't mind the particular experiences of a limited human form. They are just an experience, not who you are.

Awareness sees through many forms, and experiences what is particular to that form. Awareness, as John Doe, picks up the qualities and positions that make up John Doe. This is experience, and it may feel limited, but it is not who you are.

To get beyond limitation requires understanding. It requires an understanding that is deep and broad, seeing that the whole world is but a myriad of local focal points superimposed on oneness. Only understanding will take you beyond experience.

The understanding is twofold. The first is to see that everything is a form of the One. The second is to see that you are That One. Seeing this is understanding.

Being Awareness

Interestingly, being awareness is a big picture, yet it does not deny the body, nor the mind. The bodymind simply recedes into the background, a shift in perspective, a change of gestalt.

Knowing one is awareness does not alter the presence of a body, nor personality. So, one may say that as awareness I do not suffer, yet the body, the personality may still do so.

Granted, from the perspective of awareness, the bodymind seems to be at a distance; not as close or as personal as it once was. So, suffering may be lessened as identity does not reside with it.

The bodymind does not disappear, yet in some respects the presence of it may be more noticeable because one is able to see it more objectively, more dispassionately.

When the bodymind becomes an object in the field, just as other objects in the field, one is aware of it as any object, although of course, it has greater sublety.

Obviously, awareness allows anything in the field to appear. Anything may happen. The bodymind will still like or dislike according to its preferences, but the preferences will have less hold.

As awareness, the demands of the bodymind certainly have less drive. The bodymind may well be amazed at the lack of drive -- gone, like a leaf in the fall, dropping from a tree.

As awareness, the distinction between needs and desires is greatly increased. The balance of needs versus desires changes in favor of a few simple needs. Desires drop as if on their own. They are seen to be unable to satisfy.

Awareness, being what it is, is good at just observing. It has little to say. Egos playing, appear to be in a dream, and who can interfere with other's dreams? It becomes easy to be silent. It's like observing a joke that no one gets.

Awareness doesn't hold on to others, and others can become extremely irritated when one doesn't seem to hold on to them as they expect. They may even suspect that one is cold.

There is no going back. Awareness, once realized, cannot be let go. It is basic, like dirt. Basic, because one already is that. It is only a realization, a waking up.

Knowledge Becomes Understanding

What I know as Awareness seems to be taking hold, but it feels more like letting go -- letting go of everything. Everything seems to be at a distance. Even people saying things just doesn't have the meaning it used to have. Sort of frivolous most of the time. So it's like I hear through a fog.

Awareness is here just watching everything. This space I'm in is empty in a sense, but full. The fullness is from a distance, and yet close. Best I can describe it.

No bliss. Just waiting for adjustment to settle in. No rush. I'm not going anywhere, and certainly not doing anything, though things get done. The lack of involvement personally in things is a little odd, but this dispassionate feeling has been coming to the fore for a long time.

Reading Vedanta texts is like fresh clean water that wipes the last bit of dregs from my understanding. Appreciating the tradition of Vedanta is rather different for me, as in most cases, religion for example, tradition is a killer.

But in the case of Vedanta, it is a science. It is not a religion. It is not a set of beliefs. It is more like a path to understanding. The tradition is valid because it works.

It is a science because we are all required to prove it to ourselves. We become the proof. As a science, knowledge is essential. It is a requirement. Trying to permanently capture an experience doesn't work.

For one such as myself who was always attracted to the Jnana aspect, experience alone just didn't cut it. The final knot was undone for me as knowledge became understanding. Not that experience wasn't a part of that knowledge.

Experience becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes understanding. The heart and the head become knowledge. And understanding is all.

Dead Baby Dream

Among a number of dreams I had last night, I recall only this episode.

A baby died and was buried. Apparently others who knew the baby, people I knew, heard about the death and wanted to make a big deal out of it. They found out where the baby was buried and began digging it up.

It seemed that I was there because those digging were related to me. But it wasn't clear to me who these people were, or how we were related.

The grave was dug up, and the little wooden coffin exposed. The women were all being dramatic about how small the coffin was, and how sad it was for such a young child to die.

Meanwhile, I stood in the background, not really participating. I couldn't feel any sadness. I could see no point in digging up the grave.

I felt no need to work at dredging up feelings about it. I couldn't appreciate the drama of it. It was what is was, and I knew that no one had died. I knew that everything was O.K.

Doubt

What is it that maintains "ignorance of the self" more firmly than anything else? It is doubt, and doubt comes from the intellect, the thinking, discerning mind.

The mind wants understanding on its own terms. It easily confirms and acknowledges experience, but it needs its own form of proof to relax and let go. It may even dislike its own doubt, but if it is honest, it wants satisfaction on its own terms.

As a spiritual seeker, you may have had a number of epiphanies, intense, unitive, and ecstatic experiences. They may have come with immense authority beyond measure. And yet they ended. They disappeared and went away.

Where does that leave you? Satisfied? No! Now you have a huge mote between experience and intellect - a gulf that seems insurmountable. The intellect remains, but the ecstasy is gone.

Without the feeling intensity of the experience, the intellect doubts the validity of what was experienced. Without the authority of the experience in full bloom, the intellect feels bereft.

The intellect acknowledges the experience, but it cannot understand it. It does not have the feeling capacity of the experience. It is left, as in a wasteland, looking for the meaning and significance of the experience.

As you know, experience is often outside the realm of reason, and does not easily succumb to investigation. Doubt sets in and disturbs the mind greatly, with no end to the pain. Somehow the gulf opened up needs to be crossed.

To dispel doubt, the mind needs help. It needs a method to see, on its own terms, what was experienced. So how does the mind examine doubt? It needs to satisfy itself in its own field, with discernment, logic, and reason.
It needs to examine doubt in its own light.

If the cause of doubt resides in the intellect, then the answer has to be satisfactory to the intellect. It needs a means, a science, a method of investigation.

That means is self inquiry. And self inquiry requires brutal honesty, brutal logic, and brutal persistence. This inquiry has to be pursued with the intensity that was revealed in the experiences. Yet this inquiry must be done with the mind, the full participation of the intellect, so the end result is conclusive, without doubt, satisfying the mind.

The intellect needs to have the same degree of satisfaction from inquiry, that the feeling experiential side, of you, received from epiphanies and ecstasies. Where the epiphanies may have come uncalled for, self inquiry is work.

Knowledge via self inquiry takes effort. You have to show up, and you have to do the work. But, like any science, there is a history, and there are methods, and they can make the path straight and narrow. A good scientific method can save years of time.

The science of self inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, has been around for a long time. How many thousands of years is not really known, but it has proven its worth over these years, and it works today. It is not a belief system, nor a religion, but a systematic means with various techniques that can lead to the end of doubt and the end of seeking.

The term "enlightenment" came out of the ancient East where is was defined and refined. They honed the terms, the methods, the questions, and the pointers. They have left it to us in the Vedas. But it is up to each one of us to take up the inquiry and find the answer for him or herself. 

The end of seeking may not be bliss, but it is peaceful, and it is satisfying. The force is with you.

A Perfect World

Ah, this perfect world! Awareness loves all of it, and just the way it is! The perfection is that it couldn't be any other way. There is no measure by which to claim anything less than perfection.

What meaning there is, is in the mystery. The body-mind thing need not concern itself. It is but a localized view anyway, one of many. Nothing is really happening, even though it appears to be. 

These localized views can be ignorant and mistaken, but it matters not. There is nothing wrong with the ignorance, for it is only apparent. Each and every being is innocent. There is never a guilty verdict.

When one knows that he is the knower, what more is there to know? The quest is over. No seeking has ground. It doesn't matter what happens next. No plan has any effect. All is still.

The end of time is the end of seeking. Death has lost it's sting. The knower and the known are one. The gestalt has shifted. The one is the One. All ones are One. No two exist.

When one steps out of time there is no going back. Each step goes nowhere. Every step that is taken is always here. Only this moment, always now.

When Understanding Dawns

When understanding dawns, so many things drop away. The needs you used to have fall like leaves from a tree, preparing for winter. The future is nothing to worry about. It will be exactly as it is supposed to be.

You no longer have to clean your mind, or watch your mind, it is stilled by understanding. Whatever thoughts arise are seen to be useful or not. No matter. If they are to be acted upon they will, if not, not.

Even prayer does not arise. When everything is known to be perfect, and everything is unfolding perfectly, what is to be prayed for? What needs to be changed? Since you are That, who will you pray to?

Everything becomes simple. There is a body to be taken care of, but it is not you. You provide what it needs. The mind no longer needs much as ego needs have dissolved. If such a need appears to arise, there is nothing behind it, to drive it forward, and it dies after arising. No effort involved.

There is only one Will operating in the universe. Aligned with That, what is an appearance going to do? It is not even possible to consider. Nothing left to do, but relax into That.

Understanding takes the person out of the picture, as the many become One. The personal becomes impersonal. Everything stands as It IS, as It always has been, and always will be.

There is only stillness, You watch the changing scenery, knowing that nothing is happening. Nothing has ever changed. Peace is all there Is.

The Three States

The sages repeatedly refer to the three states all humans know: being awake, dreaming sleep, and deep dreamless sleep.

I always wondered why these states were so commonly referred to. What was the significance of these states? What was being pointed out?

I awoke from deep sleep with this on my mind. "If enlightenment is the deep understanding that 'I am Awareness,' how does this relate to the three states?"

I began to ponder what would be another way to say, "I am Awareness." What came to mind was "Presence Being Aware." With this interpretation I took another look at the three states. I was looking to see what could stand behind the three states. I wrote down the definitions that came to mind.

1. Being awake = Presence Being conscious.

2. Dream Sleep = Presence Being subconsciously imaginative.

3. Deep sleep = Presence Being aware of nothing.

What I like about these definitions is that it is apparent that the One thing standing behind the three states is Awareness. I also like the fact that these definitions make a distinction between awareness and consciousness.

Needless to say, I have always felt that a distinction needed to be made between awareness and consciousness. It has always been an irritation to me that  many use these words interchangeably. The distinction that I feel needs to be made, is that Awareness is attribute-less and consciousness is not.

This distinction removes the need to refer to awareness as pure consciousness. We can now say that Awareness is the attribute-less field in which anything can become conscious, and it is the objects that have attributes.

Now, back to the definitions of the three states as defined above, their significance seems to be clearer. The sages are pointing out that in deep dreamless sleep, you are not there. At least you are not there as a person. Presence is there as Awareness, ready to wake up, but no person is there.

If reality is changeless, and you as a person are not present in deep dreamless sleep, then the person you think you are is not real because it disappears every night. Presence is there, but a person is not.

In dreaming sleep, you as a person appears. Your subconscious which thinks in symbols, creates stories from the interaction of symbols. Since you are there, you may remember the dream when you awake. What was also there was Awareness.

In the waking state, you know yourself, and your dreams, and your restful sleep. The peaceful rest you report was while you were gone, during deep dreamless sleep. So the report can only come from Awareness which was there. That which was present during dreamless sleep is also present in the waking state, Awareness.

The importance of the three states for the sages has been to point out that during part of every day, you as a person are not there. Therefore, you appear and disappear. This makes you only an appearance in reality.

Only that which stands behind the three states and doesn't change, can be reality. That which you really are is Awareness. This establishes the fact that the definition of enlightenment as the deep understanding that "I am Awareness" is correct.

What are we looking for?

One of the problems for seekers is the fact that they are searching for something (Enlightenment) which they have not clearly defined. What is worse, there are countless teachers talking about Enlightenment who also do not define what they are talking about.

We can assume that in the seeker there is a strong sense of something missing. The strength of this longing validates the seeking. So the seeker is off on the journey seeking enlightenment. However, because that "something" remains undefined, the seeker is subject to looking everywhere and anywhere.

The goal being undefined, leaves the seeker listening to anyone and everyone who claims to know something about the subject. Not knowing what it is, anyone could have it. Anything could be it! The seeker is now subject to any and all pseudo logic and experiential pablum. What is the seeker to do?

First, the seeker must realize that if one does not want to spend forty years looking under every rock, and behind every bush, one needs to have some idea of what the goal is. Some definition of what enlightenment is, needs to be determined. Without a good definition of the destination, it is only a wilderness.

If we begin by noting that the conclusion of the Vedas is that Consciousness is all there is, and that it is non-dual, perhaps we can define these and related terms, and chart a possible path.

If you look at the definitions below, gleaned from on-line dictionaries and shortened, one might begin to be able to define what Enlightenment is. The four words that are fundamental are: knowledge, experience, consciousness, awareness.

Knowledge: The sum or range of what has been or can be perceived, discovered, experienced, or learned.

Experience: Direct personal participation in, or perception of, or observation of, a particular incident, thought or feeling, that can be remembered and its impact known. It may be considered subjective, but not easily dismissed.

Consciousness: The sum total of everything that can be experienced, thought, felt, perceived, conjured, or known.

Awareness: That which allows sense data, however subtle or gross, to be registered as consciousness. That which is aware of everything is Awareness, and everything that can be known or experienced, happens in Awareness. All that is, or can be known, is consciousness, and consciousness appears in Awareness.

Based on these definitions, we may be able to mark a path to enlightenment.

1. If everything is one, then individuality is an appearance.

2. If individuality is an appearance, and I exist, then to know who I am, I must find the source of the appearance.

3. To find the source of appearance I need to get rid of my doubts and prove to myself that consciousness is all there is, and that my body-mind is an appearance only.

4. To prove that consciousness is all there is, I need to analyze all my sensory input, all perceptions, and determine that everything that appears out there, and in here, is in fact, experience only.

5. Once I know that everything is an interpretation only, and that all interpretation is consciousness only, I still need to know where consciousness appears.

6. Consciousness appears in Awareness. Awareness is the ultimate perceiver, for it has no attributes. It is the capability, the capacity, and the potentiality of knowing anything and everything.

7. If anything and everything that has ever been conscious, can become conscious, or will become conscious, appears in Awareness, then that is what I am. As the enlightened have always said, "That thou art."