Awareness is All

Some say that Awareness is just another thought, a description of an object we are thinking about. I have to disagree. We have the word food. We know what it refers to, an actual object, say spaghetti. We can't eat the word, but we can eat the spaghetti.

In the case of Awareness we are speaking of something we know, but it isn't really an object, it is what we are. Although we have a form through which we perceive, Awareness is a function, a principle that allows for consciousness. There is nothing outside of Awareness. It is the perceiving of the Subject, the Absolute.

Every being is a perspective, a focal point of Awareness. Each focal point perceives in its own way. It perceives according to the faculties it has, type of eye, ear, or nose, but however different, depending on the organs of perception, Awareness is what delivers the perspective.

Awareness is. It is not another object. It is what perceives all objects. Awareness is the Subject. It is what we are.

Whatever objects are, matter and energy projected, they are created by the Absolute, and perceived by the function of Awareness. We can only know via Awareness. It is the basis of all knowing. We know we are because we are Awareness itself, and whatever the Absolute is.

There is not anything in the universe that is not aware on some level. That awareness is conscious of something, even if only the attraction between positive and negative particles of atoms. From the outer limits of the cosmos to the tiniest quark, Awareness reigns. 

Before Good and Evil, You Are

Are you aware that it is God looking out through your eyes? Do you see that Awareness itself is revealing without judgment? Do you see that it is your mind, your positions and opinions, that judge? Do you know that if you could see this you would have peace?

You are wrapped up in judgment of what you see, do, and feel. Your mind has opinions about all these experiences, and judges them accordingly. This is essentially where good and evil come from, your opinions, conditioning, likes and dislikes. Your suffering comes from these positions.

Awareness comes first, without judgment, then your mind comes in with opinions, likes and dislikes, good and bad. Awareness has no opinion about what is going on. It is simply the field in which all you know appears. Have you ever stepped back from your mind to realize Awareness itself?

Awareness is the function of God. It is the revealing function, the function that allows for knowing. Everything you have ever known has been in the light of Awareness. Have you not heard that "You are the light." Of course you have, but do you know it is the truth?

Awareness, the function, is a field of knowing. It is always present. It is the one truth you cannot deny. If asked, "Do you exist?" can you answer other than yes. That knowing is existence itself. It is primary. Without this knowing function you cannot say anything exists.

You might think Awareness is yours. It's not. You borrowed it from the Absolute. When your body dies, the universe still exists because the Absolute, with its function of Awareness still exists. Awareness is primary. The content of awareness is all that exists.

Step back from your opinions for a moment. Stand as Awareness the knowing function, and see whatever appears is revealed by that alone. It is only after the revealing that your mind comes in to deliver its judgments. But Awareness, the revealer, never makes a judgment.

You are the light simply means that your true Self is Awareness. The light does not belong to you as a body with a mind. Awareness is not personal. It is impersonal until your mind takes over to judge what it reveals. This is where suffering begins.

Existence is whatever Awareness is conscious of. Existence and Awareness cannot be separated. This is why Awareness, the knowing function, is primary.  You are this impersonal Awareness. The world is your projection. It is your imagination, your play at the highest level. You are this Awareness right here, right now. Leave your mind out of it and feel the peace.

There Are No Things

When a sage says "There are no things," it is not dismissing the fact that we see things, tables, chairs, trees, and flowers. It means that although we perceive these different objects, their separateness isn't real.

What the sage means is that name and form are creations of our mind. A chair only exists to a human. A snail or a snake does not see a chair. It sees a form, but it is just another part of the environment.

The whole of creation is a perception in Awareness. It is one field with apparent difference. Whatever the thing is in itself, it is not separate from Awareness. All separateness is just an interpretation.

We can't say these things don't exist, yet, being all one, we can say "There are no things." There is only existence, and all existence is known in Awareness. One, being all that is. 

The Unified Field

There is hope for the world in that Quantum mechanics and nondual Advaita Vedanta are both science based. Both are interpretations of what is. Although Quantum Mechanics looks at matter and discovers consciousness, Advaita Vedanta looks at human experience and reveals nothing but consciousness.

As Quantum Mechanics reveals further proofs of the primacy of consciousness, the oneness of creation that Advaita Vedanta espouses will be more easily accepted. In simple terms, existence is nothing more than consciousness.

The Unified Field is nothing more than consciousness expressing Itself as everything that is. 

Where Love Is

The creator does not judge his creation. It only loves. Whatever the creation does, the creator looks on with love. That love is without beginning or end.

To love as the creator loves, first one must come to love oneself. That begins when one stops judging oneself good or bad, righteous or unrighteous.

Improvement doesn't come from judgment, it comes from love. The expression of love begins with forgiveness of self and others. There really are no others, so what you forgive in yourself forgives the world. Then the world becomes a beautiful place, a place where love is. 

Responsibly Innocent

Although we must demand responsibility, we are all innocent. The Absolute which we experience as Awareness is the doer.

Your Loved One

Say you are grieving for a loved one who is gone. I ask you, how did you know that loved one? You knew them in Awareness, as Awareness. And how did that loved one know himself, or herself? In Awareness, as Awareness. And where is that awareness now? Right here, where you are. Can you see this Awareness is all there ever was, and is?

Awareness being every image from microbe to tiger, to friend, is the only life there ever was. You, this Awareness are still here. Your friend, loved one, known in and as Awareness, cannot be gone. Awareness is still here.

You are an image in this Awareness, just as your loved one was an image this Awareness. As that Awareness your loved one is still here, present as this Awareness. In fact, the only friend you've ever had is this Awareness, right here, right now.    

Choiceless Awareness

When I deeply examine choice, I find only the feeling of choice, a sense of choice, but not the fact. As an individual I did not create this world, this body, or the process. Any choice ultimately is the play of Lila. Surrender to that is choiceless awareness.

Realization and Embodiment

"The view cannot be the viewer," was a simple statement by Richard Rose. It cuts right to the chase. It means that no matter what you see with your eyes, or feel, or think, the knower of those objects can't be them. This points to Awareness as being the knower, the true Self. This is in line with the basic Vedanta discrimination "Not this. Not that."

Vedanta has a progression of propositions to bring an entirely ignorant person along a conceptual path to the truth of non duality. "The view cannot be the viewer," is a first step to discriminate between Self and appearance. However, once one gets this point, and sees Self as Impersonal Awareness, a subtler point is made, "The "observer is the observed." This follows because there is nothing outside of Awareness.

Nothing in existence can be outside Awareness. Unfortunately, we humans are primarily aware of the content of Awareness, not the Awareness that is looking. We also tend to think of Awareness as personal, belonging to us. Coming to see that our personal self is known by Impersonal Awareness is a big step.

"You are what you seek," is a simple pointer to Impersonal Awareness. The seeker is Awareness under the mistaken identity of the personal self. When Awareness as the essence, the very existence of all that is seen, then "The observer is the observed"
 
Seeking ends when the personal I falls into the background and Awareness takes the foreground. Realization is this shift from personal identity to Impersonal Awareness. When Impersonal Awareness is known to be the true Self, there really is nothing else to seek. It is the knowledge that stops the search. The big existential question has been answered.

"The faint remains of ignorance" is the phrase used to describe what remains of the ego. The personality doesn't disappear, but its dominance is undone. This usually conveys an initial sense of loss, or death. In time, "the faint remains of ignorance," (the personal self), enjoys the freedom of not being the doer.

The subtleties of Realization can deepen until the end of life. Actualizing the deepening realization is the ongoing process. Embodiment of the realization is all that's left to do. Living the realization is now where the rubber hits the road. This is where gurus live up to the realization, or fail. Do they walk the talk? 

Awareness Inside and Out

When you realize that you are the Awareness in which your searching is occuring, and that nothing you can do is outside of awareness, you will be well on your way. The shift in identity from personal searcher to Awareness itself, is realization.

To End Separation

In form, in a body and mind that believes it is a body, there is a sense of separation. Every other bodymind is sensed to be separate. In fact, everything in the universe is deemed to be outside the body. This sense of separation is untrue and causes one to seek.

For this universe to exist, and for the drama of life to play, there must be form, and form requires limitation. This sense of limitation gnaws at us, and we long for freedom. The teachings of non duality show that we are free and not limited.

The Eastern sages call the world Maya, an illusion. It is not that the forms do not exist, but that they are temporary. If they are temporary, can they be real? 

As one seeks truth one has to question deeply, "Who am I." It stands to reason that to know anything about this universe, and this life, one needs to start from the one truth no one can deny, "I exist." What is this I, and what is existence? The sages of ancient India used the phrase, "Existence, Conscious, Bliss" to sum up reality. The unpacking of this phrase shows that Existence cannot be outside consciousness. Existence equals consciousness.

Awareness, from which we are never separate is available, without judgment, to see any object, physical or mental. Every thought, feeling, sight, and sound, appears in awareness. Yet, one seldom steps back from the objects of awareness to awareness itself. If one can do this, the feeling of separation has a chance to recede. This is called, "standing in awareness."

If one contemplates this long enough, one begins to get the sense that the bodymind and everything known is in awareness. Pursued to the furthest depth, one comes to the conclusion that one is awareness, not a bodymind in a universe.

This shift from being a bodymind to being Impersonal Awareness is a difficult shift. We are hard wired and conditioned by experience to perceive ourselves as a body in a world. A better interpretation of our experience is required to see that we are Impersonal Awareness. It is a difficult, outrageous, and counter intuitive leap. But this shift must happen to end the sense of separation.

One may have an intuition that non separation is the truth. To get the mind to see this, accept this, is the journey. It is a journey from separation to oneness, or non duality. When one sees this non duality, and it becomes real, that is called "Realization."

My own path found real value in studying the Upanishads of Advaita Vedanta. The ancient sages developed many teachings that reveal to the mind, in a logical and methodical way, the correct method of interpreting experience. It shows that everything is in Awareness, and "You are That." 

Why Must Innocence Be Lost?

Why must innocence be lost; tasting the fruit of the tree of good and evil? A clue is in statements such as "To know and know that you know."

Why the double know? You could say animals don't question what they are. They are just pure expression of That. They are That, but they do not know they are That.

The human is required to take a much more profound step, and that step is the suffering accompanied by separation. The separation has to happen so that innocence is destroyed. Then when innocence returns it is known.

This is expressed by T. S. Elliot when he said, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” 

As Above, So Below

If you read about near death experiences, or watch video accounts of them, there is a commonality to the reports. There is initially darkness, vast and impenetrable. Then a small light appears in the distance. It gets brighter and one is drawn to it. Reports tell of flying towards the light without effort. Upon entering the light, love is felt to a profound depth unknown before. Then a place appears and one is introduced to Christ, or Buddha, or Mohamed, or God, and a life review begins.

I've been told these stories by people who experienced them. They are like the accounts I've read. Yes, I'm talking about these stories, but I would like to point out something more basic. You've heard this pointer before.

Whether in life or in the afterlife, the basic fact is our knowing, our awareness of events. Yes, this basic awareness, so hidden by events. Hidden by stories of life on earth, and in the afterlife. Awareness.

Is there anytime, on earth or in heaven that we are not aware? People who are able to speak of their past lives, can only speak of them as having known them, having been aware of them.

Awareness is basic. It seems to be the ground of being. Existence itself is only evident in awareness. Can we separate existence from awareness?

The ancient sages had a phrase, "Existence, Consciousness, Bliss." They had pierced the veil of content, of story, of objects, and made clear that  existence itself was awareness, the ground of being.

Awareness, the ground of eternal knowing, is existence. It is what we really are. Whole, complete, and at peace.