Posts Tagged ‘Awareness’
It seems that when many people start seeking the Truth, we look for some conceptual collection of ideas to actually BE the Truth. It could be “We are all one” or “Jesus is the son of God” or “We are a spiritual being having a human experience” or “You are the creator of your reality” or whatever else. We want to gather up a whole set of conceptual ideas and call them “The Truth” and it is what ideas should represent the “Truth” that people argue about. This is all very valuable, helpful, and transformative and finding a better set of ideas can very much help change and improve the quality of one’s life experience. For sure.
At the same time, there is something more than the conceptual, so much more. The nonconceptual.
Notice in this moment, awareness is aware. In fact there can be two things happening simultaneously. See if you can tell the difference. There is a) the concept of awareness that exists in the mind and b) nonconceptual awareness that is aware of all concepts of awareness.
Can you differentiate between the two? Being able to do so is KEY. It is a doorway beyond.
In order to go “beyond the mind” as if often said, we have to go beyond the conceptual and recognize the nonconceptual.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual silence. Stillness.
Take a moment to notice the now moment as it is.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual being/aliveness/existence/I Am’ness.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual awareness.
We can read about and study spirituality, metaphysics, religion, psychology, philosophy, and so on all day long in search for the Truth. I’ve done it and I know many of you have as well. It’s all good. This is all typically the domain of the mind, of the conceptual, of temporary ideas that come and go and can be learned or forgotten. It’s all part of the game.
But what about that which is already here and exists without any effort whatsoever? What is so constantly here that like the clothing against our skin, after a while we get used to it and simply overlook it?
The classic finger pointing to the moon is pointing to the nonconceptual. The pointer is conceptual, but that to which the pointer points is nonconceptual.
What is uncreated, unmanifested, unborn, and yet vibrantly and eternally present?
You are that and it is your true nature, and it is right here, right now.
Have you ever heard of the term “monkey mind?” It’s basically when your mind is running amok and your thoughts are going crazy. When that happens, what to do? What to do?
Well there’s two schools of thought (no pun intended) that we can discuss:
1) Quiet your mind
2) Direct your mind deliberately towards better feeling thoughts
Both techniques are designed to help you release resistance, experience your true self, and express your natural radiance as you live your life from moment to moment.
That said, there are some key differences such as the nature of free will, as we will explore some of these differences below:
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There’s so many -isms out there, Buddhism, Taoism, Nondualism… so many traditions, Christianity, Advaita, Zen…
Yet NONE of these are the ultimate Truth. Some may be very clear pointers, yes, but that is the extent of their reach. The words “rich chocolate” pale in comparison to the richness and flavor of chocolate itself. The word “God” and the sound the vocal chords project are nothing in the face of the infinite presence of that to which the word points.
Looking around in this world, what are we looking at!? What is all this? What we look at in this world, in its very essence, is not of this world. It is nameless, formless, indescribable, and everpresent. Some call it Spirit or Essence or Consciousness or Presence or Beingness. It’s truly nameless. It resides in a domain beyond the mind.
Who is the one looking? Same thing. The awareness that is looking out through your eyes is the very eyes of God. It has been said that “God sees everything that you do. God is always watching.” Sure. God sees everything that you do because God is the one looking out through your eyes! You are that! God and this I/eye of consciousness are one and the same.
The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
-Meister Eckhart
When we wake up to the reality of what we are, no longer do we need our teachings of the past in the same way we once did.
To be enlightened is to be free of all points of view.
-Adyashanti
Upon awakening, our previous teachings and points of view are seen to be very much like a bridge designed to assist us in getting across the water, and we eventually leave them behind as we rest in the unshakable reality of what we are. The bridge was a very helpful and often times necessary part of one’s personal journey, so whether we come home through the pathway of Advaita, Buddhism, spending time in nature, or whatever else, thank goodness for these paths. If we come home without following any traditional pathway, awesome. There are many “paths” back to where you already are. No path is necessary to be THIS. You are what you seek.
The experience of This, although powerful and beyond words, is secondary to the very presence of This. It’s easy to confuse This with the experience of This, yet neither perception nor experience are what you are. Our perception and experience of ice cream is not ice cream. The unchanging, everpresent, eternal, Isness that you already are. This is it. You are This.
…and for a fun little paradox, no tradition is the reality of what you are, and nevertheless the reality of what you are that appears as all things also appears as every tradition. No tradition is IT. Every tradition is IT.
Once upon a time, long long ago, in the time before time, which is not so long ago since this time we speak of is Now, there lived a vast empty space.
This space existed everywhere, all at once, simultaneously. It was omni-present. Yet it had no substance or form to point to that we could say it is “here” as opposed to “there.” Indeed, it existed nowhere. There is nowhere we could really point to to say there it is, for it existed in no location, and yet it was undeniably here.
One day the nothingness of space wanted to create matter, a non-thing creating a thing, but it was puzzled with the idea of how it could put matter somewhere given that it was already everywhere. “Ah,” it realized, “I may be everywhere, but there is nothing here to prevent matter from taking up this same space where I am. I love this matter so much that I want it to be right here with me, so close that the two of us will actually be one. It may look like there is matter over here and space over there, but if you look close enough, you’ll see that matter is actually mostly empty space. I may look to be outside of matter, but I’m actually deeply embedded within matter as well… the sweetest and most intimate kiss imaginable. Form will be infused with space, inseparable from it. We can talk about space and matter, but they’re really both me. Ah, what joy. I’ll have a playmate to play with that will actually be me, taking the form of something else. What a glorious game this will be!”
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I thought awakening was all about bliss and joy. It’s much deeper than that. Much richer and fuller than that.
It’s about experiencing Life as it is, being Life, with no separation, and experiencing the totality as beingness itself. It’s quite ordinary, actually.
I can walk through a public crowd as no one, as pure awareness, like a camera going this way and that, exploring and witnessing and loving and appreciating what is seen. The camera is not affected by what is seen, nor is there any judgment as to what is seen. Just pure seeing, and a causeless Love inherently intertwined with that which is seen, arising from nowhere.
Love seems to be the pure energetic relationship that integrates with that which is witnessed.
There can be engagement of the body/mind with that which is witnessed, or not, and it really makes no difference. Pure awareness, witnessing itself, seeing movement and stillness, with no real necessity to do or be anything in particular except be that which I am, which is a given.
Movement and stillness are one. They’re actually the same thing.
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Clara Llum is a spiritual teacher who found herself going through a process of spontaneous enquiry very early in her life, revealing the Self as the Unlimited One back in the 1970’s. Since then she has explored most eastern traditions, become familiar with many approaches to awakening to Truth, and begun delivering Satsang in 1986.
Today we will be sharing this interview where I asked her a whole bunch of questions about awakening.
Interview Topic Highlights
· What is Enlightenment?
· Misunderstandings about Enlightenment
· The value of Beliefs on the way to Realization
· Brief visits to the Self vs. Full Realization (non-abiding vs. abiding awakenings)
· The Law of Attraction and choosing better feeling thoughts
· Quieting vs. Silencing the mind
· The role of the mind
· Not knowing vs. doubting
· The most important thing to know to reach Enlightenment
For the sake of clarity, my questions will be italicized while Clara’s responses will be in bold.
Our conversation begins with us noticing how animated and alive we often are when we express ourselves.
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How’s this for a wonderful little play on words? 
The other day I was listening to a youtube video and there was a blip in the recording to where the words “me” and “ego” got mashed together and sounded like “mego.”
How perfect! An ego is like a mego! It’s like people have their own little mego’s running around. Do you have a mego?
Wait.. a mego? Amigo! A friend!
The ego is like your friend. He wants to keep you safe, give you advice, and alert you of danger in the world. He’s like a lookout, but sometimes he can be a bit overprotective and paranoid. Have you noticed that?
The problem is that we think we actually have to listen to our friend all the time. In fact, we’ve listened to him so much that we’ve forgotten that we are actually here listening to him independent of the words, and have effectively handed over our decision making to the chattery friend doling out protective advice!
The thing is though, we are not our friend. We are the one watching our friend talk. We are the one listening to our friend speak.
You are not your amigo. You are the one aware of your amigo being who he is.
Your amigo is your friend, here to help you separate yourself from perceived danger, but your amigo is not you. You don’t have to kill your amigo. Just recognize you’re not him and he’s not you.
Simple say, “Hey, I’m not that voice in my head. Not a single thing that the voice in my head says is actually me talking. Here I am, listening, and there is my friend, talking. If I want, I can simply stop listening and pay attention to something else, like the listening itself. I can be more interested in awareness itself, which is what I’m doing, than the words that are being spoken, for the words being spoken by someone else. The words I hear are never what I am! No thought or idea can ever actually be who I am. Here I am, regardless of if my amigo understands something or not! Here I am!”
That’s it. Complete and total disidentification with the little voice in your idea.
You are not your amigo.
You are that which is aware of your amigo.
Consider this: From the linear perspective of time, with your five senses you can not perceive what is actually arising in the present moment. It’s technically impossible.
Everything you’re seeing happened a fraction of a second ago or more. It takes time for light to travel from what you’re looking at to your eyes. Thus, you are not actually seeing the present, but the past. You’re seeing something as it existed some time ago.
When you look up in the sky at the sun, you’re not looking at where the sun is now, but where the sun was 8 minutes ago. When you look up at the stars at night, you’re not looking in the direction of where the stars are now (if they even still exist and haven’t exploded since), but where they were hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years ago!
The same applies for sound. It takes time for sound to travel through the air and vibrate your ear drums. So again, you are not perceiving the present, but the past.
What about taste and touch? Perhaps they’re different because in order to experience those senses, you have to be in physical contact with the object. Thus there’s no delay as the vibration travels through space to your body.
Well, it takes time for the nerve’s impulses to travel through your body to your brain so that they may be perceived by the mind. This process too takes time.
To recognize this more clearly, why is it that when you touch a hot stove, you almost instantly pull your hand back? That’s right. Reflexes. Your body knows to pull your hand away before the signal makes it up to your brain, is processed as pain and danger, and the brain then sends a signal back to your arm to pull your hand away. Thanks to our reflexes, physical responses can happen even before mental perception.
Perception takes time. What we perceive is actually the past. You can not perceive the present moment with your physical senses. It’s physically impossible.
Perceiving in Time and Space
With your senses, you’re clearly not perceiving the entire universe at once. It’s like you’re only perceiving a tiny fraction of all of time and space at a time.
What you perceive at any moment depends both on where you are and when you are there.
If you change when you are in a particular location or space, what you perceive in that space changes. You can’t just be in the right place, but you have to be at the right place at the right time.
Similarly, if you change where you are physically relative to any object, what you experience about that object at any point in time will be different. For example, if you’re far away from a loud noise, you’ll hear it later in time than if you were really close to it. Thus, when you experience something totally depends on where you are in space.
Time and space are inseparable. They truly depend on one another. This is why people call physical reality a time/space reality or refer to time more accurately as spacetime. You can’t have one without another.
What you are perceiving at any particular moment in time is not actually what is arising in the present, but your own version of the universe, depending on where in time and space you happen to exist at any moment. It’s almost like being in your own little world! 
Thus, if you want to experience the Now as it is in its pure and undistorted essence, if you want to see Reality as it actually is, a deeper part of yourself must be awakened, a part of you that exists beyond time and space. It is what is Here and Now.
Awareness, Here and Now
As long as we approach the the Present moment through the content that arises in the present, we will always perceive the past. We won’t be experiencing the Now.
Even if we think about the future, we’re looking at a thought that arose in the past, but we’re looking at it now. The looking happens now. What we are looking at happened in the past.
Let me repeat this because this is so important.
The looking happens now.
What we are looking at happened in the past.
As long as we look to experiences, memories, or perceptions, we’re not seeing the Now itself, but rather the mind’s stuff that happened in the past. The mind exists in past and future, and yet awareness is seeing whatever it is seeing, right now.
The content was created in the past, but awareness is seeing it now.
Right now, Awareness is looking at these words, regardless of when they were typed or when they showed up on your computer screen.
Awareness is aware of this moment. There is a big difference between awareness which is aware, here and now, and the content and experiences that arise within awareness.
Awareness is present. Awareness is always present. It is impossible for awareness to not be present.
The only thing awareness can be aware of is what is, here and now.
It’s not something to think about. It’s not something to understand. Thinking and understanding are all more mind-stuff that arise within time, are subject to time, and exist simply as passing content within awareness.
All satori moments, glimpses into your true nature, sudden realizations, feelings of oneness or love.. they’re all experiences that arise within awareness. None of that is what you are. None of that is it.
Connecting with Who You Are
To connect with who and what you truly are, just be.
Be still.
Rest as awareness.
It sounds utterly simple, and it really is.
Just rest as the timeless awareness that is here and now, for that is what you already are anyways.
By looking consciousness straight in the eye, it will come to know itself clearly.
This remembrance, this reconnection to the I Am that I Am, this is the foundation of awakening.
Consciousness is peering into this world, but it is not of this world.
Awareness is like this witnessing presence that is looking through this body/mind, like a watcher of a movie looks at the screen of a movie and is immersed in the sounds and colors.
But awareness is completely independent of the movie.
Rest as awareness.
There is nothing to understand. There is nothing to figure out. Just simply be. Be who you really are. Be still. Be.
Flaming Canyon by Marc Adamus
