THE DISENTANGLING OF AWARENESS
In order to recognise or become aware of itself as it is, awareness does not need to do anything special. Awareness is by nature self-aware, just as the sun is by nature self-luminous.
Therefore, awareness’s knowledge of itself – that is, our knowledge of our own essential, irreducible being – is not a new or special kind of knowledge. It is the knowledge that is inherent within awareness, though seemingly obscured due to the exclusive focus of our attention on objective experience.
The Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky referred to the apparent process through which awareness recognises its own eternal, infinite nature as ‘self-remembering’, by which he meant not the memory of something in the past that was once known and has since been forgotten, but rather the recognition or knowing again of something that is present and familiar, but seemingly overlooked or forgotten due to the clamour of experience.
Meditation is, as such, the remembering of our self: the pristine, luminous, inherently peaceful and unconditionally fulfilled experience of being aware that we always and already are, which runs ever-present throughout all experience, seemingly but never really obscured by thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.
It is the remembrance or prayer to which St. Matthew referred when he said, ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret’.
In fact, our essential, irreducible self, pure awareness, cannot be remembered in the way that an object, person or event is remembered, for only something with objective qualities can be remembered. Nor need awareness be remembered in that sense, for only something that is lost or missing needs to be remembered.
However, if we are lost in the contents of a movie, the screen will seem to be missing or unseen. Of course, the screen is always being seen, although we have temporarily overlooked or forgotten it due to our absorption in the movie. Likewise, awareness is always present and aware of itself, but seems to cease knowing itself as it truly is when it loses itself in objective experience.
In such a case, awareness’s knowledge of itself becomes mixed with its knowledge of other things and, as a result, it seems to cease knowing itself clearly. The experience of being aware becomes distorted or obscured by the qualities of objective experience.
Awareness becomes mixed with and, therefore, apparently limited by the qualities of thinking, feeling, sensing and perceiving, and thus seems to become a temporary, finite self or mind.
Awareness of objects eclipses awareness of awareness.
Only the infinite can know the infinite; only the finite can know the finite.
In order to know objective experience, infinite awareness assumes the form of the finite mind, but in order to know itself it need not assume the form of the mind. In other words, in the form or activity of the mind, awareness knows thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions, but in the form of the mind it cannot know itself.
Awareness cannot know itself in the form of the mind because the mind is an apparent limitation of awareness, just as a character in a dream cannot know the dreamer’s mind because she is a limitation of that very mind.
Everything the dreamed character knows is a reflection of the limitations of her own mind, and therefore she cannot know the dreamer’s ‘unlimited’ mind,* although her own mind is made of it. The limitations of her own mind prevent her from knowing her unlimited reality. For the same reason, the finite mind can never know unlimited awareness, although it is a modulation of it.
Just as a movie could be said to be the activity of the screen, or a current the activity of the ocean, so mind is the activity of awareness. As such, mind is awareness in motion; awareness is mind at rest.
The mind that seeks awareness is like a current in the ocean in search of water. Such a mind is destined for endless dissatisfaction.
Mind is the activity or creativity of awareness in which awareness itself seems to become entangled. Awareness seems to lose itself in its own creativity; it veils itself with its own activity.
Meditation is the disentangling of awareness from its own activity.
In meditation the simple experience of being aware is extricated from everything that we are aware of.
When we come out of bright sunlight into a dark room, we cannot do anything with the mind to make the objects appear in the darkness. We just stay there and relax, and slowly the objects emerge.
Meditation is similar. There is nothing the mind can do to find or know awareness, for the mind is a limitation of the very awareness for which it is in search. Anything the mind does is simply more of its own veiling activity.
Meditation is the subsidence of the activity of mind and the subsequent revelation of the very essence of the mind – pure knowing or awareness – to itself.
Only awareness knows awareness. In the non-activity or non-practice known as meditation, the activity of the mind subsides and, as a result, its essence of pure awareness, having lost its apparent limitations, stands revealed to itself as it is.
If someone were to draw our attention to the white paper on which these words are written, we would suddenly become aware of it. In fact, we were always aware of the paper but we didn’t realise it due to the exclusive focus of our attention on the words.
Awareness is like the white paper. It is the luminous, self-aware presence upon which or within which all experience appears, the transparent knowing with which all experience is known and, ultimately, the substance or reality out of which all experience is made. The poet Shelley referred to it as ‘the white radiance of eternity’.
The recognition of awareness – its recognition of itself – is not something new that is seen or known; it is a new way of seeing or knowing what is always and already present and in plain view.
Enlightenment or awakening is not a new or extraordinary kind of experience. It the self-revelation of the very nature of experience itself.
Awareness cannot be discovered; it can only be recognised.
The disentangling of awareness from its own activity can be effected by asking a question that invites the mind to trace its way back from objective experience towards its essential, irreducible nature.
One such question is, ‘Am I aware?’ Most questions lead awareness to direct the light of its knowing or attention towards objective knowledge or experience, but a question such as, ‘Am I aware?’ is a sacred question that invites the mind in an objectless direction.
As the mind proceeds in this objectless direction it begins to relax, sink or fall back into the source of awareness from which it has arisen. The mind progressively loses its colour or activity until its essence of pure awareness is revealed.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was referring to this sacred investigation when he wrote, ‘Follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought’.
That is, seek absolute knowledge of the eternal, infinite, self-aware being that shines in each of our minds as the experience of being aware or the knowledge ‘I am’, at the very source of the mind itself, prior to all objective knowledge and experience.
The answer to the question ‘Am I aware?’ is obviously, ‘Yes’. The question ‘Am I aware?’ is a thought, in which we are not yet certain of the answer. The answer ‘Yes’ is a second thought, in which we are absolutely certain of the answer.
Something takes place between these two thoughts which converts the uncertainty expressed in the question to the certainty expressed in the answer.
Whatever occurs between these two thoughts is not itself an appearance or activity of the mind; it occurs between two such appearances or activities. And yet whatever happens in that placeless place – placeless because in the absence of the activity of mind no time or space is experienced – gives us the conviction from which we are able to answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Am I aware?’ with absolute certainty.
In order to answer the question ‘Am I aware?’ we must ‘go to’ the experience of being aware. In other words, we must know the experience of being aware. We must be aware of being aware.
If we were not aware of the experience of being aware, we would not answer ‘Yes’ with such certainty to the question ‘Am I aware?’
One might then wonder, who is the ‘we’ or the ‘I’ that is aware of the experience of being aware?
Only awareness is aware. Therefore, in the pause between the question ‘Am I aware?’ and the answer ‘Yes’, awareness ceases directing the light of its knowing towards objective experience and, as a result, becomes aware of itself.
In fact, awareness doesn’t become aware of itself. Awareness is always aware of itself, just as the sun is always illuminating itself.
However, when awareness directs its attention or the light of its knowing towards an object, its awareness of itself is mixed with its awareness of objects, and thus it seems to cease being aware of itself as it truly is. Therefore, in the gap between two such objects or thoughts it seems to become aware of itself anew.
Awareness’s awareness of itself is not, in fact, a new, mysterious, uncommon or exceptional experience. It is the most intimate, familiar and ordinary experience that it is possible to have. It is simply the knowing of our essential, self-aware being – its knowing of itself. It is the simple experience to which each of us refers when we say, ‘I am’. It is the knowledge of simply being.
The question ‘Am I aware?’ and the answer ‘Yes’ are thoughts. They are activities of awareness, rather than objects appearing in awareness, just as a movie could be said to be the activity of the screen rather than an entity with its own independent existence that appears on the screen.
As such, being aware of being aware – awareness’s awareness of awareness – is revealed between two activities of the mind, that is, between two thoughts or perceptions, just as the blank screen is exposed between two frames of a movie.
In the pause between the question ‘Am I aware?’ and the answer ‘Yes’, the mind is relieved of its activity and, as a result, its limitations, and stands revealed as infinite awareness, illuminating or knowing itself alone.
Awareness is aware of awareness.
To begin with, awareness may seem to find it difficult to remain with itself, that is, to stay with the non-objective experience of simply being aware, so accustomed is it to assuming the form of mind and, as such, directing itself towards objective experience.
As soon as this is noticed, we may ask again, ‘Am I aware?’, in this way inviting the mind away from the objects of knowledge or experience, towards its essence or source.
The mind can only stand as such by attending to an object, so when the mind asks itself the question ‘Am I aware?’ it embarks on a journey in an objectless direction – a pathless path – away from thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions and towards its essential, irreducible essence of pure awareness.
Ramana Maharshi referred to this non-process as ‘sinking the mind into the heart’.
During this directionless journey, the mind sinks or relaxes backwards, inwards or ‘selfwards’. As it does so it is, in most cases gradually, occasionally suddenly, divested of its finite, limited qualities and, at some point, stands revealed as pure mind, original mind or infinite awareness.
In fact, to suggest that the mind embarks on a journey to rediscover its essence or reality may be misleading. How much distance is there between an image and the screen?
The path of the finite mind to its fundamental, irreducible essence is not a journey from one place or entity to another, although, as a concession to the mind’s belief in itself as a separate, independently existing entity, this discovery is often depicted as a journey, path or pilgrimage. It is more like the fading of an image on a screen.
Mind is the self-colouring activity of awareness. Meditation is the fading or dissolving of this self-colouring activity and the subsequent revelation of the colourless essence of the mind, pure awareness itself.
Being aware of being aware – awareness’s awareness of awareness – is a colourless, non-objective experience. It is an experience of the essence of the mind after it has been divested of its finite qualities. It is, as such, pure mind – awareness itself – knowing its own intrinsic, irreducible, indestructible essence. In the Zen tradition it is referred to as ‘our original face’.
The transparent, colourless experience of being aware or awareness itself cannot be known or remembered by the mind because mind – the activity of awareness – is not present, or rather, is not active there.
The mind, at best, overlooks the non-objective experience of being aware and may even deny its very presence. Such a mind is like a wave denying the existence of water.
However, a mind that is accustomed to repeatedly dissolving in its source or essence becomes progressively saturated with its inherent peace. When such a mind rises again from the ocean of awareness, its activity makes that peace available to humanity.
Such a mind may also be inspired by knowledge that is not simply a continuation of the past but comes directly from its unconditioned essence. This inspiration brings creativity and new possibilities into whatever sphere of knowledge or activity in which that mind operates.
* In reality the dreamer’s mind is limited, but in this analogy the dreamer’s mind represents unlimited awareness.