I just touched upon Awareness!

[Beginner Mind]

I was just watching Rupert Spira's latest video, "Meditation: I Am That Which Knows", and within a few minutes into it I actually touched upon Awareness for about five seconds!  I'm actually still giddy from it.  Awareness is real!  It's not just some abstract spiritual concept that spiritual masters toss around... It actually exists! And it is who I am.

My question now is...  Is it possible to live as Awareness day in, day out, or is it something that you can only experience temporarily at certain times?

[Beginner Mind]

Man, I thought for sure I'd get more than zero responses.

Is this old hat to everyone here?

[Javfly33]

Yeah, the goal is to live as Awareness and switch into person-hood if you consider there's something interesting to do with your body and mind at a particular situation.

 

[Beginner Mind]

2 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Yeah, the goal is to live as Awareness and switch into person-hood if you consider there's something interesting to do with your body and mind at a particular situation.

By "personhood" do you mean return to egoic consciousness?  Is it possible to leave egoic consciousness behind and function as Awareness on a permanent basis?

[Ero]

@Beginner Mind You have seen the tip of the shadow of the mountain you have to climb. What you felt was direct experience . Your understanding of awareness transcended simple abstraction to directly tasting it. Nice for starters. Now what are you going to do after this? 

P. S. Don't obsess about responses or bumping your topic the n1 position. Whoever chooses to respond will. 

[Beginner Mind]

@Ero I want to LIVE as Awareness.  I want it to be my normal everyday experience.  Do you think this is realistic?

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

I was just watching Rupert Spira's latest video, "Meditation: I Am That Which Knows", and within a few minutes into it I actually touched upon Awareness for about five seconds!  I'm actually still giddy from it.  Awareness is real!  It's not just some abstract spiritual concept that spiritual masters toss around... It actually exists! And it is who I am.

 

Yes!!

Quote

 

My question now is...  Is it possible to live as Awareness day in, day out, or is it something that you can only experience temporarily at certain times?

Notice how fast you went back to self referential thinking. 

See it as a punchline. Why is it funny....

2 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

it is who I am.

 

2 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

Is it possible to live as Awareness day in, day out

 

2 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

it is who I am.

 

 

Unless you can figure out some way to not be you...you’re all set.

If a thought arises...that there is a problem...simply ask..who’s aware of this thought?

You are! Awareness is aware! 

 

[Beginner Mind]

@Nahm  Well of course I am always Myself... But, what I mean is, is it possible to remember Myself even as the body-mind goes about its daily activities from day to day?

I probably should've experimented with this for myself first before asking you guys.  My bad!

[Nahm]

3 minutes ago, Beginner Mind said:

@Nahm  Well of course I am always Myself...

Yes. Done. End of story. 

 

But now you’re thinking......

3 minutes ago, Beginner Mind said:

But, what I mean is, is it possible to remember Myself even as the body-mind goes about its daily activities from day to day?

I probably should've experimented with this for myself first before asking you guys.  My bad!

No. It is not possible to remember yourself. You are what is aware of the memories. Memories are thoughts. The thoughts literally, actually are you. If you believe them, you’re believing the content, thus missing you are the awareness of the thought or memory. 

[Beginner Mind]

24 minutes ago, Nahm said:

No. It is not possible to remember yourself. You are what is aware of the memories. Memories are thoughts. The thoughts literally, actually are you. If you believe them, you’re believing the content, thus missing you are the awareness of the thought or memory. 

Sorry, I don't mean remember as in, dipping into past memories...  I mean remember as in, being aware of Myself, my true Self as Awareness. Like, is it possible for the body-mind to function normally while simultaneously Awareness is aware of itself? 

[Beginner Mind]

Also, I'm curious, how does Awareness fit into Leo's teaching?  (Sorry, I'm not totally familiar with Actualized.org teachings).  Does Leo equate Awareness with God or is God something other/higher?

[Forestluv]

 

25 minutes ago, Beginner Mind said:

Sorry, I don't mean remember as in, dipping into past memories...  I mean remember as in, being aware of Myself, my true Self as Awareness. Like, is it possible for the body-mind to function normally while simultaneously Awareness is aware of itself? 

Just a suggestion. . . I found it helpful to drop the "my true Self" construct. The ego is sooo sneaky and likes to lurk in shadows. Once awareness shines light on the ego, the ego loves to hide in a new shadow and take ownership of being "my true Self". This new construct of "my true Self" becomes a hiding ground for the ego.

When that glimpse of pure awareness was revealed, did "my true Self" have ownership of it? Or was the thought "this is my true Self" added in after pure awareness was revealed? 

The problem faced with a construct of "my true Self" is. . . who/what is aware of this "true Self"? 

For me, what you wrote about "Awareness is aware of itself" is a deeper direct experience realization, because that's it. There is no middle self added in. 

Regarding functioning normally in Awareness. . . The subjective experience can feel like sometimes there is awareness and sometimes there is lack of awareness and immersion into the personal story. Yet these two are not mutually exclusive. Imagine you are driving to a retreat and there is pure awareness. There is no story of "me". Simply the awareness of other cars, roads signs etc. You arrive at the retreat and someone welcomes you asking "Where do you live? How long have you been meditating?". . . Are we going to say "There story of "me" is an illusion. There is only pure awareness. There is no "me" that lives anywhere or has ever meditated. There is only the awareness of that which appears now". . . This would be a bizarre way to interact with other humans. For me, the "character" would temporarily re-appear. I might need to pause to recall the personal story and then it appears "I live in the next town over. I've been mediating for 2 years. This is my first retreat". . . Yet there need not be attachment/identification and immersion into this character story. There can be Awareness of it's appearance, just like there is Awareness of the appearance of bird chirps. . . And after the retreat, we may go hiking in nature. Here, the character story isn't needed. The chipmunks, wind and river aren't asking about our character story. The character story can disappear and there is now Awareness without a character story playing in the mind.

Regarding how to live like this. Try it out. Go to an environment in which the character story is not needed. An environment in which analysis, categorizing and thinking is not necessary. I like going into nature. Without thought stories, the mind and body seem to do just fine. There is walking, observing, drinking water, eating, sitting etc. without any thought stories. It's amazing. . . It's sorta like driving a car. Do you need to think "I must now press the gas pedal with 10 newtons of force. I now need to look in my rear-view mirror and pull this lever to initiate the turn signal". . . Of course not, it goes just fine without thoughts stories. This can be translated to everyday life. Try it out. Its a super cool way to interact with one's environment. 

[Javfly33]

4 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

By "personhood" do you mean return to egoic consciousness?  Is it possible to leave egoic consciousness behind and function as Awareness on a permanent basis?

Sure it's possible, the question is are you willing to surrender your "egoic consciousness" hehe.

I surely could leave as an awareness if I'd meditate 12 hours a day. But I'm a willing to surrender all my desires and fears to do that? Not yet definitely. Most of us aspire to be as consciouss as we can while remaining in society

[Lento]

@Beginner Mind

I find this video very helpful in such occasions.

[Beginner Mind]

1 hour ago, Serotoninluv said:

Just a suggestion. . . I found it helpful to drop the "my true Self" construct. The ego is sooo sneaky and likes to lurk in shadows. Once awareness shines light on the ego, the ego loves to hide in a new shadow and take ownership of being "my true Self". This new construct of "my true Self" becomes a hiding ground for the ego.

When that glimpse of pure awareness was revealed, did "my true Self" have ownership of it? Or was the thought "this is my true Self" added in after pure awareness was revealed? 

The problem faced with a construct of "my true Self" is. . . who/what is aware of this "true Self"? 

For me, what you wrote about "Awareness is aware of itself" is a deeper direct experience realization, because that's it. There is no middle self added in.

There was no one claiming ownership of Awareness during the glimpse.  There was just an experience of Awareness being aware of itself.  Deep, joyful, and powerful.

Calling it my "true Self" was just a way of talking about it after the fact.  I'll try to be more mindful of how I describe things going forward.

2 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

Regarding functioning normally in Awareness. . . The subjective experience can feel like sometimes there is awareness and sometimes there is lack of awareness and immersion into the personal story. Yet these two are not mutually exclusive. Imagine you are driving to a retreat and there is pure awareness. There is no story of "me". Simply the awareness of other cars, roads signs etc. You arrive at the retreat and someone welcomes you asking "Where do you live? How long have you been meditating?". . . Are we going to say "There story of "me" is an illusion. There is only pure awareness. There is no "me" that lives anywhere or has ever meditated. There is only the awareness of that which appears now". . . This would be a bizarre way to interact with other humans. For me, the "character" would temporarily re-appear. I might need to pause to recall the personal story and then it appears "I live in the next town over. I've been mediating for 2 years. This is my first retreat". . . Yet there need not be attachment/identification and immersion into this character story. There can be Awareness of it's appearance, just like there is Awareness of the appearance of bird chirps. . . And after the retreat, we may go hiking in nature. Here, the character story isn't needed. The chipmunks, wind and river aren't asking about our character story. The character story can disappear and there is now Awareness without a character story playing in the mind.

There was already a strong dis-identification from the personal story even prior to this glimpse.  I hate talking about myself.  I'm sure that disdain for the personal story will only grow as my capacity to rest as Awareness grows.  Especially since I may be tempted to believe the story as I tell it to others...  But I hear you.  We don't have much of a choice but to share a story unless we are willing to be a total weirdo.

 

2 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

Regarding how to live like this. Try it out. Go to an environment in which the character story is not needed. An environment in which analysis, categorizing and thinking is not necessary. I like going into nature. Without thought stories, the mind and body seem to do just fine. There is walking, observing, drinking water, eating, sitting etc. without any thought stories. It's amazing. . . It's sorta like driving a car. Do you need to think "I must now press the gas pedal with 10 newtons of force. I now need to look in my rear-view mirror and pull this lever to initiate the turn signal". . . Of course not, it goes just fine without thoughts stories. This can be translated to everyday life. Try it out. Its a super cool way to interact with one's environment. 

I will give this a shot.  Thanks.

[Beginner Mind]

52 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Most of us aspire to be as consciouss as we can while remaining in society

Fortunately I'm in a place in life where I don't have to worry about remaining in society, so I can spend all waking moments on waking up.  No job, no responsibilities...  Feels like I'm destined to go through this right now.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Beginner Mind

[Beginner Mind]

@Lento Thanks.  I'll check it out.

[Javfly33]

49 minutes ago, Beginner Mind said:

Fortunately I'm in a place in life where I don't have to worry about remaining in society, so I can spend all waking moments on waking up.  No job, no responsibilities...  Feels like I'm destined to go through this right now.

@Beginner Mind OMG. Then go for it! I would do it if I were in your shoes.

[Beginner Mind]

@Javfly33 Yeah, would be foolish not to.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Beginner Mind said:

There was no one claiming ownership of Awareness during the glimpse.  There was just an experience of Awareness being aware of itself.  Deep, joyful, and powerful.

Calling it my "true Self" was just a way of talking about it after the fact.  I'll try to be more mindful of how I describe things going forward.

It seems like you got a good glimpse of a deep realization. Calling it "my true Self" is fine. I'm not saying it is wrong and shouldn't be described that way. Feel free to refer to it that way if you like.

I was pointing more toward the relationship with the realization, rather than the technicality of any terms we use to describe it. Personally, after this type of direct realization, my mind wants to contextualize it. And it's very common for the mind to slip in a subtle "me". For example, my mind may describe it as an "experience I had" or "my true nature", "my higher self" etc. To communicate to others via language, we've got to call it something. Yet, I've found the mind can slip in subtle forms of self constructs with personal identification. It's not so much the terms used, it is the underlying energetics. 

If this doesn't resonate with you, toss it away.