Prior to Awareness - 18th Jan. 2016
Saar (Essence)
Ananta guides a contemplation on the primacy of awareness, explaining that even the most sublime concepts or sensory perceptions require awareness to exist. He points out that while the word 'awareness' may feel inadequate, it points to an unlabeled, non-phenomenal reality.
Whatever that something might be, is there any way to know its existence without the awareness of it?
The word that we use, awareness or witnessing, doesn't seem enough. It is the unlabeled label.
Awareness is not referring to phenomenal sensory perception; it is that which knows even this.
contemplative
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
Something else, sister? Since the answer presumed that there is something else, then it would still need this 'I' to be aware of it. We... so, okay, I won't do... this is not necessarily for you, but it's very easy to say that something is prior to awareness. You can see, I can say that there's a, you know, special part of gold which exists prior to awareness and only the true seeker will find it. Is there any way that that can be disputed? No. Not captured. It's just... I'm just saying that to talk about that which is prior to awareness, I can say anything. I can say to the... like that, you know, you've heard of that mythical pot at the end of the rainbow just full of gold that is there; it's prior to awareness and the truest one. And you can say, 'Yes, I see it's there.' And once, once you get to this place, then you'll also see. Now, there is no way that anyone can dispute that.
I'm not saying this for you because it's... it's popular sometimes to say that, 'Oh, there is something else.' But let's just look and see. Then whatever that something might be, is there any way to know of the existence of this something without the awareness of it? So there can be the most sublime sense, the most sublime sense, most beautiful, but unless there is awareness of it, it is still nothing.
It's right, actually. Yes, yes.
And there's much more that emerges from this simple thread of being. Simple thread of being. Much you dig in knowledge and it can be like... it can seem like it is the most primal thing. In fact, the I Am-ness, the 'I Am', is like... called the primordial vibration from which everything arises. So there's great beauty, great sanctity, great... great purity in this. But it has to be said that even for this to exist, there must be an awareness of it. So that something, whatever it might be, for it to exist, there must be awareness. Like we said, we keep contemplating this, and I'm not ever coming to you with this perspective that I know and I want you to refer to what I know. I want you to keep this open contemplation and dive into this together. And I'm completely with you if you say, 'Ananta, this is the way you must look. This is the way you must look to find this something now which is prior to awareness.'
As I said, this... I can't say... at best I can say it's a conviction. I don't know what it is. One thing that can also happen is that when we find the truth of ourselves, then 'awareness' doesn't seem like a good enough way to describe it. It is not just aware.
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Agreed. There is something indescribable about it. It is the unlabeled label.
Not in my hand, yes. Really, that sort of feeling is that the word that we use, either awareness or the witnessing or the pure perceiving, whatever word you want to use, doesn't seem enough. Yeah, it doesn't seem enough.
So that is different. You see? So this... that's like... I see the best way to describe it is to say that you cannot describe it. It is not label-able. Right? This word also came up in Satsang like this: the unlabeled. It is what it is. So let me say awareness is second, just the contemplation of it. It's not necessarily the one. It's just... it's essentially... and you can be that one. There is the... there is a sense that the unlabeled one... there is this one which is that one.
There's one more confusion which is becoming clear to me, is that it's easy to mix up awareness with phenomenal perceiving. So this sense of seeing is there, and it seems very primal to us. It seems like this is awareness. But the sensory seeing is not aware. There is awareness even of sensory seeing. You see? But the world uses 'awareness' to mean more the perceiving through the senses. Like this, I can ask for a clarification?
Sure.
So when you say it's different than the sensory... yes, they see that. It seems different. This same seeing here, here you... all that is, all that is collected through the senses and phenomenally perceived, there is awareness of even this.
Yes. So awareness is prior even to this. That is right. That which knows that this is also... yes, because this is also phenomenal. Phenomenal being is phenomenal, obviously, only in the presence of being. That awareness which we speak of, or the moving in this, or the pure seeing that we talk about, is not referring to this phenomenal sensory perception. We do talk of this one because... because we use the words awareness and the seeing, and it can be confused to be that we are talking about this phenomenal... limited shape, multiple senses. The one that knows exactly this one is the same as a child. Yeah. If even this 'I', which seemed like it is the little bit of 'do or not to do, what not to do', what... this is dissolving. You see her closing you.
The Thread Continues
These satsangs touch the same silence.
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