The Knowingness is Present, is Self Aware - 21st April, 2016

Yes, you don't. You don't need anything else.

Yeah. One of the reasons actually I got, you know, pulled to these books is that I'm still not... I'm still trying to find something, you know. The mind is still trying to find something beyond the awareness. It is not satisfied actually at the awareness. Because when you say "I am awareness," the mind says there is no "I" and there is no "am." I am anyway... you are transcended. So how can you be "I am awareness"? But that is a way of the expression, of course. Otherwise, how do you express? So the mind is still trying to figure out: is there something actually?

What is happening also in the satsang is that we are going through this beautiful phase of contemplating this together, you see. Where it seems like some of us are saying, "But how can you say there's a knowing? There is no knowing. Nothing is." And I'm saying that even to know that there is nothing, there is this knowing. So we are having this collective contemplation, which I'm very open to having actually. And we are looking together at this because we are exploring all ideas about knowing, about being, about true awareness, knowingness. What is it that we really mean by these terms is being checked from our direct experience now, you see. So I, for one, am enjoying these contemplations very much and I'm very open to them. And we are having a lot of fun with this actually, just to look at this.

Because actually now, if you were to look at both the points of view, you will find that one point of view is: there is nothing at all, not even awareness. There is nothing. Everything comes from this nothing, you see. So then we have to look at this "there is nothing at all" and say, "Do I know this from direct experience that there is nothing? Is it my insight, or is it only mentally that I'm saying there is nothing at all?" You see? So what I find from here—and I have to only speak that—is that this that is here as my most original is this no-thing. It is not an appearance, and yet there is a knowing of it. This knowingness itself I am, prior to "I am." So don't get confused with that. We've crossed that "I am." "I am" comes later. That much is obvious to most of us now.

So this knowingness which is non-phenomenal, not an appearance, which is no-thing, is what remains. See? Therefore, the only point of distinction then left is to say that this no-thing is unaware. But there must be awareness to know that there is such a no-thing. That is where the contemplation is happening actually, you see. So for me, it seems just mental to just say, "Oh, but there's nothing. I just know this," you see. But we are not even saying "I know this." I just... it's nothing. But I don't know this. I don't know what you're saying actually, you see. So when we say that there is nothing, it automatically implies: "But I know that there is nothing. I am aware that there is nothing," you see. So even this nothing is aware of itself being nothing, you see.

So the only trouble with this "prior to awareness" business is that it's very attractive to the mind. And I've been saying that something just wants to hold on to this because we feel like, "Oh, this is the ultimate truth I can get to." It's very attractive. "Yes, I found that which is prior even to awareness." Then did you really find it, or are you imagining it? The real finding would mean that I know this which is prior to awareness. But this knowingness itself is awareness. So how did you go prior to awareness? I don't know whether any of this is making sense to you, any of you, but I feel that some of us who are contemplating this, this can be useful to look at.

To be able to report anything at all, like I told Anjali Ji also on Facebook, to be able to report anything at all when you're reporting with integrity, I must know it from this awareness of it as a direct experience of it, or I must know it as a mental concept. Either in either of those two, the knowingness is unavoidable. You cannot deny the existence of this knowingness, at least the way I see it. And I'm open to continuing this conversation and to look together and say: how can we say anything at all, including that there is nothing, without knowing? Then just making stuff up. By the way, I'm just saying that tell me how we can say something without the knowing of it. We must be... we must know nothing to be able to say that there is nothing. Therefore, the knowingness was present along with the nothing. Therefore, this nothing itself must be self-knowing, must be self-aware, you see.

So this awareness is present, which I find it is undeniable at this point. For those of you who are contemplating these, you can listen to this stuff again. For those of you for whom this is making no sense, just forget about it. But I enjoy it very much because for me it is not like I'm being attacked or something like this. I can see that it can seem like that, that some satsang members are saying exactly the opposite of what you're saying, but even in this, I'm not feeling a sense of attack, at least not yet, you see. Because I'm able to see that it's coming from this sense of experiencing this to be true. Nobody is just saying things just to say them. There is this sense that "I know this to be true," and that is why it is being said. And that is what I am also saying: that there is a knowing of this to be the truth. This knowingness itself is awareness.