राम
Awareness & Attention

Am I Aware Now?

2021-05-21|1:10:40-1:20:45|Watch on YouTube

The inquiry 'Am I aware now?' directs attention back to the aware presence itself, revealing awareness as the fundamental nature of the self.

So if you say for example, ‘But, Ananta I look for this Awareness and I feel like it is just sight, it is just sight.’ Then I could look again and say ‘Is it just sight?’ I say, ‘No, there's Awareness of sight which is independent of sight.’ So if the sight was to go away, this Awareness would still be there. And this can come from just like what we call ‘pure looking’ because if you try to apply any concept to it (like it has to be like that or it must be like this) then it just gets muddled up. So what is happening is because you're reading the book [Referring to ‘Consciousness Speaking to Consciousness’ a book of Anantaji’s satsang transcripts] and things like that some defrosting will happen to the mind and it will allow you to contemplate these things which most people in the world won't have the space to contemplate. If I had this conversation with somebody just randomly on the street chances are [gestures their response as] ‘Get away from me, what are you talking about?’ So this is our opportunity to just look for ourselves and see what is aware of all of this realm of perception, so many different types of perceptions, sight, sound, touch, taste, feeling you see all of these things, various sensations many, many categories of sensations - But is that Awareness in different categories? So when we ask ‘Am I Aware now?’ Is that based on sight, is it based on sound, touch, smell, taste? That recognition is beyond these modes of knowledge. That is the beauty of this, that all these modes of knowledge may vanish and will vanish and yet this remains. Everything in the realm of perception comes and goes and yet you remain as this.

Key Teachings

  • Awareness is that which knows itself - the witness that can observe its own observing
  • The question 'Am I aware now?' is a pointer to direct experience rather than mental speculation about awareness
  • True self-knowledge comes from attending to the source of awareness, not the objects of awareness
awarenessself-inquirypresenceconsciousnessattention

From: To Get Freedom Actually Is To Give Freedom - 21st May 2021