राम
Awareness & Attention

Find Out What Witnesses All of These

2022-02-04|1:08:21-1:10:53|Watch on YouTube

Discover the unchanging witness consciousness that observes all of life's experiences, thoughts, and sensations without being affected by them.

This intellectual cage which is made up of conceptual understanding is broken through and in a way what we are doing (if we were to say) is to look at that which is not cage-able in this intellectual cage, which is your own Self. Un-definable, un-definable in any concepts, at best negated, like definition is negated when we say un-definable, unspeakable, unborn, undying, so all these are negations to point to That. So not this, not this, not this… Then we struggle no…for words? So what is It actually? What Is, it is Is-ness itself. What would it mean to Is? [Smiles] It is that itself, beyond even to be. And the intellect can struggle with this kind of notion – ‘What.. to Is’? [Smiles] Nobody has said that to me. What does it mean to ‘Is’? [Smile] Maybe as far as we can go intellectually is ‘What does it mean to Be’? We can try and make some definitions up for that. But, that which you find when you see not through worldly eyes, though your intuitive eyes - What is aware of your existence or what is aware of your perceptions? What is aware that it is aware? Sages have told us no ‘Find out what witnesses all of this. What is the witness even to sight, sound, taste, touch, smell?’ They have given us all these clues and they are very simple clues. Because they come in big words and with alot of Sanskrit it may seem like it’s difficult. [Smile] Actually they are trying to be very, very straight forward. So that which is aware, that which is aware, is not definable even in terms like Awareness. It is just a pointer to check on that which is aware. And it is undeniable that it is ‘I’ which is aware, which is ‘I’ which is aware. So this ‘I’ is undeniable. So it’s a very potent pointer but it is not a limiting construct. ‘Awareness’ the term is a potent pointer but it's not meant to be a limiting construct.

Key Teachings

  • There is a witnessing consciousness that observes all experiences, thoughts, and sensations without being identified with them
  • The witness is always present, unchanging, and distinct from the mind and body
  • Recognizing the witness nature leads to liberation from identification with transient phenomena
witnessawarenessconsciousnessself-inquirymeditationnon-dual

From: To Come to God, To Come to Being… Is Simply To Recognize Your Very Existence – 4th February 2022