You Are Awareness Which Is Aware of Itself

Okay, so let's explore this a bit because there maybe some strands of confusion there. Now, you may feel that attention is on perceptual objects, in the same way, you can keep your attention fixated on that which you are calling Awareness. But Awareness is never a functioning on which attention can go. It's not a function of attention. Your recognition of your Self as Awareness is independent of where attention may be. Attention could be like this [looks at his hand] and yet I am Aware. And to say that ‘I am aware’, it is ‘I’ aware of aware, ‘I’ aware of aware, independent of any of this. You could actually experiment by trying to be ‘not Aware’ because this is the idea that the mind will give you - that if my attention is here or here or here [points at different places], wherever the attention may be, then I'm actually losing my Awareness or awareness of Awareness, but this is just not so. What would you say, (although I don't use this particular phrase so much) what would I say? I would say that, as you let go of all these conceptual constructions and don't limit your attention or don't try to fixate it so much on any particular object, then this Truth of your Self as Awareness, that you are this Awareness which is aware of itself, it's just apparent to you. It is not something that you will find with your attention because if you're making that error that ‘when my attention is on a dark empty space then that is Awareness’ - please let go of that notion because it is not true. Awareness is not a dark empty room. The content of your attention could be full, full, full of light, sound and all of that or it could be shanti shanti shanti or it could be some experiences of light or whatever, whatever it is. But that has nothing to do with my Awareness. It is not that I can move my attention to more Awareness or less Awareness. This is a very very important tip for you that it is not that you will move your attention to Awareness. Although sometimes as pointers in Satsang we may say this kind of thing, but truly to clarify you will not meet your Awareness in your attention. It is an intuitive meeting that you have - and when is the opportunity for this intuitive meeting? When you are not cluttered up with conceptual thinking, that instant is the opportunity. That instant is the most fertile ground for your intuitive insight. It is not a game of attention otherwise, I would say to everyone go live in a cave. Because there your attention doesn't have too much distractions. Go live in a cave, dark cave and then just close your eyes. Nobody will distract you and just keep your attention fixated on some visual of darkness or something like that. But that's not it. That's not it because that is still an image, still being perceived; dark or light - is still perceived. If you can label your Awareness and say this is Awareness, but this is not - then that is not Awareness. What witnesses both those? What is aware of the perception of both of those? That is You. You are aware of the perception of this hand very naturally. It is not that your attention went to Awareness. Although at times it may seem that… initially you may feel like you want to reduce the amount of stimulus which is coming to you. So you can really concentrate on the question or something like that, but it's not a permanent state, that you have to move your attention to Awareness or something like this. If you're making a meditation out of that, it's good. It's fine. If it helps it’s fine. I would say that just the simplest way to be aware of yourself as Awareness (the simplest way to be aware of yourself as Awareness) is to let go of any conceptual notion. And that's exactly the question I have been asking, which is an invitation to the same looking - What do you find without your mind? Or what do you know when you know nothing? You realise that you're just this Awareness, I am aware of myself as Awareness. But remember, don't imagine anything, don’t conceptualise anything, don't make any visual representation of Awareness and I know that many of you are doing that. That's why I make this point in almost every satsang, that if you can paint a picture of Awareness even if it's a fully dark painting, that is not it. What is aware even of that, that it is dark? Because ‘dark’ is also a quality. Some of you may be visualising some big bright light or some blue light or green light, I don't know whatever the mind comes up with. But what is aware even of that perception? Does that have a quality? Does that have any colour? Does that have any sort of representation that you can say, this is how it is; except maybe to say it is just Aware. So let me read it again so that I make sure that I have answered, “I have one question, ‘Being aware of being aware’ is a meditation that needs to be done daily one hour.” I have not said that, I'm sure if some Master has told you that, it is very good for you. You must follow that. [Continues reading question] Or ‘Being aware of being aware’ is continuous process? In my experience actually, you can only pretend to limit yourself by taking yourself to be something else. But this awareness of yourself as Awareness is your continuous Reality. In fact, I can't even say continuous because that seems to make it in time. It is prior to time. Before time and space this recognition is present. And yet in this manifest aspect, the Self plays like this and in that when the manifestation shows up, the manifest aspect of the Self, the Being has the ability to pretend as if it is something other than the Self, other than Awareness and that is what satsang is for. It is that game of letting go of that pretense to see that it is originally an organically most naturally you. That’s why Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharishi said that ‘It is not something that you will attain, it is only that the false will be given up’ and that is a very very potent statement, very potent statement. So it is not something… self-knowledge or your self-realisation, it is not a fresh attainment; it is only a letting go of that, which was false. And what is false? Any representation which claims to capture ‘what is’ is false. And where do these representations come from? They come from the mind, that which we call the mind. So if you can bottle up what is in a notion saying ‘This is like this’, ‘All is everything' or ‘I am everything’ or ‘I am nothing’ - it’s all nonsense. It's still a representation sounding very spiritual. To be empty of these fake representations, to be not caught up in these ideas, your Truth of your Self, as Awareness as the Self, is completely apparent to you. It's completely apparent to you but there the label of awareness will not be there. I don't know if I said too much but the point is that as you remain empty of these concepts including the concept of Awareness, you recognise that you are Awareness. The minute you label yourself as Awareness you seem to get into the trap of limitation again.

This is the kind of question in which the distinction between Consciousness and Awareness starts to fade, because if you ask a question like that or you say ‘Who is in charge of attention?’, because you could say, I noticed with my attention that my Being is my most primal construct, my Being is the most intimate Presence; but even to confirm that, we say, I brought my attention to Being. So, then we may say but who does attention report to? Does it come to your Being (and you could say that) because attention is the requirement only of the manifest state. It is not needed in the un-manifest state and yet you can say that I am aware even of my Being and I can check that with my attention. So where does attention stop? Who does it go to? And then you realise at that point that even these distinctions of manifest and un-manifest, of saguna and nirguna, of Consciousness, Being and Awareness are just preliminary, are just provisional. And even these are let go of because your Truth is so unfathomable that even these very very seemingly useful spiritual constructs to help you to look deeper then have to be discarded. So there is no answer to that really because this distinction between Consciousness and Awareness is also just provisional, it is fake.