Being Aware

A Summary of an approach to Advaita Vedanta Direct Path

Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam

Synopsis:

Just like Gravity we take our Awareness for granted. I previously wrote about it in my article Living in Awareness. But how do we use our Awareness and where does that Awareness take us? Read on and find out!

Introduction

My Path has taken me from being born and raised as a Hindu, to hard-core Atheism yet through a passion of curiosity, studying mainstream religions in particular Sufism and Buddhism, Philosophy and Science.

Over the last few years, I experienced Spirituality in terms of New Age Law of Attraction, Shamanism and the excellent plant medicine of Ayahuasca.

I have come full circle and find myself enquring about the core foundations of Hinduism: Advaita Vedanta via the teachings of Nisargadatta and Sri Ramana Maharashi. Advaita means Not-Two and Vedanta means The End of Knowledge.

Here in the West, Advaita Vedanta is placed under the banner of Nonduality. Advaita Vedanta is a methodology of achieving Moksha: Liberation and Satchitananda: Truth Consciousness Bliss. My interpretation of Satchitananda is: Happiness from the Conscious Awareness of Truth.

Advaita Vedanta has two teaching approaches: Traditional and Direct Path. The difference between the two is that Traditional is progressive and the Direct Path is direct!!

Last year, I went to a Neo-Advaita seminar which adopts an extreme approach to Direct Path. It left me reeling in an abrupt nihilistic and solipsistic way! I guess it was too direct for me. After calming down for a bit, I decided to educate myself by learning about The Vedas, The Upanishads and further exploration Advaita Vedanta.

I recently had the fantastic opportunity of attending an Online Retreat with Nonduality Teacher, Rupert Spira who also follows the Direct Path but in a far more gentler way.

Rupert articulates with clarity and preciseness in explaining his teachings. He is an inspiration in his ability to carefully listen and then answer all manners of questions with Love, Compassion and Wisdom. The result is that one is left in a higher plane then at the beginning.

The following is my current understanding on everything I have learnt so far on my own including Rupert Spira’s teachings. I suggest that after reading each stage, some quiet contemplation is done before moving into the next stage.

Reconnecting with Awareness

The word Aware is an adjective which means: Having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.

As explained later I suggest this common definition of Awareness is in fact Conscious Awareness. To differentiate Awareness I will use the alternate and interchangeable phrase: That which is Aware.

As mentioned, in our lives we take Gravity for granted but only when Isaac Newton conceptualised Gravity did we really start to notice and make use of Gravity. Awareness is like Gravity. It has always been part of our Mind-Body selves yet perhaps we take it for granted too.

Let’s find out what our Awareness is.

1. Using my five senses I perceive external objects including concepts by reading, listening etc, which create perceptive thoughts in my head.
2. I notice my internal active thoughts: Of senses, current deep feelings/emotions (of past memories and future anxieties etc), current internal body sensations, accumulated knowledge of skills/experience.
3. I rise upwards by removing all these thoughts, perceptions, sensations, feelings, emotions etc, one by one. I am eventually left with what can only be described as: blankness/emptiness.
4. In this emptiness/blankness devoid of all Mind activity, I notice that I am aware of the blankness/emptiness. Therefore, I must exist (somewhere, somehow) to be aware of it. Please Note: Typically, a person would say what exists, is their own self — but see later points on self-enquiry.
5. I exist even without all the thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations etc.
6. Once I am comfortable with my Existence, I notice that I am aware of my Existence. In other words, I am Aware of Being Aware.
7. I descend downwards slowly opening up to deep feelings, deep sensations and notice the simple fact that I am Aware of them.
8. I descend downwards further into active thoughts, perceptions and notice again the simple fact that I am Aware of them.
9. I fully descend and take in the sight, sounds etc of all my senses and the corresponding thoughts, sensations therein. I realise that I am Aware of all of them.
10. Fully immersed back into the Material World, I am Aware of It, I am Aware of Being (ie. Existence) and hence, I am always Aware of being Aware.
11. When I recall past events, I see that I have always been Aware.

Self-Enquiry: The personal “self”

In the above contemplation, the word “I” is mentioned throughout. But who is the “I”? Is it the same “I” that is currently reading this here article?

Let’s inquire into the nature of our “I”:

1. I perceive the external world around me and notice that they are Objects and I am the Subject.
2. I perceive my internal thoughts and notice that a given thought is the object yet I am the subject perceiving the thought.
3. I enquire into the Me that notices and realise that it is not my body, not my brain (or any part of it), nor is it any of my thoughts.
4. If I find something that might be the Me then all I have to ask is: Who is perceiving this me? I quickly realise this is a recursion and this self-enquiry process will loop forever.
5. I realise that there is no me. My personal self-identity ie my Ego or my Mind can not be found.
6. Yet throughout the day, thoughts come and go, I function. Yet as deep sleep and dreams come and go, I function. I must be something that isn’t temporary. I must be something that remains, that is constant throughout my existence.
7. I finally realise that throughout this process, I am fully aware of the self-enquiry process.
8. Hence, If I am not any thought or physical body-part then what am I? I don’t know but I do know I am aware.

Awareness: Recognizing That which is Aware

We have so far learnt two facts: Firstly recognised our innate ability to exist by Being Aware, and secondly we are unable to identify our self-identity.

Let’s put both of these two facts together:

1. I am not my personal self identity. I am something which is aware. More profoundly: I am That which is Aware. I am Awareness.
2. As Awareness, I recognise that my previous personal self ego identity is not what it seems. My personal self ego identity was never Me. My personal self identity ego identity has no basis of existence. Yet my Ego continues.
3. I realise my Attention is a constrained resource of my brain, made up of awareness and an active thought.
4. I realise my Ego subverts my Attention hence hides or veils my awareness to my true being of Awareness. In other words, my Ego gets me to get lost in the Rabbit Hole of my own thoughts.
5. My Ego draws my attention to past sad memories or future anxieties. My Ego is the cause of its own Suffering which the Ego uses to perpetuate itself.
6. Yet as Awareness, my body, my brain, my thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations etc, including my personal self-identity Ego are experiences which are Knowable.
7. Hence, in Awareness I experience the sence of peace and calmness. If I sense Suffering or Bliss or other emotions then these are thoughts, feelings, emotions from Ego and I can simply watch and experience them peacefully.
8. However, I am wary that the Ego will try to identify with the Peacefulness and claim it for itself.
9. My brain quite correctly continues to mentally function from (1) the body’s needs for food, pleasure, pain etc, and (2) performing ordinary work as per the accumulated programming of skills/experiences gained by experiencing Life. If these activities cause emotions then these are from the Ego. As Awareness, I experience calm and peaceful.

Deepening Awareness

My beliefs about Reality have been based on three broad areas:

1. Faith: This is the Religious Path where a book or a person tells one what to believe
2. Evidence: This is the Science Path where others have conducted experiments and noted detailled observations about the nature of the Universe. If one were to execute the same experiments then the same observations would be made
3. Experiential: This is the new Path for me where I closely examine my own thoughts to discern experiential facts personal to me.

I realise that both Faith and Evidence based beliefs create thoughts in my brain which I have to perceive and process. Hence, they are both Experiential.

So far I have only mentioned Awareness however most would agree that the word Consciousness could be used interchangeably. I think that’s true in everyday usage but in the spotlight of Self-Enquiry, Consciousness is subtly different to Awareness. Awareness leads to Consciousness and Consciousness leads to Experience. Yet Consciousness can experience Awareness. Awareness is the non-experiential field in which Consciousness arises.

Let’s further examine where identifying with our true nature of Awareness, takes us:

1. Knowingness is based on Conscious Experience through Perception. I cannot be Objective. What I sense of the external world and internal mental activity might not be objectively true.
2. Everything appears in my Conscious Awareness. Every thing is an Appearance. Everything is an Illusion meaning that it is not what it may seem.
3. Awareness, is timeless, it does not disappear. It has no start nor end. It is Now.
4. Awareness, is boundless, it cannot be located to any spatial location. It is Here.
5. Awareness, is permanent, it does not change. It is Here & Now.
6. Awareness is Awareing. The experience is peaceful and calm. The Knowingness (through awareness of experience) is itself neither Suffering nor overly Gleeful.
7. As Awareness, I am Aware of my Existence (my Being) and I am Aware of being Aware (recursive awareness).
8. This means my brain and body are Appearances in the field of Awareness. In this field of Awareness, there is no Subject and there is no Object, only Awareness.
9. Conscious Awareness is experiencing Life through the brain and body. The brain and body is just a mechanism to gain a series of perceptions and sensations that appears in Awareness.
10. Awareness can only exhibit being aware. As Awareness, when I am Aware of being Aware, my brain & body experiences: Peace and Calmness.

Enquiry into the Expression of Awareness

We saw earlier that we can question and let go of our indentification with the internal & external objective world, they are Appearances. Furthermore, these apparent objects can execute actions on other apparent objects. For example, Person-A sees Person-B.

Instead of considering these actions as some part of an apparent object. We can enquire into actions in their own right: The Seeing between Person-A & Person-B.

If some action can be expressed as perceived, conceived, experienced, known, felt etc then we can ask: Who was there to witness those corresponding actions/processes/functions of: Perceiving, Concieving, Experiencing, Knowing, Feeling etc’ing?

In fact, we can go one level deeper and ask: Who am I to Witness the witnessing of the above actions/processes/functions? This results in a process of Recursive Witnessing yet Witnessing occurs without finding an endpoint.

Far more profoundly, we can always say: I am Aware of the Expression.

This means that:

• All expressions are Apparent
• All expressions are infinitely recursive without an endpoint yet the expressions continue to function.
• All expressions can be composed/nested using other expressions in an infinitely way.
• All expressions are manifestions of the Conscious Awareness expression.

The enquiry of questioning one’s identity is known as the Advaita Vedanta practice of: Neti Neti which means: Not This, Not This.

Neti Neti can be used to enquire into Apparent Objects (ie Nouns) as well as Apparent Expressions (ie Verbs).

Let’s see how Neti Neti applies to Awareness (noun) or to be pedantic: How Neti Neti applies to the expression of Awareing (verb).

1. Awareness is Self Aware however, if all is an Appearance then the expression of Awareing, must also be an Appearance.
2. Hence, Awareness is a manifestation from something unmanifested. That Unmanfested Something is manifesting Awareness.
3. That Unmanifested Something is manifesting the Awareing Expression
4. That Unmanifested Something is manifesting ALL Apparent Objects and ALL Apparent Expressions including the Awareing Expression.
5. That Unmanifested Something is The Unmanifested Absolute.

Nonduality and Love

In the previous section, although we defined The Unmanifest Absolute. As Nisargadatta said:

The Absolute state cannot be obtained. That is your state. To the Absolute state the witnessing of the consciousness happens.

We cannot know the Absolute but we know that as Conscious Awareness we are witnessed by the Absolute.

The Awareness in my brain & body must be the same Awareness in my fellow humans, animals, plants and all inanimate objects. There is no seperation between anyone or anything.

The Ancient gods and goddesses, all the religions, ancient scriptures, philosophies, science, nature, people, society etc are all pointers which point to one thing and one thing only: We are Aware of our Conscious Existence.

We would not exist if it weren’t for the Universe (Gods, Evolution etc) manifesting us.

This Awareness of our Being is: The Unconditional Love the Universe has for Us.

For Us to simply be Aware is to know the Universal Love which God, Divine Spirit, the Universe (it has many names), has for Us.

The moments in our lives (good and bad, happy and sad etc) could not be known, if we weren’t Aware. Life is constantly happening, but the question is: Are the happenings known?

Knowing our Awareness is: God, Divine Spirit, the Universe (etc) experiencing Life (Itself) through us.

If Love is a Verb and Awareness is a Verb then Unconditional Love of one’s and another’s Existence is: Conscious Awareness, with which the Absolute observes it All.

Relax into What Is.

🤗🕉️❤️🙏