The finite mind can only know a limited object–something with limited, objective qualities, such as a thought, feeling, sensation or perception–even though it is itself made out of unlimited awareness. The mind cannot even think of awareness, for awareness has no objectives qualities and the mind can only think of something objective. If the mind tries to think of awareness, it will either imagine a blank, empty object or state or, faced with the impossibility of the task, come to an end.
In our culture we primarily value objects, states of mind, ideas, beliefs, opinions, feelings and relationships. We give our attention to objective knowledge so exclusively that our primary experience–the subjective knowledge of ‘I’, awareness’s knowledge of itself, or the experience of simply being aware–is, in most cases, overlooked or ignored.
Awareness’s knowing of its own being is the simplest, most obvious, intimate and ordinary experience, which all people have in common. In fact, it is not an experience that a person has. Awareness is the experiencing element in all experience. It is awareness that has the experience of being aware, that is, it is awareness that knows itself in each one of us. The simple knowing of our own being–its knowing of itself in us–shines in the mind as the knowledge ‘I am’ or ‘I am aware’, and in our feelings as the experience of peace, happiness or love.
Mind is not an entity that is distinct from awareness; it has no status or existence of its own. In fact, there is no such thing as ‘a mind’, just as there is no such thing as ‘a movie’ with its own existence independent of the screen. Mind is the movement, activity or functioning of awareness. Awareness itself, or the non-objective experience of being aware, is the essential, irreducible essence of mind, just as the screen could be said to be the essential, permanent element of the movie. In fact, awareness is not just the background of the mind; it is all there is to mind. Mind is a temporary limitation of unlimited awareness, which is itself all that is ever truly present.
The experience of being aware of being aware may be triggered by the thought ‘Am I aware?’ but it is revealed between this thought and the response ‘Yes’, that is, in between two appearances of mind. Just as the colourless screen is all that is present between two frames of a movie, so the experience of being aware or awareness itself is all that is present between two appearances of mind. However, just as the transparent screen–the background and reality of the movie–does not itself appear as an object in the movie, so the experience of being aware can never be experienced by or appear in the mind, even though it is the background and reality of the mind itself.
Ask yourself the question, ‘Am I aware?’ but don’t answer the question with the thought ‘Yes’. Just ask the question ‘Am I aware?’ and allow your attention to be drawn to the experience that will subsequently inform the answer ‘Yes’. The experience that takes place in between the two thoughts, ‘Am I aware?’ and ‘Yes’, is not an activity of mind. It takes place between two activities of the mind. Stay with the pause between these two thoughts. When we remain in this pause before the answer formulates itself, what takes place ‘there’ is the most valuable and, at the same time, the most underrated or overlooked experience that one can have.
What passes for the increasingly popular field of Consciousness Studies is, in almost all cases, a study of brain activity, not a study of consciousness. Only consciousness knows about consciousness. Only awareness is aware of awareness. Science is an activity of the finite mind, that is, an activity of thought and perception, and necessarily superimposes the limitations of mind upon everything it knows or perceives.
When anyone directs their attention to the experience of simply being aware and, as a result, actually experiences the experience of being aware, they ‘go to’ or ‘touch’ that element of experience that everyone shares or has in common. At that timeless moment–timeless because it is not found in the mind–they stand as one at the heart of humanity. The experience of love is precisely that experience, the experience of our shared being.
The realisation of the nature of the knowing or awareness with which the mind knows its knowledge is not a new form of objective knowledge. Rather, it is the remembering, recognising or knowing again of the pure knowing that is seemingly veiled, forgotten or overlooked as a result of the mind’s focusing on objective experience. Thus, to know itself as it is, the mind need only relax the focus of its attention from the objects that it seems to know and allow its knowing to fall or flow back into itself. In fact, it is not so much that the mind focuses on things that are ‘other than itself’, but rather that it becomes mixed with or lost in its knowledge of things, in the same way that a screen seems to get mixed with or lost in the movie.
in order to know what anything truly is, the mind must first turn the light of its knowing upon itself. That is, before attending to objects so as to know what they truly are, it must first attend to itself to know what it truly is. The mind must shine the light of its knowing away from the objects it seems to know, towards itself, towards the very knowing with which it knows its knowledge. Attention must attend to attention itself.
All spiritual and religious paths, in one way or another, are aimed at divesting the mind of or expanding it beyond its limitations. However, when the mind is relieved of its limitations it ceases to be mind, as such, and stands revealed as the eternal, infinite consciousness that is its essential, irreducible reality. That knowing of our own being as it truly is–consciousness’s knowing of itself in us–is the experience of peace, happiness or love.
Thus, as a compassionate concession to such a mind we may say, to begin with, that the presence of awareness is known as the experience of simply being aware, the feeling of being or the knowledge ‘I am’. Turning the mind towards any of these will take the mind on a unique journey, in a directionless direction, on a pathless path, in which it will gradually dissolve into the light of awareness from which it arises, like an image slowly fading, leaving the screen, its reality, visible.
To know objective experience awareness assumes the form of mind, but to know itself awareness need not assume the form of mind; it need only remain in itself. This self-resting in and as awareness is the essence of meditation or prayer. It is the non-activity in which awareness knows its own being. A mind that is accustomed to directing its attention exclusively towards objective experience will often object to this suggestion, saying that it does not know where to find awareness or in what direction to look. For such a mind the presence of awareness may first be accessed as the experience of simply being aware, the feeling of being or the knowledge ‘I am’. Later on, the mind will recognise that all there is to experience is the knowing of it, and therefore the only substance that awareness ever truly knows or comes in contact with is itself.
the scientist’s search for knowledge is exactly the same search as an artist’s quest for beauty. In fact, the scientist’s search is not for knowledge itself but for understanding. Knowledge is thought, but understanding takes place when thought comes to an end, just as beauty is revealed at the end of a perception.
How is consciousness going to discover its own nature? In order to know objective experience, consciousness must assume the form of mind, but it cannot know itself in the form of mind. The world is known by the mind; the mind is known by consciousness; and consciousness is known by itself.
In the Direct Path it is recognised that the experience of being aware or awareness itself is the knowing element in all experience, irrespective of the content of experience, and thus no particular experience is a carrier, indication or hallmark of awareness itself. Just as the screen is equally evident in all movies, irrespective of their content, so awareness shines equally brightly in all experience, from our deepest depressions to our most joyful feelings. The Direct Path requires no spiritual or religious affiliation or background. No preparatory practice is required for the simple recognition that being aware or awareness itself is the essential, irreducible, indivisible element in all experience, to which we refer as ‘I’ or ‘myself’. None has privileged access to it. It is equally available to all people, in all places, under all circumstances and in all situations. All that is required is a deep interest in the nature of reality, or an intuition that the peace, happiness or love for which all people long cannot be satisfied by objective experience.
All that is or could ever be known of the ‘physical and natural world’ are sensations and perceptions, and of the ‘human mind and its functions’, thoughts, images and feelings. In other words, all that is or could ever be known of the physical world and the human mind is experience, and all experience takes place in consciousness.
The discovery that awareness is the witness of all objective experience partially liberates it from the limitations of the body in and as which it seemed to be located, but it is not a full liberation. The discovery ‘I am awareness or consciousness itself’ is not what is referred to as enlightenment or awakening, although it is often mistaken as such in contemporary expressions of the non-dual understanding. At this stage of understanding, although awareness is no longer exclusively identified with the body-mind, it still seems to be located and limited. As such, it still seems to be temporary and finite, the two beliefs that give rise to the fear of death and the sense of lack around which the apparently separate self or finite mind revolves. To fully liberate awareness from all superimposed beliefs and feelings, a further investigation is required as to the essential nature of awareness itself.
Awareness is, in fact, never, from its own point of view, mixed with the limitations of the body; it just seems so from the point of view of mind. However, all there is to mind is awareness. Mind is the limited form or activity that awareness itself freely assumes in order to know objective experience.
