More on Awareness...

I've been reading back through my journal notes to see what insights I've gleaned over the last couple of months and it has amazed me that I would have these momentary insights, awarenesses, and then forget them as if I never had them! And so I evidently have to go back and read my notes to remind myself what insights I actually had that I might bring to my present circumstances. There are several themes that are always there – not only about life circumstances – but the insights that arise as well. They arise over and over again like little lights shining that say – here – look at this, see this. And then they somehow get dimmed again. The one that kept popping out at me from the pages was - Awareness.

On Nov. 29, 2009 I wrote: “ My ‘new’ mantra is ‘Awareness.’” Not like “awareness” is so “new” to me – but something was calling my attention *to* Awareness and there was a “new” awareness of Awareness emerging. So I looked back to see what might have created that statement. There were entries about how I keep re-identifying with the mind, with the thoughts that run through, believing them, and getting lost in the thought stream. Ah yes, I remember I wrote a blog around these issues - The Stream of Suffering – about the simplicity of using breath and awareness to *meet* the suffering and the thoughts that created it.

With my proclamation that "my new mantra is Awareness,” the realization that unfolded in my notes was that there is only Awareness, a field of Awareness, a timeless space of Awareness in which everything rises and falls, in which everything exists. This is also not “new” to me, but it was as if I was re-kindling an old flame that had dimmed its light, the flame of an alive, full, fluid awareness that sees, that knows, that just is – a Knowing Awareness that lives here, that is present here – as this form called “me.” The “spiritual teachers” say to turn and recognize this Awareness that we are and to rest in That – this omnipresent Presence; to experientially feel this Inner Being and rest there; to step back into the Looking Itself and just see, notice what is noticing. And of course the ultimate realization (if there is one), the gurus say, is to recognize that we ARE this Awareness – this Spacious Existence – this Presence. It is our True Nature – our Beingness.

The “practice” seems to be to bring awareness not only to the present moment, or to the things in our awareness – like the thoughts, feelings, emotions, the body - the objects in our awareness - but to bring awareness *to* this Awareness in us that is aware – or so I wrote in my notes. It’s like my focus has been on the “things” *in* Awareness - rather than on Awareness Itself – identifying with the thoughts and feelings. The analogy of words on a blackboard has been used by many teachers. We don’t *see* the blackboard as the spaciousness in which the words exist, we just focus on the words written there – and the concepts they represent. We get entangled in the words and concepts. Or, another analogy is of the clouds in the sky. We focus our attention on the clouds floating by, but miss the fact that they are suspended *in* the spaciousness of the sky. So is our planet for that matter, but we can’t see it from our position. And so from this “field” of Awareness in which everything exists, from which everything arises - whether thought, feeling, emotion, physicality, events, suffering, struggling, pain – everything is seen, is noticed as just arising in and from this Greater Context of Aware Presence. From this space it is also realized that - *essentially* - we ARE this Knowing Awareness; this alive, awake, aware Beingness. In this space of Awareness it is seen that every moment is the present moment. There is no past or future. It’s all Infinite Presentness. All that is needed, it seems, is to become *aware* of this Awareness that is aware…

So this is my “new” experiment – to once again become aware of the Awareness that is aware - to immerse myself in this Awareness - to see as Awareness sees - to *live* as Awareness – to *abide* as Awareness in the everydayness of life. There are many, many distractions for this “Meandering Mystic” that seem to take my attention away from this awareness of Awareness. Many times over the years I have had to start over, although I know it is not a linear path that leads *to* Awareness – but simply consciously being aware of what is aware in every moment. There are sometimes wonderful moments of clarity in this and sometimes an opaque veil drops down over this seeing. Divine Consciousness sometimes shines through and sometimes appears to hide behind the mask again. But I am committed to bring awareness back to the Awareness that simply sees all the little issues of life that play themselves out in form – that “I” get entangled in on a regular basis.

Is it possible that this is what the path really is – to be aware of Awareness ? It seems it is…

Before the beginning you are pure Consciousness.

You are the Fullness of Love in Love

And the emptiness of Awareness...

You are the One which is aware

of awareness....

You are the One which is even more silent than awareness.

The purpose of all practice is Silence, your real nature.

Just simply be quiet...

Papaji - The Truth Is