I experience that everyone already has some degree of Self-awareness; it is the basic state of human experience. The real question is, are we consciously aware of it? For me Self-awareness simply means that my consciousness—my awareness and understanding—has expanded or brightened to the extent that I noticed It all the time. Realization by itself was very, very simple. It was the benefits and grand knowledge that sprouted and accrued from within my Self-awareness that were exciting. Increased comfort, deep understanding and quiet joy unfolded as the full nature of my awareness. It may seem that experiences come from outside of me, but in reality, I experience that there is no such thing as an ‘outside’ experience. It is undeniable that all experience, however small or expanded, is being processed and appreciated within my own consciousness.

It is my awareness that determines how I respond to any given input. The only real constant is the ever-present experiencer. Everything else, simple or dramatic, comes and goes. My on-going Self-awareness is the personal ‘I’ of all experience. I found that the whole path to realization was discovering, understanding and acknowledging this natural reality of my awareness. When the Self-experiencer becomes ever-present knowingness, then Self-awakening became clear, known and appreciated. The trick is understanding that I am the awareness that is the knower and I am not specific or small. This experiencer is abstractly unbounded—for that very reason the ‘I’ of the experience of Self-awareness is not recognized.  For me, Self-awareness is known to be so very simple and intangible that it took considerable subtlety and time to see and deeply understand the personal aspect of who is the experiencer. I do not mean that it was not clear or obvious when I finally ‘got it’. But at first it was the very naturalness and normalness that rendered the whole experience such a subtle discovery.

As abstract as conscious Self-awareness is, it was the recognition of the simple living relationship and familiarity between inner and outer experience that formed a life-long unified habit. Along with, and permeated by, an unwavering certainty of understanding, all the layers of my experience became established in the reality of the oneness of personal and universal life.