So Simple
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.
Everything about this I find so beautiful. Thank you for sharing it. I hope I get to see it one day.
Today, I tried to watch a video of Ramana Maharshi. I muted the video because I wanted to experience the stillness .. Unfortunately, more than half of the 1+ hour long video was about people talking about Ramana, and while they were talking about the stillness I couldn’t feel that they were actually experiencing what they were talking about.
It’s not that simple. Unfortunately, what you experience, you cannot “sell” or “give” to anyone. I even sometimes wonder what you “have” that I do not experience. You say I do have it, yet I’m not aware of “it”. Yes, had spiritual experiences but yet what is it that you cannot”give”? Maybe all spiritual teachers should retire now and accept that “grace” will fall on someone or it may not. Which entirely makes the profession of spiritual teacher obsolete. You cannot give or sell what you claim to have but have no control over the other party ever getting their delivery. You can’t sell God or awareness, you can write about it but yet it’s your own words, your personal experience … is it universal? It does not sound like it. but still people will be drawn to it, yet nothing will arrive on their doorstep. Something one longs for, but unclear what it is, cannot be given by another being, only by Grace. Or even that doesn’t always feel like grace…
I’m aware of the ever present awareness. And the changing experiences gone through by awareness. Yet, I do not think, feel or intuit I’m anywhere near awakened. My life is an experience of stress (need to meet the quotas). I don’t have the luxury of relaxing in some state of being of awareness. I don’t understand what you mean with the oneness of personal and universal life. Today, thousands of humans were killed by other human. Sure, I can go into some state but it’s not related to all the human suffering. Maybe that’s what you mean with universal life? It doesn’t help one cannot comment on your site (programming failure) so if aware of universal life, would one not be aware of that? Or is that the personal life? What is not personal life? Yes, I have been in places where the I wasn’t there but yet the experience was not great in hindsight because no one shares it with you. Feeling love for everyone on the street is not a realistic state to be in, when the next person the Universe feels unbounded love towards, robs you and kills you on that same street… I hope you write back but probably your Webmaster won’t allow you to read the comments.