Two ways of using the phrase awake to itself…..

These are very simple when recognized, and very difficult to talk about.

First, anything happening in experience is already awake to itself as form. Something happens, and it is awake to itself as form where it is.

(Only a trick of the mind makes it appear otherwise. There is a mental image of an observer, usually located in the head area. Another image or story that makes it appear that awareness only belongs to this image of an observer. And yet another image or story of this observer being aware of what is happening in experience. 

Since the observer gestalt is identified with, it is not recognized as form, as content of experience as any other content of experience. The doer and observer gestalts become the eyeball that cannot see itself. And form is not recognized as awareness since awareness is interpreted as belonging only to the observer.)

The other meaning of awake to itself is that what we are can be awake to itself as ground. Identification is released out of the doer and observer gestalts since all is recognized as already awake to itself where it is, since doing and observing is recognized as happening on their own without any doer or observer, and the doer and observer gestalts are recognized as content of experience as any other content of experience. 

When form is not recognized as already awake to itself, what we are is not awake to itself either. Awareness is interpreted to belong to the observer image, and the observer image is not recognized as simply another content of experience. 

And when what we are is awake to itself, form is recognized as already awake to itself. 

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My wife had a recent shift into recognizing all as happening within awareness, as awareness, and being the same or neutral. (One taste, as they call it.)

It reminded me of how this can have three distinct flavors for me:
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Here is a snapshot of my experience these days…

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There are two distinct forms of clarity.

First, the clarity inherent in awareness itself. The clarity of awareness, independent of its content. Dullness, confusion, contraction, spaciousness, bliss, mental clarity or anything else, it doesn’t matter. There is a sense of everything happening, happening within and as clarity. Stainless. Shiny. Clear as space itself.

This clarity is a given so it is easy to overlook. And it is difficult to talk about, partly since it is so familiar, so inherent in awareness itself, and because it somehow hovers on that border between what is content of experience and not.

Then, there is the more conventional form of clarity: mental clarity. The opposite of dullness or confusion, and very much within content of awareness and experience. It is the clarity of thought that is there when the body-mind functions well.

Since these two are independent, it can be interesting to explore how even within mental dullness and confusion, the clarity inherent in awareness itself is right there, as much as any other time.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.
- Meister Eckhart, Qui audit me

And which eye is that? This squishy eyeball?

No, it is the eye of awareness. The single eye…

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
- Matthew 6:22

… that never sleeps.

If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.
- Seng Ts’an, Hsin Hsin Ming

Awareness is the eye that sees God - as awareness itself and all that happens within, to and as it. And it is the eye that sees our human self - happening within, to and as awareness as all other form.

It is the single eye and when it notices itself, all becomes luminous… and not only metaphorically. There is an immediate sense of luminosity of this body and all form. A luminosity of Ground, awareness and whatever happens within, to and as awareness.

It is the eye that, when it notices itself, never sleeps. Never gets lost in its own content. Dreams of an I with an Other, and belief in any other story, cease.

I am in Antarctica with my wife and a group of other people in their twenties and thirties. We ice skate, kayak, row in inflatable boats, swim in dry suits, and overall have a great deal of fun. There is a sense of being completely at home in this clear, brilliant, stark and immensely beautiful place on earth.

We are here together for a few weeks before heading home, and I realize that I would like to stop over and experience the deserts in Australia on my way home to Norway.

I help one guy with his skates, and I notice he is buoyant somehow. It turns out that there is an anti-gravity effect around him, which helps him in his professional ice skating.

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A quick look at death and what continues…

First the obvious one: Our human self, with its personality and quirks, dies. It is gone forever. At most, some of its influences on others and society continues for a while, but then that is gone too.

And another one, which takes a bit of looking: What we are, this awakeness that all form unfolds within, to and as, is free from form, space & time. It is that which form, time and space unfolds within and as. It is always and already here, whether it notices itself or not (temporarily taking itself to be a portion of its own content). This one is not “personal”, it does not seem dependent on this human self. It is existence itself, temporarily functionally connected to a particular human self.

As Big Mind, that which goes beyond and embraces all polarities, it continues on independent of any individual self. Or rather, it continues to allow form to unfold within and as itself.

Finally, maybe the least obvious one: Our soul self. This alive presence. This one that is not quite personal and not quite impersonal. Not quite in time and not quite outside of time. Not quite located in space, and not quite outside of space. This too is content of awareness, so it is possible to either identify with it and make it into an “I”, or see and appreciate it as just content, similar to the human self. If something continues on an “individual” level, and if there is a vehicle for - for instance - rebirth, it seems that this could be it.

(And finding myself as awakeness, it doesn’t quite matter. Continuing or not are just two different flavors of awakeness itself, two flavors of experience.)

Two general ways the word consciousness can be used…

First, as awareness and its content, recognized as no other than awareness itself. This awake void arises as form, it allows yet is inherently free from any and all forms. It is also inherently and already free from any sense of I and Other, which only comes through making stories something more than just thoughts. This is Big Mind, Spirit, Brahman, whether it is awake to itself or not.

Then, filtered through beliefs in different ways.

For instance, we can filter out pure awareness from its content, and call this pure awareness consciousness. Seeing is consciousness, but not the seen.

Or we can use consciousness to refer to awareness and its content, but just a region of its content. For instance, it can mean a combination of awareness and what is inside the boundary of the psyche, such as thoughts, feelings and so on.

This last version is also the most common one. After all, it reflects how it appears when we believe in the story of a separate self. Interestingly, it is also the one that is most contrived, forced and arbitrary, since it is filtered through the most layers of stories.

Science fiction is great for nudging us into questioning our assumptions and ask ourselves questions we didn’t realize we had.

One of these questions is what is a person? And the next question: who, or what, am I?

The Tuvix episode of Star Trek Voyager brings these questions up when Neelix and Tuvok, through a transporter accident, becomes one person, Tuvix. When the doctor finds a way to bring Neelix and Tuvok back, it brings up questions of the rights of this new person, and also of the two he is made up of. Is it OK to “kill” Tuvix so Neelix and Tuvok can come back? Is he a person in his own right? What about the rights of Neelix and Tuvok to live? Where did Tuvok and Neelix go? Where did Tuvix go after Tuvok and Neelix came back?

Other Star Trek episodes also explores this question, for instance when a duplicate of Riker is found, and when the whole crew of Voyager is duplicated by a sentient ocean.

It all brings us back to the underlying questions: What does it mean to be an individual. Who, or what, are we really?

From the view of the unmanifest and manifest, of awakeness and its content, the basics of this is not so difficult. The awakeness or awareness is always the same, just pure awareness. But the content change. First it is Neelix and Tuvok, separately. Then a new person called Tuvix, and then back to Neelix and Tuvok separately. And whatever memories and traits are transmitted through these transitions are transmitted through the world of form, through whatever memory patterns and traits continued through the transitions.

If Neelix took himself to be Neelix, a portion of the content of awareness, then he would experience himself as dying in the transition, or at least being mixed up with another person. And if Tuvix took himself to be Tuvix, he would experience the transition back to Neelix and Tuvok as a death, or possibly as continuing only as a memory within Neelix and Tuvok.

But, if awareness was awake to itself in both Neelix and Tuvok, it would look a little differently. Awareness is awake to itself as awareness, independent of its content, and realizing its own content as itself. First, there is Neelix, then Tuvix, and then Neelix again, a little changed. Or Tuvok, then Tuvix, and then Tuvok again, also a little changed. But all of this happens within and as awakeness itself. It all has the same basic identity as awakeness.

There is no “I” inherent in either of them, only the play of awakeness itself, manifesting in always new and different ways as it always does.

There are (at least) two main ways of relating to distractions, especially in the context of any form of body-centered, psychological or spiritual exploration.

One is to see distraction as a distraction, and bring attention back to wherever the practice tells us it is supposed to be. This can be helpful in its own way, although can also easily become a subtle battle and create an I-Other split (I as stable attention and the belief that stable attention is desirable, and Other as distraction.)

Another is to work with distraction, see how it is a gift, and follow its invitation for exploration. When attention is distracted, it is only because a story comes up that is seen as juicy, charged, and is believed in. Distraction is then a very valuable sign post, pointing directly to a belief. So we can take its invitation, allow it to go to the belief, become more conscious of the belief, take it to inquiry, and also be with whatever emotions it trigger in a heartfelt way. In that way, distraction becomes a precious teacher and pointer.

The first approach has its benefits in encouraging mindfulness and stable attention, but it also does have an element of struggle and working against the grain. Distraction very easily appears as a disturbance, an Other.

The second is in many ways a far more skillful approach, going to the root of what is behind distraction, investigating it, and allowing it to fall away. Here, distraction becomes a support.

In the absence of a belief in a story, there is no draw for attention to go to the inside of the story and be absorbed into it (unless it has a practical purpose, for this human self in the world). It arises as anything else, is recognized as a thought, and is free to live its own life, which is brief when it is not fueled by beliefs. It arises within the naturally clear awareness, as as a brief form of awareness itself.

Just as this human self falls asleep, and wakes up, some of the layers of how we are put together are revealed.

As I sometimes listen to radio before falling asleep, it is especially noticeable.

The three clear shifts I notice, over and over, are…

1. Voice and understanding (regular awake functioning)
2. Voice but no analysis
3. Voice, and any other sensory input, fading out

And the reverse as I wake up, where the fading in of sensory input is most noticeable.

Each of these shifts are relative sudden, happening over maybe just a second or so, and a very clear shift - from understanding to just the sound without understanding, and then the fading of sensory input to an absence of these. For the sounds, it is just as a relative quick volume fading, from normal volume to zero, and then up again to normal as this human self wakes up again.

This helps me see how much energy goes into analyzing and making sense of input. At some point in falling asleep, this energy and attention is just not available anymore, and the sensory input remain but with no analyzing of it at any level. They are just sounds, but not even known as sounds. There is not even the most basic level of analyzing, such as adding labels of sound, voice and so on. Just the pure input and awareness.

It also helps me notice awareness as distinct from its content. First, the thinking mind falls away. Then sensory input themselves fall away, fading into an absence of any input. But even then, there is awareness that this takes place within (and as). The awareness remains as the thinking mind fades out, and it also remains as sensory input fades out.

Sometimes, it goes out with the thinking mind, or with the sensory input.

Other times, it remains as those two goes out, and then itself goes out a little later.

And some other times, it remains throughout the night, even through the dreamless sleep phases, without any content apart from itself as pure awareness.