Hi Rupert,
Over 25 years ago, after a number of years of searching I had a very powerful realisation experience that left me with a knowing that what I was searching for was always within me. It was one of those magic moments where I understood that all the searching outside myself was to no avail and discovering that ‘enlightenment’ was already within and always was. For about six weeks after that morning I was at peace and felt the simple joy of being.
Over time I feel I have fallen back into old patterns of unhappiness and separateness, even though I have created a wonderful life for myself with enough money not to have to work and a wonderful wife whom I love and who loves me. It seems I have lost that inner knowing that I found over 25 years ago.
Recently I discovered your teaching, and when I first did one of your exercises it brought me back to my original realisation all that time ago. I understood the truth of what you were saying, but there is one thought that appears in the mind that continues to see myself as a separate entity.
When I was doing your exercise I recognised that everything that appeared to be outside of me was in fact being experienced from the single place within me, which is consciousness – that is, even other people are appearing within this consciousness. But the feeling of separation still existed, and the thought that I as this consciousness must be different to another person, because I do not experience their thoughts, feelings, perceptions or sensations.
We know that other people have a different experience of consciousness. This appears to me as separate consciousnesses in the one consciousness. This thought keeps stopping me from seeming to go deeper and I was wondering if you could say anything about this to help me gain a clearer understanding of what is.
Kind regards,
Chris
Dear Chris,
It is true that ‘you’ cannot know the thought that ‘I’ am having. In other words, all thoughts are limited. However, as a result of this observation we make the irrational assumption that the awareness that knows ‘your’ thought and the awareness that knows ‘my’ thought must also be limited. This is like saying that, because a person in Australia cannot see a person in the UK, the two people must exist in different physical spaces. In other words, we make the presumption that awareness shares the limitations of what it is aware of.
We cannot prove with the mind that awareness is not limited, but we can explore with the mind all the apparent evidence that suggests that it islimited. As a result of this experiential exploration we come to realise that there is no real evidence for the idea that awareness is located or limited, and we realise, therefore, that this idea is simply a belief. It is the religion to which the vast majority of humanity subscribe without knowing it. That is as far as the mind can go. In other words, the mind simply cannot know anything about awareness, even though it is made out of it, just as the character in the movie cannot know anything about the screen.
Now that you have seen that the mind cannot tell you anything about awareness, explore your own intimate experience of awareness. You are aware that ‘I am’. What is it that is aware that I am? It is obviously ‘I, awareness’, that is aware that I am. The ‘I’ that I am is the same ‘I’ that is aware that I am. In other words, in the simple recognition that I am, awareness is aware of its own being. The simple knowing of our own being is the experience of awareness being aware of itself. This is the simple, obvious, ever-present fact of experience.
Now, referring only to your direct experience of yourself, awareness – its experience of itself – ask yourself if you find any limit there. Does awareness have any knowledge of a limit in itself? Does it know itself as having an age, nationality, weight, gender, size, colour, shape? Does it ever experience itself appearing or disappearing, being born or dying, coming, going, moving, evolving or changing? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ then you are mistaking yourself for some kind of an object – or rather, thought is mistaking you, awareness, for some kind of an object – such as a thought, feeling or sensation.
Keep going back to your experience of yourself – awareness’s experience of itself (which is not any kind of objective knowledge) – and ascertain for yourself that your own experience of yourself is simply that you are ever-present and without limits or location, that you cannot be disturbed and are therefore peace itself, that there is no lack in you, nor the slightest impulse to avoid the now and you are therefore happiness itself, and that you are utterly, intimately one with all appearances and are thus love itself, in which there is no room for otherness, distance or separation.
Having discovered this, start to live a life at all levels of experience (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, activities and relationships) that is in line with this discovery. Be open to the possibility that the awareness with which all people and animals are aware of anything is the very same awareness with which you are aware of these words right now. Treat people and animals as such, that is, as your very own self.
But don’t limit this to people and animals. All we know of the world is the knowing of it. In other words, we do not know a world as such; we only know knowing. That is, we only know awareness. But what is it that knows awareness? Awareness is all that knows anything. In other words, all seeming things are only awareness knowing itself. Therefore, treat people, animals, objects and the world, not as people, animals, objects or a world but as they truly are, made out of pure awareness alone, made out of yourself alone.
Everyone and everything loves to be treated as it truly is, so people, animals, objects and the world will all respond to you and let you know that you are treating them properly! In what form will this response come? An intellectual understanding? No! It comes in a far more convincing way. What would truly convince us that we are on the right track? Obviously, the realisation of the thing we most value in life would be such a confirmation. And what is that? Happiness, peace and love! That is how the universe responds to being treated as it truly is, and that is the confirmation that our ideas, feelings, perceptions, activities and relationships are in line with reality.
With love,
Rupert
