The most immediate, intimate, immanent, undeniable fact of our experience is Consciousness or Awareness or Knowingness.
It is by consciousness that all contents of experience–sensations, thoughts, images, feelings, space, time, and so on–are known, are experienced. Even our complicated quantum equations, our deep philosophic reasonings, are made aware, are lit up, “known,” by consciousness. Any scientific proof, discussion, description, will need to use, will be within, consciousness.
Yet: consciousness, which makes all known, which is immediate and intimate, cannot be known in the same way as contents are known.
So an ancient definition says: Consciousness is what is never an object, but is immediately usable in every experience. Sounds so much like Jesus statement of “in the world, but not of it”!
It is by consciousness that all contents of experience–sensations, thoughts, images, feelings, space, time, and so on–are known, are experienced. Even our complicated quantum equations, our deep philosophic reasonings, are made aware, are lit up, “known,” by consciousness. Any scientific proof, discussion, description, will need to use, will be within, consciousness.
Yet: consciousness, which makes all known, which is immediate and intimate, cannot be known in the same way as contents are known.
So an ancient definition says: Consciousness is what is never an object, but is immediately usable in every experience. Sounds so much like Jesus statement of “in the world, but not of it”!
If there is anything worth studying by human being, after the necessary preliminary studies of how to exist and survive in this world healthily and wisely, it is the study of our own consciousness–not a cataloguing of the numerous thoughts that play within it, but a deep investigation of its nature itself, its own unadulterated pure self. 1.6.81
Instead of an inquiry into God and theology here we’re going to make an inquiry into the immediate and intimate nature of experience. For even if we inquire into God or theology that very same intimate consciousness is the medium by which we’re going to inquire. And so, whatever we find will be no more true or certain or intimate then the consciousness with which we inquire. As the quote and many others suggests what we will find at the bottom of the inquiry is God waiting there for us.
Ordinarily we take for granted the extraordinary nature of conscious living being–for four simple reasons.
Awareness is so intimate we can’t know it as we know objects: “what you are looking for is what is looking” –St. Francis.
Consciousness is so pervasive, “never not here,” that we take it for granted, don’t usually explicitly appreciate it per-se: like fish in water.
It is so simple and profound we can’t “get it” grasp it: so we miss noticing it.
And… it is too good to be true! — it is an emanation of the Providential Goodness of the Universe
But it could be that the profound vibration of the universe gives rise to (what we call) consciousness… Remember Marie sees a Turner.
How do we conduct an inquiry into Consciousness– since the consciousness we are inquiring into is that which is inquiring?
Instead of an inquiry into God and theology here we’re going to make an inquiry into the immediate and intimate nature of experience. For even if we inquire into God or theology that very same intimate consciousness is the medium by which we’re going to inquire. And so, whatever we find will be no more true or certain or intimate then the consciousness with which we inquire. As the quote and many others suggests what we will find at the bottom of the inquiry is God waiting there for us.
Ordinarily we take for granted the extraordinary nature of conscious living being–for four simple reasons.
–Awareness is so intimate we can’t know it as we know objects: “what you are looking for is what is looking” –St. Francis.
–Consciousness is so pervasive, “never not here,” that we take it for granted, don’t usually explicitly appreciate it per-se: like fish in water.
–It is so simple and profound we can’t “get it” grasp it: so we miss noticing it.
–And… it is too good to be true! — it is an emanation of the Providential Goodness of the Universe
But it could be that the profound vibration of the universe gives rise to (what we call) consciousness… Remember Marie sees a Turner.
How do we conduct an inquiry into Consciousness– since the consciousness we are inquiring into is that which is inquiring?
Click these:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” –Max Planck The Observer (25 January 1931)
“It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.” Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, 276-81
Check it out: Is there any experience you have that is not conscious? That is not in/with consciousness?
And another way: the most immediate undeniable fact of our existence is that I Am, is isness.
Check it out: does anyone have to tell you that you are.
I Am cannot be known by any means of knowing contents. Yet that I Am is more certain than any other knowledge I could know by any other means. When it is pointed out, just by noticing, we can be aware THAT we are. In fact, every content, every experience, points to Consciousness, expresses consciousness, affirms I Am.
Check it out: does I Am have to be known by some other means? Does it have to be proved? Or is the certainty that I Am deeper than proof?
Check it out: do you have a sense in your experience of the difference between the contents of consciousness, and the consciousness of contents?
Click for some more audio/visual :.
To say that we do NOT know we are aware is both true… and absurd. To know awareness, is to recognize that awareness is never not here. It is like asking the fish about water.
Remember our famous four simples: so close you can’t see it as a thing; so formless you can’t grasp it; so pervasive you take it for granted; so good you can’t believe it is true.
Paradoxically, what recognizes awareness is only awareness itself. Hence, it is called self-awareness, or self-recognition. Try it! We have to make attempt, direct attention, to an object or content we wish to know, or know about. But to know consciousness itself, for consciousness to recognize itself, we have to stop the knowing about. Relax.
Imagine awareness is like light shining throughout space, so pervasive and obvious we do not appreciate it. Now some dust motes float in, and are lit up by consciousness. But with dust motes, there is possibility also to recognize consciousness: the very fact of dust being illumined can point to the illumining. Just as moon at night can point to the Sun. Even when we are conscious of contents, if we unfocus from contents, we can become aware of the awareness of Awareness. “becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness.” (Tolle.)
Allowing everything to be as it is. Simple and profound. What does it mean to Stop, to “Be Still and Know?” click for:
It is about pointing… it is an invitation to deeply experientially realize it. To Stop, look deeply, create an atmosphere that invites a response.
We can be aware that we are aware, to recognize awareness underlying pervading all experience, no matter what the contents. To recognize that you ARE awareness itself is another shift: it is awareness recognizing itself: in through as you.
The first question is also the final one; it is quite short, quite simple, and yet it is also the most important question which anyone could ever ask, whether of himself or of others. This question is: “What is consciousness?” Whoever traces the answer through all its levels will find himself in the end in the very presence of the universal consciousness otherwise called God. The Notebooks of Paul Brunton 19.3.32
But if you don’t like this tack, try the response of HHDL after a weekend of discussion about consciousness and the brain: “all very good question about consciousness and where it comes from. But best question: what are you doing with your precious human consciousness?”
Or Nisargadatta: Awareness of Being is Bliss. Being Awareness is Bliss.
Or: the talk by Rajaji: “When jnana issues forth as action it is Bhakti… click below: