Comments on Awareness Watching Awareness

[Guest guest]

THANK YOU,for your insightful thoughts.namaste

[Guest guest]

Dear Group,

 

If I may comment on the thread about Michael's Awareness-watching-

awareness.

 

I comment as a seeker, not a jnani. After years of Chan Buddhist

leanings, I found Nome at Society of Abidance in Truth – SAT –

www.satramana.org -- sometime around 1990. Though I did not

understand what he was teaching (Advaita Vedanta and Ramana's

inquiry) I felt immediate deep rapport. I have been attending satsang

with Nome ever since.

 

Over the years I have started an ongoing inquiry practice, and asked

many questions about inquiry in satsang. Years ago the inquiry

extended well beyond the time of seated meditation. An important

element of inquiry, I have been taught, and verified in practice is

the discrimination between the "real and the unreal." The Real is

what remains constant; the unreal is what is changing. I have started

to see in inquiry that this body, these senses, this life force, this

thought, this sense of individual "I", this world are all in

consciousness, and that this consciousness is not bounded.

 

In some ways I suspect this is similar to what Michael talks of

as "Awareness watching awareness." When I first read of this, it

seemed to me to be what I have heard Nome refer to as "the witness."

This "witness" is a half step, since it still has duality inherent

within it.

 

When I asked Nome how to proceed from here, he told me to continue,

to be thorough, in seeing the unreality of body/mind/ego. I think

this points to the issue of the Witness. Without the fundamental

shift in one's "stand" from the personal, individual ego to pure Sat-

Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) then duality remains. As long

as one holds to the reality of the ego, the duality remains. The

Advaita teaching of the reality of Being-Consciousness and the

unreality of all that changes deals directly with this. The question

for the seeker is how to come to the deep non-conceptual knowledge of

exactly what is their identity. Self-realization comes from Self-

Knowledge, not from anything else (or so I am taught).

 

So I continue to inquire and to discriminate, "What is always

present?What comes and goes?How can I be among that which is

constantly changing? My sense of identity, of reality, is much more

constant that this. Who am I?"

 

I appreciate what Michael is saying. He seems to me to be one of many

voices that are pointing past all voices, to the Silence of Being.

When hearing what he says, I do have a reaction that he is stressing

one approach over all others. I think we come to spiritual practice

with different minds, different tendencies. As long as we hold to

these tendencies, then perhaps, different approaches to practice may

be appropriate for different seekers. Finally there is only the

Nondual Reality. Michael writes with energy and enthusiasm about the

practice that has been beneficial for him. This is natural and

understandable. Each voice on the path is precious. Each expression

of the truth is Grace. Our search for Truth should not divide us, but

rather bring us to the Nondual Being-Consciousness-Bliss that is our

deepest identity.

 

Not two,

Richard

[Guest guest]

Maybe all this keeps arising for discussion for a good purpose.

We get lost in words, not realizing WHO is giving them meaning. The essence of

the meaning is behind the words and must be discovered. Who is reading the

words, the mind or the heart? The mind must be humble and silent and allow the

heart to read for truth. Then truth is

re-cognized, remembered.

 

I wanted to know the Truth with all my heart, more than I wanted to be "Right".

Realizing there was much in me that needed to be discarded, but not knowing how

to do it, I discovered (was granted) a method of asking myself, when

confused/upset about something,

"What's the truth about this?" and listening to the mind, until it stopped, then

"What else is true about it?" listening again until silence, then

"What else?" the silence would get longer and longer, then finally a deep

realization of truth arising from the right Heart, and a burst of light,

informing the mind. So the truth was accompanied by an actual experience and a

subtle feeling of joy.

 

I began to shortcut, asking the Heart directly "How do you feel about this?

What's the Truth about this?" and listening in silence.

 

For me, Truth is not a concept in the mind, but a Direct Experience in the

Heart. If one attempts to allow the heart to see, read, hear, feel, speak,

then the mind's normal solidifying/blocking is at bay. I found that when the

linda phenomenon was quiet and empty, not knowing, I was hearing and knowing

from our common Heart, directly experiencing how the "other" felt and

responding to that, not the words.

 

Sometimes no words are spoken. I hear my Heart speaking within and see the

"other" responding.

 

Whatever we feed will grow. So let's feed the heart by conversing with it all

the time. The One is there, waiting.

 

If one performs the smallest, most insignificant acts, in humility, silence,

love, total presence, as an offering to the Heart, then, one day, the thousands

of these build up, and an ineffable Love and Light begin pouring out from the

right Heart, the eyes, the hands, spilling out, like an overfull pitcher,

dissolving everything in love. The mind cannot think. Words cannot express

It. They are like using boulders to describe a butterfly's wing.

 

in Him,

linda

[Guest guest]

--- Linda Sherman <lsherm wrote:

 

> Maybe all this keeps arising for discussion for a

> good purpose.

snip

 

> Whatever we feed will grow. So let's feed the heart

> by conversing with it all the time. The One is

> there, waiting.

>

> If one performs the smallest, most insignificant

> acts, in humility, silence, love, total presence, as

> an offering to the Heart, then, one day, the

> thousands of these build up, and an ineffable Love

> and Light begin pouring out from the right Heart,

> the eyes, the hands, spilling out, like an overfull

> pitcher, dissolving everything in love. The mind

> cannot think. Words cannot express It. They are

> like using boulders to describe a butterfly's wing.

>

> in Him,

> linda

 

In you Linda,

 

michael