What Is Awareness? | Rupert Spira

I've been puzzling over something all weekend, Rupert, which feels like a fairly elementary question that I should really have sorted out at the first satsang so I've resisted asking it. It's to do with the term awareness and it's to do with some of the questions that have been asked yesterday and I think perhaps the day before about what happens to consciousness when we die, what happens when we faint, what happens in deep sleep and I know when you answer this question I've heard you deconstruct it effectively by saying there is no discontinuity because there was never really continuity in the first place. Continuity is something that belongs in time and that has worked for me but my mind is sort of, it's like snagging on a thread now, there's a little kind of hook that I can't quite put to sleep and it's to do with the term awareness which to me means being aware, being aware of something or being aware. Being aware, not necessarily being aware of. Yes, this is where I'm puzzling, this is where the tripping point is. The suffix ness on the end of a word means the being, the state or the presence of. Happiness, the presence or state or being of happiness, of being. Awareness means the presence of that which is aware. So being and knowing, ness and aware are contained together in the word awareness. Awareness equals knowing plus being. Yes. Consciousness plus being. Yes. And that is what, the reason why that term is given as a synonym for I is because the very first thing we know about ourself before we know anything about an apparent mind, body or world is that I am. That is everybody's primary experience. I am. All seven billion of us know that. Yes. Yes. And how do we know that I am? How can we be so sure that I am? Because we know that I am. Yes. So I am, but I also knows that I am. Yes. So in I has these two essential qualities to it. I am, I am present, there is being, but I am also knowing or aware. Hence I is another name for the presence of that which is aware. Being and knowing, sat, chit, is what is called I. Okay, so now where is the problem? The problem arises and it might be that you again say, it's when I'm waking from deep sleep and there is a sense in a second of, oh, I'm becoming aware. Okay. But even if I could just say, just say that I know that sometimes you say, well, did you have the experience of being unaware? To which I would have to truthfully say no, almost by definition, but it doesn't quite, it doesn't quite put that away for me somehow. There's a sense of, I have a deep, a deep conviction that I am ever present awareness. And yet I also. Where does that conviction come from? Is it a belief or does it come from your experience? It comes from my experience, except for when I'm returning from very deep sleep. Okay. That's fine. So you say, except for when I'm returning from deep sleep. Yes. Now tell us about your experience of deep sleep. You have the experience of returning from it. Yes, this is what I thought you'd say. This is the problem I have because I don't have an experience. But you can't say, you know, if I say I came back from America last week and then you ask me, well, tell us about America. And then I say, well, I don't have any, I've never had the experience of America. Yes. How can I claim that I came back from America? I knew you'd say this. I knew you'd say this. And yet it doesn't satisfy me because it's not like going to America and having an experience with a recollection. There's a sense of, you see, again I have to use concepts like, you know, the continuity of the life that I've lived thus far in which there seem to be periods when there isn't awareness. Okay. So you say there seems to be periods where there isn't awareness. Now let's try to find out if that is a belief or an experience. I'm pretty certain it's a belief. But pretty certain is not good enough. You have to be absolutely certain that it's a belief and not an experience. So let's explore that little bit that only makes it pretty certain. Because as you rightly say, it's not quite enough just to be pretty certain. So you say that you have the experience of moments when or periods of time when awareness is not present. So just tell us about those those periods of time in which there is no awareness. It's not that I have an experience of awareness not being present. It's that I know when I wake up I have recollections of awareness before I went to sleep. And then there's a gap. Is it that I'm simply not... Who says there is a gap? What is it that says there is a gap? Thought? Yes if you like. Okay. Now where was thought during that gap? There were no thoughts in that gap. It was by definition thought was absence because the gap is precisely the gap between two dreams. The dream that you had before you went into deep sleep and the dream that started after deep sleep. In other words during the gap the gap is defined precisely as an absence of thought. Now the waking state thought then tells us about what took place in the gap. It wasn't there. How can thought tell us anything about a place in which it wasn't present? I don't think it can. I know it can't. I was rather hoping you could. I know it can't. Okay. But if awareness was there why wasn't awareness aware of something in deep sleep? How do you know awareness wasn't? Well because there was nothing there to be aware of. Oh that's that's this is this is just itself. So when awareness and when there's no thoughts for awareness to be aware of it's simply aware of it. But it's not aware of itself like a subject being aware of an object just by being itself because it is made of awareness just by being itself. Yes. It is aware of it. I see. It's not aware of itself as some thing. Yes I see. So it's not aware of itself. Yeah. It's just shining as awareness. I see. I see. So awareness therefore in the conventional sense we'd say I'm aware of something. In the common sense we'd mean I'm conscious of this that or the other. No because the awareness with which we are aware of an apparent thing is the very same awareness that is aware of itself. Yes. There's not another kind of awareness. No I didn't mean that. I meant in another I meant in common everyday speech we would say this. I didn't mean there was another awareness I meant. Yes. In everyday speech people would say I was aware that somebody came into the room. So awareness as we're talking about it here doesn't have to have an object. No absolutely not. Even in itself isn't an object so awareness yes I'm grasping it. Yes. I'm pointing in the right direction too. You see in fact awareness never has an object but as a concession to the belief that there are objects we can say that awareness is sometimes aware there's sometimes awareness with objects. Yes. And sometimes awareness without objects. Yes. But we cannot remember the mind cannot remember or recollect the times when there is awareness without objects because the mind can only know or remember an object. So the mind says there was nothing there in deep sleep because all the mind knows are objects. So in its own language the mind says there was nothing there. There was nothing there from the point of view of a mind that only thinks there are things called objects. But if we don't rely on what the mind says and we rely on one on the one that is truly knows about our experience which is awareness we get a very different picture. If we ask awareness what is your experience of yourself after all awareness is the only one that is aware of itself. So it is the only one that is in a position to tell us anything about itself. Now if you ask yourself the question do I awareness ever have the experience of the absence of myself or the discontinuity of myself. Go back to your experience now do you ever have the experience of the absence of awareness. No. That's it. That no comes from absolute certainty. I have never had the experience of the absence of awareness. Everybody can say that not just those of us interested in non-duality but all seven billion of us if we're honest has to admit I have never had the experience of the absence of awareness. Because if I do claim the absence of experience as an experience something must have been there to witness it. What would that something be? It would be awareness. Nobody has ever had or could ever have the experience of the absence or discontinuity of awareness. It is only thought that can and thought can only know an apparent object. So it is thought. So in other words thought ignores awareness. Thought says there is nothing in deep sleep. There is no thing in deep sleep. It's just void. It's just blank. There's nothing there. But that's only because it cannot know awareness. Actually deep sleep is full of awareness but there is no thing there to be known and hence thought cannot recollect it. That's that was the that was the key difficulty I had discriminating between those values if you like. I understand it You have to be very make a very clear distinction between whether you're asking about what thought thinks about deep sleep or are you asking the one that is aware of experience. Are you going to ask your thoughts about experience or are you going to ask awareness about experience. If we want to know about experience we have to ask the one that knows it. So you have to make that clear distinction and you're still partly asking your thoughts and partly asking awareness. Awareness is aware of experience. It is the only thing that knows anything about experience. Ask awareness about its experience. The first thing it will say is I am and not only am I present and knowing but I am ever present. I never have the experience of my own disappearance. In my own experience of myself I was never born and I never die. I'm just eternally shining and I have no limits. When I look around me I don't find an end to myself. I can't be divided up into parts. I'm seamless, intimate, indivisible, ever present, without limits and the last quality I cannot be disturbed. Hence peace or happiness is my nature.