Awareness is not an object

Awareness is not a discreet experience

One common confusion that a lot of people have when they start meditating in the non-dual traditions is trying to understand Awareness. Because we are so used to looking at the world through the lens of sense objects we automatically think that Awareness is something we will find within the contents of our own experience. We think Awareness is some incredible experience we will find at the end of long heroic journey. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Awareness cannot be found in the contents of our experience because Awareness is not an object. Awareness is the subject from which all experiences arise.

A good way of thinking about this process is akin to a perceptual shift. In the image below, you don’t need to expend a lot of effort to see the two faces as a vase. The process of seeing the vase is instantaneous. It is a conceptual shift, not a discreet experience of bliss or eternal happiness. This understanding is important so that one does not chase experiences. Obviously, spiritual experiences are important, and are good milestones of one progress but it is a fallacy to assume that the point of these practices is to have a discreet experience of Awareness. The goal is not to get high on spiritual experiences but realizing that Awareness is the base that underlies all experiences, spiritual or otherwise.

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Metaphors for Awareness: Advaita 10th Man Story

Awareness, which is the background of our experiences, is always present and is the foundation of all of our experiences, good and bad. It’s true nature is peace and happiness. In Vedanta, this Awareness is commonly described as Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat is Existence, Chit is Consciousness and Ananada is bliss. Our innermost nature is happiness but because our mind is turned outwards we seek this happiness in objects.

This story concerns ten young boys who were studying at their teacher’s home in ancient India. The boys decided that they would like to return to their village for a festival and to visit their families. The teacher was a bit concerned about their going because he had to take care of his family and would not be able to accompany them to their village.  To solve this issue, one of the boys spoke up, and said that he would take responsibility for the group and make sure that they all arrived safe.

The teacher reluctantly agreed to let them go, and they started on their journey. In the beginning, to make sure everybody was accounted for, the teacher counted the ten boys and sent them on their journey to their village. On the way to their village, the 10 boys had to cross a big river. The boy who was leading the group advised all of them all to hold hands, and carefully cross the river together. They did so, but the current was so swift that the boys could not hold on to each other, and some were swept downstream.

As they scrambled up the banks on the other side of the river, wet and frightened from their experience, the leader advised them all to line up, so that he could count them and make sure that they all had crossed safely. The leader counted, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine." Nine? He had them line up differently. The count was again nine. The leader counted repeatedly, and every time he came up with the count of the number nine. Nine! Nine! One boy had not made it across! One boy was lost! One boy had drowned! 

A wise man, sitting nearby, watched the whole scene as it unfolded. He immediately understood what had happened, and he approached the leader of the group. The boy poured explained his situation and was distraught. "I took responsibility for the group, and now one of us is lost. One of us has drowned in the river. "The old man told the boy, "Don't worry. I can help you. I know where the tenth boy is." 

The old man then asked all of the boys to lineup and started to count. The boys lined up, and the boy who had been leading the group took the last place in the line. The old man counted. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine..." And then arriving at the leader, the old man said, "Ten - you are the tenth man." The leader was elated! "I am the tenth man!"

This story is an excellent metaphor for Awareness because it illustrates the point that Awareness cannot be found outside yourself in an experience. You are Awareness and always present in every experience. You cannot have an experience without your “Awareness” being present. Because we are so enamored and caught up by worldly experiences, we forget to count ourselves as the Witness of these experiences. You are always present in every experience that you have. Even if you feel that you were not present in experiences of intense bliss, ecstasy or in deep sleep, the fact that you were able to recall that you were not present means that you were always present.

Thoughts from Conrad:

Yes, very good. However (and there's always a however), in reading this I'm reminded of how the metaphor of photography and visual images can be misleading when trying to understand this elusive being called "Awareness".

The problem with object-consciousness is real, and that's why the "shift" metaphor of visual cues is important to understand in depth. It isn't just a shift in mental perspective, observational perspective, or even the noticing of a tenth man, which is again a visual metaphor. It isn't about visual observations at all. Fundamentally, Awareness is a matter of feeling.

One of the best things I learned from Adi Da was the fundamental nature of feeling. He seldom referred to awareness alone, because what most people call awareness is merely object-recognition, or what he called "attention". True Awareness is not found through thought, concepts, or visuals, even visualizations, but through feeling. Feeling is the core, the heart of the whole matter of Awareness. So the shift is not a shift towards new paradigms or intellectual awakenings to new ways of thinking about these matters. It's a shift into feeling itself, the entire feeling domain. Not any particular feeling, even the feeling of bliss, but the use of feeling as the primary tool of Awareness.

This is why the true "shift" is a kind of emotional awakening, a heart-awakening. It's not an awakening to any particular emotion, but an awakening of the capacity to feel entirely, to make feeling the central focus of one's attention, rather than objects themselves. It is an awakening to the "field" of awareness, which is a feeling-field, not a thinking or perceiving feeling.

So Adi Da often used the term "feeling-attention" to describe how one should engage this shift in perspective. Rather than thinking things through, it's best to be aware through feeling of everything, including oneself. Do this enough, and one's whole perspective on the world really does change, because one is simply feeling all, not thinking about things or even trying to be "aware of awareness". What would that even mean? It becomes meaningful only through feeling. Better to call it "feeling feeling". THe feeling being is the core of who we are, it is the core of awareness.

Now, it's true many people think of feeling as some kind of sentimental, emotional approach, and become attached to these feelings the same way one can be attached to any object. That is why it's important to not concentrate on any particular feeling, just let feelings come and go, but feel them nonetheless, to the point when it is feeling itself that becomes central. And this develops into a true appreciation of the nature of Awareness.

Awareness is simply pure feeling. In fact, as a practical matter it really does involve feeling our body, our mind, our thoughts, or emotions, even feeling what we see and visualize or hear. It's just that as we engage the world through the body, our focus is on the feeling being that receives all these sensual impressions or experiences. That feeling being, practicing feeling-attention to all that arises, is the core of the non-dual practice of Awareness.

This is why Ramana would instruct people in the practice of self-enquiry to simply feeling this sense of self, this feeling of "I". He didn't want people to analyze it to death, he wanted them to feel it to death. He even recommended just saying the word "I" over and over again, feeling the word, the meaning, the "I"-ness of our own awareness. Self-enquiry is thus what Adi Da referred to as feeling-attention to the very feeling of self.

These things can get very abstract if we are not careful. This is another reason why we have to ground the whole topic of Awareness in feeling. So while as a metaphor these trick images are meaningful, it's really more about the feeling one has when feeling anything at all. The core practice is to feel even these images. That's where art is a most useful tool, because art is about the feeling one has when viewing an image. Visual arts, dramatic arts, music, all these things are felt. That is how they "get" to you. It's no different with spirituality and Awareness. Esotericism is in the realm of feeling. And so the use of art is a meaningful metaphor, because art isn't about the image, it's about the feeling we have when viewing the image. And that changes our perspective on art itself, it makes art a function of awareness. The artist is communicating his own feeling-awareness, and the image is simply a vehicle for that.

Once this shift occurs, then one can use feeling to inspect and understand everything in life. Even thinking can be felt, and by feeling our thoughts, we make them more self-aware, more intelligent, more truly useful. Thoughts are just an image in the mind that reflects our feeling being. And so the more directly we function as our feeling-being, the more intelligent we become. The more informed we are by the full nature of our native Awareness

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