Being Aware of Being Aware

by Rupert Spira

There are no prerequisites for the recognition of knowing or being aware. To recognise the experience of knowing or being aware does not require a particular qualification or level of intelligence. No effort is required to recognise the experience of knowing or being aware, any more than an effort is required to see the screen during a movie. It is not necessary to control our thoughts, sit in a particular posture or practise something called meditation in order to be aware of the experience of being aware. The non-objective experience of being aware is the simplest and most intimate, obvious, self-evident fact of experience. The experience of being aware is independent of whatever we are aware of. No experience affects the non-objective experience of being aware, just as nothing that takes place in a movie affects the screen upon which it plays. It is not necessary to change or manipulate experience in any way in order to notice the background of simply being aware. We may be afraid, bored, agitated, depressed, in love or at peace; the experience of being aware remains the same in all cases. Just as no particular event in a movie has the ability to obscure the screen unless we allow it to do so, so no experience has the ability to veil the experience of knowing or being aware unless we permit it to do so, in which case it will seem to do so. As soon as we withdraw that permission, the experience of knowing or being aware becomes self-evident. Allow the experience of being...