Being Aware of Being Aware

by Rupert Spira

Even if we deny ourselves happiness for the sake of another person or an impersonal cause, we do so ultimately because it makes us happy.

No sooner does the object, substance, activity, state of mind or relationship diminish or disappear, or the situation we sought to avoid reappear, than the happiness vanishes and the underlying suffering returns.

David Thoreau referred when he said that most people ‘lead lives of quiet desperation’.

This understanding or intuition is one of the most profound and disturbing recognitions that one may have, and it initiates a crisis whose exploration and resolution are the subject matter of this book.

The turning of the mind away from the objective content of experience towards the source or essence from which it has arisen is the essence of meditation or prayer. It is the ‘inward-facing path’ – sometimes referred to as self-remembering, self-enquiry, self-abidance or the way of surrender – of which the Direct Path that is explored in this book is the culmination.

Peace and happiness are not, as such, objective experiences that the mind has from time to time; they are the very nature of the mind itself.

lasting peace and happiness – resides within us and is equally available to all people, at all times and in all circumstances.

Happiness is our very nature and lies at the source of the mind, or the heart of ourself, in all conditions and under all circumstances. It cannot be acquired; it can only be revealed. We cannot know happiness as an objective experience; we can only be it. We cannot be unhappy; we can only know unhappiness as an objective experience.

‘The truth needs to be reformulated by every generation’.

The known always changes; knowing never changes.

Knowing or being aware is not inaccessible, unknown or buried within us. It is shining clearly in the background of all experience, just as it could be said that the screen is clearly visible in the background of a movie.

Knowing or being aware is never modified by experience. It never moves or fluctuates. It is the only stable element in experience.

being aware is not itself an objective experience, in the sense that a thought, feeling, sensation or perception is an objective experience, nevertheless we are aware that we are aware.

from all objective knowledge and experience, it is referred to as the non-objective experience of knowing or being aware.

Knowing or being aware is not itself an objective experience, but without it there could be no experience. It is that which makes experience possible and yet is not itself an experience.

‘the greatest secret, more hidden than the most concealed and yet more evident than the most evident of things’.

Allow the experience of being aware to come into the foreground of experience, and let thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions recede into the background. Simply notice the experience of being aware. The peace and happiness for which all people long reside there.

As a result, many people embark on a great search, hoping to achieve enlightenment, which is conceived as the ultimate experience or state of mind.

the conventional search for happiness in the realm of objects and ultimately leads to the same frustration. Enlightenment or awakening is not a particular experience or state of mind that may be achieved by practising hard enough or meditating long enough. It is the recognition of the very nature of the mind.

So we could rephrase the question ‘What is it that is aware of being aware?’ as, ‘Who or what is it that knows that I am aware?’ Is it I who am aware of being aware, or is the experience of being aware known by someone or something other than myself?

the light of its knowing, in any particular direction in order to know itself.

No effort is required for awareness to know itself. In fact, any effort would take it away from itself.

Just as a screen is never agitated by the drama in a movie, so being aware or awareness itself is never disturbed by the content of experience.

body or world, but an inherent peace that is always available in the background of experience,

don’t mind what happens.’

itself is recognised as the subjective witness of all objective experience.

All there is to a perception is perceiving, and all there is to perceiving is knowing.

The older we get, the more we feel that we have always been the same person. The sameness in ourself is the sameness of awareness.

Likewise, when the body appears or is born, awareness is not born; when the body ages, awareness does not age; and when the body disappears or dies, awareness does not die or disappear. It remains in the same ageless condition throughout.

Deep sleep is not the absence of awareness;

it is the awareness of absence.

awareness is eternal.

Nothing ever happens to awareness.

Cease being exclusively fascinated by whatever you are aware of and be interested instead in the experience of being aware itself.

a temporary, limited awareness – the finite mind, separate self or ego. That is, we forget who we really

The ‘I’ that is known is the ‘I’ that knows. The sun that illuminates is the sun that is illuminated. Only awareness is aware of awareness. Only being aware is being aware of being aware.

‘He veils Himself with Himself.’

Thus, in religious terminology to sin is to turn away from God.

the light of its knowing towards objective experience but cannot direct itself towards itself.

is a relaxing, falling back or sinking of the mind into its source or essence of pure awareness, from which it has arisen.

This returning of awareness to itself, its remembrance of itself – being aware of being aware – is the essence of meditation and prayer, and the direct path to lasting peace and happiness.

that calls the separate self back to its innate condition of fully

It is the knowledge that is inherent within awareness, though seemingly obscured due to the exclusive focus of our attention on objective experience.

Meditation is, as such, the remembering of our self: the pristine, luminous, inherently peaceful and unconditionally fulfilled experience of being aware that we always and already are, which runs ever-present throughout all experience, seemingly but never really obscured by thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.

Awareness cannot know itself in the form of the mind because the mind is an apparent limitation of awareness, just as a character in a dream cannot know the dreamer’s mind because she is a limitation of that very mind.

The mind that seeks awareness is like a current in the ocean in search of water. Such a mind is destined for endless dissatisfaction.

Meditation is similar. There is nothing the mind can do to find or know awareness, for the mind is a limitation of the very awareness for which it is in search. Anything the mind does is simply more of its own veiling activity.

Awareness cannot be discovered; it can only be recognised.

the answer ‘Yes’, awareness ceases directing the light of its knowing towards objective experience and, as a result, becomes aware of itself.

soon as this is noticed, we may ask again, ‘Am I aware?’, in this way inviting the mind away from the objects of knowledge or experience, towards its essence or source.