Bernard had the following questions on the Soul; and on Awareness:
Hello Michael,
I have described to you before my understanding of awareness as the eye of the soul and inner peace and non judgment as the body of the soul and unconditional love as the heart of the soul and wisdom as the mind of the soul. I also recognize that I can shift my awareness up and down my body to the various centers such as up into the head area to ???think??? and down to the heart are to ???feel??? and further down to the abdomen for a ???gut feeling??? and even above the head to escape thought. I can also work with a mantra and it takes me to another area of my consciousness.
The question I have though is who is making these decisions to move awareness. While I seem to have identified the ???soul??? does the soul make these kinds of decisions and if it is just my mind involved in all this then how does one function without deciding to sit down and do mediation and bring awareness into the heart area for example.
I need some insight here.
Look forward to hearing from you,
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
I really enjoy your questions. That???s because they come from your direct experience and not just from intellectual musings. Because of this with a few little shifts, the sense of you and this Awareness will become one and the same.
The difference between Awareness and Attention
The key to understanding your question is to see the difference between Awareness and attention. It is your attention that moves from one part of your body to another and sees the difference between feeling and intuition. On a more subtle level, when you work with a mantra, it is your attention that goes to a place that feels very real but is difficult to define.
You even see the character called 'I'
You are the nonjudgmental Awareness that sees this shift in your attention from one place to the next. But most important you also see the one who makes this shift, which you call ???I???. Do you know that the ???I??? in your statement: ???I also recognize that I can shift my awareness up and down my body,??? is just a thought, an object in your Awareness, and not really you? You are not only the seer of your experiences; you are the seer of the subject, the character that seems to get caught in them.
Awareness is the substance behind all of your experiences; it is because of Awareness that your experiences seem so real. This Awareness is even in states where there are no thoughts like deep sleep; it is by Awareness that you can tell if you had a good night???s sleep or not. In fact Awareness is the constant light shinning behind all of your experiences. Because it is unchanging there is no way to grasp it as a separate object.
Then how to know Awareness
However, you can still know Awareness. But you have to know it in a different way. You know it by standing there in your real identity. You might call this standing as your Soul. If this seems hard to comprehend here is an analogy that might help. When you fall in love you know love by your heart and not by the thoughts in your mind, right? But being an accountant you start to wonder, ???Exactly how much in love am I???? ???Am I 68% in love or 72.5% in love? Is my love increasing at a 5% slope or decreasing at a 2% slope???? You know that all these thoughts, even the complicated and convoluted ones, cannot clarify love. Moreover, even if you stop your thinking, you would not come closer to love. The only way to understand love is by abiding in the heart. From the heart love becomes perfectly clear.
Similarly, if you try to think your way into Awareness, it will always seem remote and obscure. That???s because the underlying assumption here is that you are the thoughts and that Awareness is some distant object. But if you stand in your true home as Awareness and look from here, all of the sudden things will become very clear. At the most your thinking can point the way by showing you what you are not. But the light of Awareness reveals itself by itself without the need for a separate light.
Who seeks and who practices?
Now of course as a seeker, searching for this deathless freedom that comes from abiding as Awareness, do the things that will bring your life to a successful conclusion, like reading and listening to sages, pondering the meaning of their words, and endeavoring to abide in the place that they point. Also continue with a regular meditation practice. The very last thing to drop off is the ???I??? that desires liberation and practices. Ramana Maharshi compared this to the last act in a cremation ??? throwing the stick that stirs the fire into the fire.
I hope that this begins to answer your questions. If you need clarification or have more questions, please feel free to ask them.
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