‘It

is only when we cease seeking happiness in objective experience, and allow the
mind to sink deeper and deeper into the heart of awareness from which it has arisen,
that we begin to taste the lasting peace and fulfilment for which we have longed all our
life.’

– RUPERT SPIRA

From an early age Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the
age of seventeen he learnt to meditate, and began a twenty-year period of study and
practice in the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis
Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India.

During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P. D. Ouspensky,

Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Robert Adams, until he met
his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path
teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon, the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism
(which he had received from his teacher, Jean Klein), and, more importantly, directly
indicated to him the true nature of experience. Rupert lives in the UK and holds regular
meetings and retreats in Europe and the USA.

3
4
5
 SAHAJA PUBLICATIONS

PO Box 887, Oxford OX1 9PR

www.sahajapublications.com

A co-publication with New Harbinger Publications

5674 Shattuck Ave.

Oakland, CA 94609

United States of America

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright © Rupert Spira 2017

All rights reserved

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without written permission of the publisher

Designed by Rob Bowden

Printed in Canada

ISBN 978–1–62625–998–0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher

6
I searched for myself and found only God
I searched for God and found only myself

SUFI SAYING

7
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Note to the Reader
INTRODUCTION
The Intuition of Happiness

CHAPTER 1
Knowing, Being Aware or Awareness Itself

CHAPTER 2
The Nature of Awareness

CHAPTER 3
The Overlooking of Our Essential Nature

CHAPTER 4
The Disentangling of Awareness

CHAPTER 5
The Effortless Path

CHAPTER 6
The Inward-Facing Path

CHAPTER 7
Trailing Clouds of Glory

CHAPTER 8
The Ocean of Awareness

8
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all those who have transcribed the meditations in this book, in
particular Ed Kelly, Will Wright, Terri Bennett, Michele Pike, Catherine Sanchez and
George Mercadante. I would also like to thank Ellen Emmet, Linda Arzouni, Marianne
Slade, Jacqueline Boyle and Rob Bowden for the care with which they have
contributed in various ways to the making of this book.

9
 NOTE TO THE READER

The contemplations in this book are taken from guided meditations that I have given
during meetings and retreats over the past several years. They were originally
delivered spontaneously but have been edited for this collection to avoid repetition,
and to adapt them from the spoken to the written word.

Meditation takes place in the space between words. Therefore, these contemplations
were originally spoken with long silences between almost every sentence, allowing
listeners time to explore the statements in their own experience. The meditations in
this book have been laid out with numerous breaks between sentences and sections in
order to invite and facilitate a similarly contemplative approach.

10
 INTRODUCTION

THE INTUITION OF HAPPINESS

verybody loves happiness above all else. Even if we deny ourselves

E happiness for the sake of another person or an impersonal cause, we do so

ultimately because it makes us happy.

In order to fulfil the desire for happiness, most people engage in a relentless
search in the realm of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships.
This search also takes the form of resistance to whomever or whatever is perceived to
jeopardize our happiness. Thus, seeking and resistance are the two main impulses that
govern the thoughts and feelings, and the subsequent activities and relationships, of
most people.

The activities of seeking and resisting are an inevitable expression of the sense of lack
or suffering that underlies them. However, most of us never question the origin of our
suffering, so busy are we escaping the discomfort of it through the acquisition of
objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships. If we do question it, we
usually attribute it to the absence of the object or experience that we seek or the
presence of the situation we are attempting to avoid and, as a result, never fully trace it
back to its original cause.

Our belief that happiness is dependent on objective experience is not altogether

without foundation, and hence its almost universal allure, for every time a desired
object is acquired or an unpleasant situation successfully avoided, happiness is indeed
briefly experienced.

However, although the acquisition or avoidance of the object or situation puts a

temporary end to the suffering that underlies it and, as a result, brings about a brief
moment of happiness, it does not uproot it or bring it to a permanent end. It simply
masks it.

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.

As a result, most people set out again in pursuit or rejection of some form of objective
experience in the hopes of repeating the experience of happiness. In this way we

11
become addicted to the endless cycle of lack, seeking and temporary fulfilment that
characterises most people’s lives, and to which Henry David Thoreau referred when he
said that most people ‘lead lives of quiet desperation’.

Many people spend their lives managing this despair more or less successfully,
medicating it with substances, numbing it through the acquisition of objects, avoiding
it through exotic or meditative states of mind, or simply distracting themselves from it
with activities and relationships.

However, at some point, either spontaneously or, in most cases, as a result of reading a
book or having a conversation with a friend, some people begin to question whether or
not objective experience can ever really be the source of the lasting peace and
happiness for which they long. Others reach a point of desperation or hopelessness
before this intuition dawns.

Most people who are reading these words are doing so precisely because they have
understood, or at least intuited, that their desire for peace and happiness can never be
found in objective experience. In other words, if you are reading this book it is most
likely because objective experience has failed to provide peace and fulfilment
sufficiently often that the impulse to invest your identity, security and happiness in it
is beginning to wane.

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.

Once this recognition has taken place it is never possible to invest our desire for
lasting peace and happiness in objective experience with quite the same conviction
again. Although we may forget or ignore it and, as a result, repeatedly return to
objective experience seeking fulfilment, our understanding will impress itself upon us
with greater frequency and power, asserting its undeniable and unavoidable truth with
ever-increasing clarity, demanding to be heard. We turn away from this intuition at our
peril.

When objective experience – including any conventional religious or spiritual

practices that involve directing attention towards some more or less subtle object, such
as an external god, a teacher, a mantra or the breath – has been exhausted as a possible
means by which peace and happiness may be obtained, only one possibility remains:
to turn the mind around upon itself and investigate its essential nature.

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.

12
It is the process that is described in the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the son
leaves the security and comfort of his father’s kingdom, explores all the possibilities
that the world, or objective experience, has to offer in terms of pleasure and
satisfaction, and eventually realises the futility of his search. Finally he turns around
towards the source of happiness – symbolised here by his father – which was, in fact,
always available to him but seemingly out of reach due to his exclusive fascination
with the drama of experience.

In this giving up or turning around, we cease being obsessed with our suffering and
become interested in the nature of the one who suffers. We turn away from the objects
of experience and investigate the nature of the one who experiences.

In this investigation, as the mind turns the light of its knowing away from the objects
of experience towards its own essence, it is gradually, or occasionally suddenly,
divested of its limitations and stands revealed as the very peace and happiness which it
previously sought in objective experience.

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. Happiness is our essential
nature, apparently obscured or eclipsed much of the time by the clamour of objective
experience but never completely extinguished by it.

It is for this reason that all the great religious and spiritual traditions indicate, in one
way or another, that the ultimate goal of life – lasting peace and happiness – resides
within us and is equally available to all people, at all times and in all circumstances.

One might legitimately object to the statement that peace and happiness are the
essential nature of ourself, asking why, if happiness is our essential nature, it is not
always experienced. Do we not experience happiness intermittently, just as we do all
other experiences? Are not happiness and unhappiness both objective experiences that
arise and alternate in awareness?

Imagine the sky as a uniform expanse of grey cloud on an overcast day. At some point
a small patch of blue opens up, and soon numerous other small patches appear, each
seemingly unconnected from the others and each appearing and disappearing in the
expanse of grey cloud.

One could be forgiven for believing, at first sight, that the natural condition of the sky
was the unlimited expanse of grey cloud and that the patches of blue were limited,
temporary appearances within it. It is only when the blue patches are investigated that
it becomes clear that they are, in fact, windows onto the ever-present expanse of blue
sky in which the grey clouds temporarily appear and disappear.

Likewise, it may seem at first that moments of peace and happiness briefly punctuate
our natural state, which for most people comprises a degree of lack or dissatisfaction

13
from which they are always in flight. However, if we make a deep investigation of the
nature of the mind,* that is, if the mind investigates its own essential nature, travelling
back through layers of thought, feeling, sensation and perception until it reaches its
own essential, irreducible reality, it will always find peace and fulfilment there.

Happiness, like the patch of blue, appears at first to be a temporary experience that
occurs from time to time, but when investigated turns out to be ever-present and
always available in the background of experience.

As such, happiness is not a temporary experience that alternates with unhappiness. It is

not the opposite of unhappiness, any more than the blue sky is the opposite of the
clouds. Just as the clouds are the veiling of the blue sky, so unhappiness is the veiling
of happiness.

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.

In the attempt to access the peace and happiness that lie at the source or essence of
ourself, most approaches to meditation recommend the controlling, focusing or
watching of the mind. However, in this approach, meditation is not about changing
experience in any way, but rather seeing clearly its essential nature.

The inward-facing path, or Direct Path, in which the mind turns its attention away
from objective experience towards its own essence or reality, is, in my experience,
best elaborated in the Vedantic tradition, which details with great precision both the
philosophy and the practice of this investigation. In this way the Vedantic tradition
provides direct means for accessing the essential, irreducible nature of one’s mind and
the source of lasting peace and happiness.

However, it is inevitable that over the centuries the Vedantic approach would have
tailored itself to the level of understanding and the cultural conditioning of those to
whom it was addressed and, as a result, become mixed with elements that are not
essential to it.

The approach suggested in this book is, to the best of my ability, the distilled essence
of the Vedantic approach, divested of the cultural packaging of the Eastern traditions
in which I and many others first encountered it. Of course, this book is also subject to
the cultural conditioning of its time, but given that most readers will share that
conditioning, there is little chance that it will obscure or mystify the understanding it
conveys.

14
My first teacher, Dr. Francis Roles, once said to me, ‘The truth needs to be
reformulated by every generation’. It is my hope that this book reformulates the Direct
Path for those who travelled to the East, intellectually if not physically, but found it
difficult to extricate the simplicity of the non-dual understanding from the wealth of
exotic concepts in which it was shrouded, as well as for a new generation of truth
seekers who are not burdened by previous religious and spiritual teachings.

However, it is important to recognise that the inward-facing path explored in this book
is only half the journey. Once the essential, irreducible nature of the mind has been
recognised, and its inherent peace and unconditional joy accessed, it is necessary to
face ‘outwards’ again towards objective experience, realigning the way we think and
feel, and subsequently act, perceive and relate, with our new understanding.

The culmination of the inward-facing path is the recognition of the presence, the
primacy and the nature of awareness – or, in religious language, spirit or God’s infinite
being – which transcends all knowledge and experience. However, it is not yet the full
experiential understanding in which awareness itself, or God’s infinite being, is known
and felt to pervade and saturate all knowledge and experience, and indeed to be its
sole substance and reality. It is to recognise the transcendent nature of awareness but
not its immanence.

If we do not reintegrate this understanding with our objective experience, then a

fragile alliance will persist between our essential, irreducible nature of pure awareness
and all objects and others. This often manifests as a denial or rejection of embodied
life in the world and may readily become a refuge for any lingering sense of a separate
self.

The process by which this reintegration or establishment takes place, although implicit
in the inward-facing or Vedantic tradition, is, in my opinion, best elaborated in the
Tantric tradition, and is an exploration that lies beyond the scope of this book.*

Future volumes in The Essence of Meditation Series will explore the collapse of the
apparent distinction between awareness and objective experience, but this volume
concentrates on discovering the presence, the primacy and the nature of awareness
itself, revealing its inherent qualities of imperturbable peace and unconditional joy.

* ‘Mind’ in this context is used synonymously with ‘experience’ and includes all thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing
and perceiving.
* I refer anyone who would like to make a deeper exploration of this realignment process to my collection of
meditations, Transparent Body, Luminous World – The Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception, published by Sahaja
Publications. For an expanded discussion of the place of the Tantric tradition in this approach, please see The Nature of
Consciousness – Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter, co-published by Sahaja Publications and New Harbinger
Publications.

15
 CHAPTER 1

KNOWING, BEING AWARE OR AWARENESS ITSELF

ll objective experience* is known. We are aware of our experience. It

A would not be possible to have an experience without knowing or being

aware of it. Our current thought, a memory of childhood, whatever
emotions or feelings are present, the sensation of pain or hunger, the sound
of traffic, the sight of these words or the view from our window are all
known or experienced. As such, knowing† or being aware is present in all experience.

Whether we are depressed, lonely, sad, joyful, at peace, in love, anxious, bored,
jealous, excited or happy, we are aware. Whether we are thinking, eating, walking,
driving, dancing, studying, dreaming or hallucinating, we are aware. Whatever we are
thinking, feeling, perceiving or doing, we are aware.

We are aware of whatever is being known or experienced, irrespective of the contents

of our knowledge or experience.

Thus, knowing or being aware is the continuous element in all changing knowledge
and experience. It remains consistently present throughout the three states of waking,
dreaming and sleeping. No other element of experience is continuous.

In fact, being aware is not continuous in time; it is ever-present. However, as a

concession to the mind’s belief in the reality of time, let us say provisionally that being
aware is the continuous element in all experience.

All objective experience – thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions –

appears and disappears, but the experience of knowing or being aware never appears
or disappears. It remains present throughout all changing experience, just as a screen
remains consistently present throughout all movies.

Knowing or being aware intimately pervades all experience but is never changed by
any particular experience.

Thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions have changed innumerable times

throughout our lives, but the knowing with which they are known – the simple
experience of being aware – has remained the same throughout.

Knowledge and experience are always changing; knowing or being aware never

16
changes.

The known always changes; knowing never changes.

Knowing or being aware is in the same relationship to all knowledge and experience
as an aware screen would be to a movie. Unlike a conventional television screen that is
being watched by someone sitting on a sofa, the aware screen of pure knowing or
being aware is watching the movie of experience that is playing upon it.

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.

However, just as the screen tends to be overlooked during a movie due to our
fascination with the drama, so knowing, being aware or awareness itself usually
remains unnoticed due to the exclusive focus of our attention on the objects of
experience.

Knowing or being aware is not dependent on the particular conditions or qualities of

experience. It shines equally brightly in all experience, irrespective of however
pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, right or wrong experience may be, just as a screen
is equally evident throughout all movies, irrespective of their content.

Knowing or being aware is the essential, irreducible element of experience. It is

fundamental to experience. It is that element of experience that cannot be removed
from it.

Knowing or being aware is never modified by experience. It never moves or

fluctuates. It is the only stable element in experience.

Knowing or being aware is the primary ingredient in all knowledge and experience. It
is the background on which all knowledge and experience take place.

Knowing or being aware is the medium upon which or within which all experience
appears. It is that with which all experience is known and, ultimately, it is the
substance or reality out of which all experience is made.

It is the knowing element in all knowledge. It is the experiencing in all experience.

Just as the screen never appears as an object in a movie, although it is fully evident
throughout it, so knowing or being aware never appears as an object of knowledge or
experience and yet shines clearly within all knowledge or experience.

Although knowing or being aware is not itself an objective experience, in the sense

17
that a thought, feeling, sensation or perception is an objective experience, nevertheless
we are aware that we are aware. Therefore, although knowing or being aware has no
objective qualities, it is at the same time known.

It is in this context that I refer to the ‘experience’ of knowing or being aware.

However, in order to distinguish knowing or being 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.

Knowing or being aware is non-objective, transparent or colourless. It is empty of all

apparent objects but full of itself alone. It is, as such, an utterly unique experience. It
cannot be known as an object and yet it is not unknown.

It is the most obvious element of experience and yet the most overlooked.

Thus it is referred to in the Kashmir Shaivite tradition as ‘the greatest secret, more
hidden than the most concealed and yet more evident than the most evident of things’.

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

18
as we withdraw that permission, the experience of knowing or being aware becomes
self-evident.

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.

Be aware of being aware.

In many spiritual traditions the experience of knowing or being aware is referred to as

consciousness or awareness. The suffix ‘-ness’ means ‘the state or presence of’, so the
word ‘awareness’ means the state or presence of being aware. The risk of using the
words ‘consciousness’ and ‘awareness’ is that they are nouns and, as such, tend to
objectify or reify the non-objective experience of pure knowing or being aware.

In doing so they suggest that awareness or consciousness is a special, subtle kind of

experience that can be found or known in the same way that we know objective
experience. 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.

This search tends to abstract the experience of being aware from the intimacy and
immediacy of experience and give the impression that it is unknown, mysterious and
unfamiliar. It implies that the knowledge of awareness or consciousness is an
extraordinary experience that may be found in the future.

Such a search is simply a refinement of 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.

There is nothing more familiar or better known than the simple experience of being
aware. If someone were to ask us the question, ‘Are you aware?’ we would all answer
with absolute certainty, ‘Yes’, and our answer would come from direct experience. It
would come from our obvious and intimate experience of simply being aware.

On the other hand, if someone were to ask us, ‘Is consciousness present?’ or ‘What is
awareness?’ we might pause and hesitate as to what exactly is being referred to by
these words. So please understand that whenever the words ‘consciousness’ and
‘awareness’ are used in this book in place of ‘knowing’ or ‘being aware’, they are used
only as language dictates.

These words should be understood to refer directly to the obvious, familiar and non-

19
objective experience of knowing or being aware that all beings have in common and
that pervades all knowledge and experience in equal measure.

Having noticed that the experience of being aware is our most direct and intimate
experience, we may wonder who or what it is that knows or has the experience of
being aware. What is it that knows the experience of knowing? What is it that is aware
of being aware?

The common name for the experience of being aware is ‘I’. I am aware of the thought
of my friend. I am aware of the memory of childhood. I am aware of the feeling of
sorrow, loneliness or shame. I am aware of the image of my home. I am aware of the
sensation of pain or hunger. I am aware of the sight of my room or the sound of traffic.

In each of these examples, ‘I’ is the name we give to that which knows or is aware of
all knowledge and experience. As such, ‘I’ is the knowing or aware element in all
knowledge and experience. ‘I’ is awareness itself.

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?

It is obviously I who am aware that I am aware. That is, it is ‘I, awareness’ that is
aware of being aware. It is awareness that knows or is aware that there is awareness.
Thus, being aware or awareness itself is self-aware. Just as the sun illuminates itself,
so awareness knows itself.

Before awareness knows anything other than itself, such as a thought, feeling,
sensation or perception, awareness is aware of itself. Awareness’s nature is to be
aware of itself, and thus its primary experience is to be aware of itself.

The experience ‘I am aware’ is awareness’s knowledge of itself. Hence, our

knowledge of ourself is awareness’s knowledge of itself.

Just as the sun does not need to direct its light in any particular direction in order to
illuminate itself, so awareness does not need to direct its attention, the light of its
knowing, in any particular direction in order to know itself.

In fact, any direction in which the sun directed the rays of its light would only
illuminate something other than itself. Likewise, any direction in which awareness
shone the light of its knowing would only give it knowledge of something apparently
other than itself.

Thus, to know itself awareness does not have to undertake any special activity or
direct the light of its knowing in any particular direction. No effort is required for
awareness to know itself. In fact, any effort would take it away from itself.

20
Awareness knows itself simply by being itself.

* ‘Experience’ in this context refers to both our internal experience of thoughts, images, memories, feelings and
sensations and our perceptions of an apparently external world, that is, sights, sounds, tastes, textures and smells. These
are referred to collectively as ‘objects’ or ‘objective experience’.
† The word ‘knowing’ is used in this book synonymously with being aware, awareness or consciousness. It does not
imply conceptual knowledge but simply the experience of knowing itself, irrespective of whatever is known or
experienced.

21
 CHAPTER 2

THE NATURE OF AWARENESS

ust as a screen is never agitated by the drama in a movie, so being aware or

J awareness itself is never disturbed by the content of experience.

Thoughts may be agitated, feelings distressed, the body in pain and the world
troubled, but pure knowing, being aware or awareness itself is never perturbed by
anything that occurs in experience. Thus, its nature is peace itself.

This is not a fragile peace that depends on the relative calm of the mind, body or
world, but an inherent peace that is always available in the background of experience,
prior to and independent of the mind’s activity or inactivity. It is, as such, the peace
that ‘passeth understanding’.

Nothing that takes place in experience enhances or diminishes the experience of being
aware or awareness itself, just as nothing that takes place in a movie adds anything to
or removes anything from the screen.

Being aware is never aggrandised or demeaned by the acquisition of knowledge or the

occurrence of any particular experience. It needs nothing from and fears nothing in
experience. It stands neither to gain nor lose anything from any particular experience.

Awareness is inherently whole, complete and fulfilled in itself. Thus, its nature is
happiness itself – not a happiness that depends upon the condition of the mind, body or
world, but a causeless joy that is prior to and independent of all states, circumstances
and conditions.

It is for this reason that, when asked if there were a single message that he would like
to impart to his students, J. Krishnamurti replied, ‘I don’t mind what happens.’

Just as the screen does not share the qualities, characteristics or limitations of any of
the objects or characters in a movie, although it is their sole reality, so the knowing
with which all knowledge and experience are known does not share the qualities,
characteristics or limitations of whatever is known or experienced. Thus, it is
unlimited or infinite.

Just as the screen is not conditioned by anything that takes place in a movie, so

22
knowing, being aware or awareness itself is never conditioned by anything that takes
place in experience. Knowing, being aware or awareness itself is the essential,
irreducible essence of the mind prior to its conditioning in the form of objective
experience. It is, as such, unconditioned.

If we are absorbed in a movie it may seem at first that the screen lies behind the
image. Likewise, if we are so captivated by experience that we overlook the simple
experience of being aware or awareness itself, we may first locate it in the background
of experience. In this first step, being aware or awareness itself is recognised as the
subjective witness of all objective experience.

Looking more closely we see that the screen is not just in the background of the image
but entirely pervades it. Likewise, all experience is permeated with the knowing with
which it is known. It is saturated with the experience of being aware or awareness
itself. There is no part of a thought, feeling, sensation or perception that is not infused
with the knowing of it. This second realisation collapses, at least to a degree, the
distinction between awareness and its objects.

In the third step, we understand that it is not even legitimate to claim that knowing,
being aware or awareness itself pervades all experience, as if experience were one
thing and awareness another. Just as the screen is all there is to an image, so pure
knowing, being aware or awareness itself is all there is to experience.

All there is to a thought is thinking, and all there is to thinking is knowing.

All there is to an emotion is feeling, and all there is to feeling is knowing.

All there is to a sensation is sensing, and all there is to sensing is knowing.

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

Thus, all there is to experience is knowing, and it is knowing that knows this knowing.
Being all alone, with nothing in itself other than itself with which it could be limited or
divided, knowing or pure awareness is whole, perfect, complete, indivisible and
without limits.

This absence of duality, separation or otherness is the experience of love or beauty, in

which any distinction between a self and an object, other or world has dissolved.

Thus, love and beauty are the nature of awareness. In the familiar experience of love
or beauty, awareness is tasting its own eternal, infinite reality. It is in this context that
the painter Paul Cézanne said that art gives us the ‘taste of nature’s eternity’.

23
A character in a movie may travel the world and yet the screen, her sole substance and
reality, never goes anywhere. Likewise, although the mind continually moves – in the
form of all thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing and perceiving – pure knowing, being
aware or awareness itself, its sole substance and reality, never goes anywhere.

In the form of the mind, awareness moves without moving.

Just as the screen is coloured by a movie but is never stained by it, so awareness is
coloured by experience but is never tarnished or sullied by anything that takes place
within it. Pure knowing, being aware or awareness itself is always in the same pristine
condition.

No experience leaves a trace on our essential, self-aware being.

Just as the screen is utterly defenceless against anything that happens in a movie and
yet is never destroyed by the activity that takes place upon it, so awareness is
completely open or vulnerable to all experience and yet, at the same time, unharmable
and indestructible.

The experience of being aware is in exactly the same condition now as it was two
minutes ago, two days ago, two months ago, two years ago or twenty years ago. The
awareness with which our experience as five-year-old girls or boys was known is
exactly the same awareness with which our current experience is known.

Thus, our essential nature of knowing, being aware or awareness itself has no age. It is
for this reason that as we get older, we feel that we are not really getting older. 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, the awareness with which our most intelligent thoughts are known is the
same as the awareness with which our most unintelligent thoughts are known.

The awareness with which the sensation of pain, tension or agitation is known is the
same awareness with which the sensation of pleasure, relaxation or warmth is known.

The awareness with which the experience of anger, sorrow or grief is known is the
same as the awareness with which the experience of gratitude, kindness or enjoyment
is known.

The mind believes that awareness resides within the body and thus shares its
limitations and destiny.

Therefore, the mind believes that when the body is born, awareness is born; that when
the body grows old and sick, awareness grows old and sick; and that when the body
dies and disappears, awareness dies and disappears with it.

24
However, when the character in a movie is born, the screen is not born; when the
character in a movie grows old, the screen doesn’t age; and when the character in a
movie dies, the screen doesn’t die or disappear.

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.

Awareness never experiences its own appearance or disappearance, its own beginning
or ending, its own birth or death. In order to claim such an experience, awareness
would have to be present prior to its own appearance, beginning or birth and after its
own disappearance, ending or death.

The finite mind imagines that awareness disappears in deep sleep, but in awareness’s
experience it is the finite mind that disappears in deep sleep, leaving awareness all
alone.

Deep sleep is not the absence of awareness; it is the awareness of absence.

Thus, in its own experience of itself – and awareness is the only one that knows
anything about itself – awareness is birthless and deathless. In other words, awareness
is eternal.

Just as nothing happens to the screen when a character in a movie becomes sick, so
nothing happens to awareness when the body falls ill. It is for this reason that to know
one’s true nature of pure awareness is the ultimate healing. If one knows oneself as
pure awareness, or the simple experience of being aware, one is always in perfect
health.

Nothing ever happens to awareness.

25
 CHAPTER 3
THE OVERLOOKING OF OUR ESSENTIAL NATURE

ease being exclusively fascinated by whatever you are aware of and be

C interested instead in the experience of being aware itself.

Be aware of being aware.

Although the experience of being aware is not something that we can be aware of
objectively, the non-objective experience of being aware is undoubtedly known or
experienced.

If someone were to ask us to list the contents of the room in which we are currently
sitting, few if any of us would mention space amongst our list of objects, because the
space cannot be seen in the same way that a table, chair, book or laptop is seen. And
yet, at the same time, we cannot legitimately claim that the space is not being
experienced.

Like empty space, relatively speaking, being aware or awareness itself has no
objective qualities or features. It is on account of its non-objectivity that the
experience of being aware or awareness itself is usually ignored or overlooked.

Indeed, most people go through their entire lives without ever questioning who or
what it is that knows or is aware of their experience, or how experience comes to be at
all.

In my meetings in Europe and America I have asked thousands of people if they were
ever asked by their parents, teachers or professors who or what it is that knows or is
aware of their experience, and not a single person has yet answered in the affirmative.

It is hard to imagine a landscape painter spending her entire life painting in nature
without ever noticing the light that, relatively speaking, illuminates or renders visible
the landscape. And yet most people fail to ever notice or consider the awareness or
consciousness that reveals or renders knowable all knowledge and experience.

Most of us are so fascinated by the content of experience – thoughts, images, feelings,

26
sensations and perceptions – that we overlook the knowing with which all knowledge
and experience are known.

We neglect the simple experience of being aware that remains ever-present and
changeless in the background of all experience. We ignore awareness itself. We
overlook the simple knowing of our own self-aware being.

In other words, we have forgotten who or what we essentially are and have mistaken
ourself instead for a collection of thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations and
perceptions.

Due to this ignoring, overlooking or forgetting of our essential nature – the experience
of being aware or awareness itself – we have allowed our essential, self-aware being to
become mixed with the qualities and, therefore, the limitations of objective
experience.

Just as a screen becomes mixed with the qualities of the objects in a movie and seems,
as a result, to become a landscape or a forest, so eternal, infinite awareness becomes
mixed with and lost in objective experience and seems, as a result, to become a
temporary, limited awareness – the finite mind, separate self or ego. That is, we forget
who we really are.

In other words, the mind believes that awareness shares the limits and, therefore, the
destiny of the body. This apparent mixture of awareness with the properties and
limitations of the body results in the separate self or ego that most people believe and
feel themselves to be.

As such, the separate self or ego is an inevitable corollary to the forgetting,

overlooking or ignoring of the true and only self* of eternal, infinite awareness, or, in
religious language, the forgetting of God’s infinite being.

In spite of this, our true nature of eternal, infinite awareness is never completely
forgotten or eclipsed by objective experience. However agitated or numbed objective
experience may have rendered our mind, the memory of our eternity shines within it as
the desire for happiness, or, in religious language, the longing for God.

When I say, ‘We neglect the simple experience of being aware’, I do not mean to
imply that ‘we’ are one entity and the experience of being aware is another. That is
just a manner of speaking. The ‘I’ that is aware – to which we refer when we say ‘I am
aware’ – is the same ‘I’ that knows that I am aware.

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

27
aware.

Therefore, the ‘we’ that overlooks the experience of being aware, or the presence of
awareness, is awareness apparently overlooking or forgetting itself.

It is the self-aware screen of awareness, upon which the drama of experience is

playing and out of which it is made, that becomes so intimately involved with the
objective content of its experience that it seems to lose itself in it and, as a result,
overlooks or forgets its own presence, just as a dreamer’s mind loses itself in its own
dream at night.

However, knowing, being aware or awareness itself is never truly obscured by

experience, just as the screen is never veiled by a movie. Just as the screen remains
visible throughout a movie, so knowing, being aware or awareness itself knows itself
throughout all experience.

Whether we see a landscape or a screen depends on the way we see, not what we see.
First we see a landscape; then we recognise the screen; then we see the screen as a
landscape. First we see only a multiplicity and diversity of objects; then we recognise
the presence of awareness; then we see awareness as the totality of objective
experience. This is what the Sufis mean when they say, ‘There is only God’s face.’

And this is what Ramana Maharshi referred to when he said, ‘The world is unreal;
only Brahman is real; Brahman is the world.’

From this perspective, experience no longer veils awareness but shines with it.

The known shines with knowing.

However, as a concession to the apparent overlooking of our true nature, and the loss
of peace and fulfilment that attends it, we could say that awareness loses itself in
objective experience and, as such, veils itself with its own activity, just as a screen
could be said to be obscured by the drama in a movie.

It is for this reason that the Sufi mystic Balyani said, ‘He veils Himself with Himself.’

This veiling, inadvertence or turning away from awareness is known as ‘original sin’
in the Christian tradition and as ‘ignorance’ in Vedanta. The Hebrew word most often
translated in the Bible as ‘sin’ is chata’ah, meaning literally ‘to miss the mark’.

Original sin is, in this context, the missing, overlooking or ignoring of the essential
element of experience – awareness or consciousness itself, or God’s infinite being.
Thus, in religious terminology to sin is to turn away from God.

Likewise, in Sanskrit, the original language of Vedanta, the word avidya is usually
translated as ‘ignorance’, ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘incorrect knowledge’. In this context

28
ignorance does not imply stupidity, as in common parlance, but rather the ignoring of
awareness, that is, awareness’s apparent ignoring, overlooking or forgetting of itself.

With this veiling, ignoring or limiting of awareness and its subsequent contraction into
a finite mind, apparently separate self or ego, the peace and fulfilment that are inherent
in it are also eclipsed, although they echo within it as a memory for which it longs.
This longing for peace and happiness is the defining characteristic of the apparently
separate self or ego.

Thus, the forgetting of our true nature is the source of all psychological suffering, and,
conversely, the remembering of our self – its remembrance or recognition of itself – is
the source of peace and happiness for which all people long.

Once the apparently separate self or ego has exhausted the possibilities for securing
peace and happiness in objective experience, it may be open to the possibility of
accessing them within itself. This intuition is the beginning of the separate self’s return
to its inherently peaceful and unconditionally fulfilled essence of pure awareness, and
is thus the resolution of its search.

All that the apparently separate self needs to do to recognise its own essential nature
and thus access its inherent peace and happiness is to recognise that its essence of pure
awareness is not conditioned or limited by objective experience. In other words, its
essence must be clearly seen. That is, awareness must see itself clearly, and to see
itself clearly it must ‘look at’ itself.

However, just as the beam of light from a flashlight can be directed towards an object
but cannot be directed towards the bulb from which it emanates, so awareness, in the
form of attention or mind, can direct the light of its knowing towards objective
experience but cannot direct itself towards itself.

We cannot direct our mind towards the experience of being aware; we can only direct
our mind away from it. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that awareness
must relax the focus of its attention, or disentangle itself from the objects of
experience, thereby allowing its attention to return to or come to rest in itself. Thus,
the highest form of meditation is not an activity that is undertaken by the mind. It 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.

The apparently separate self or ego is like a rubber ball that is being squeezed. All
there is to the squeezed ball is the original ball. However, squeezing the ball shrinks it
and sets up a tension that is always seeking to expand it to its original, relaxed

29
condition. The squeezed ball does nothing; it is the naturally relaxed state of the fully
expanded ball that draws the contracted ball back to its original condition.

Likewise, the separate self is an apparent limitation or contraction of infinite

awareness. All there is to the separate self is the true and only ‘self’ of pure awareness,
but its contraction into a finite entity sets up a tension that is always tending to revert
to its original, relaxed and natural condition. This pull is felt by the separate self as the
desire for happiness or the longing for God.

In reality, it is not the separate self that searches for happiness or returns to its natural,
relaxed condition. It is the pull or memory of its natural state that calls the separate
self back to its innate condition of fully relaxed, inherently peaceful awareness.

The movement of the separate self towards its essence of pure awareness is, from the
perspective of the separate self, felt as desire or longing; the pull of inherently relaxed,
peaceful awareness on the contraction of the separate self is the attraction of grace.

Our love for God is God’s love for us.

* ‘Self’ in this context does not refer to an entity or ‘a’ self. I am taking the common word for what we seem to be and
applying it to our essential, objectless, self-aware being.

30
 CHAPTER 4

THE DISENTANGLING OF AWARENESS

n order to recognise or become aware of itself as it is, awareness does not need

I to do anything special. Awareness is by nature self-aware, just as the sun is by

nature self-luminous.

Therefore, awareness’s knowledge of itself – that is, our knowledge of our own
essential, irreducible being – is not a new or special kind of knowledge. It is the
knowledge that is inherent within awareness, though seemingly obscured due to the
exclusive focus of our attention on objective experience.

The Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky referred to the apparent process through

which awareness recognises its own eternal, infinite nature as ‘self-remembering’, by
which he meant not the memory of something in the past that was once known and has
since been forgotten, but rather the recognition or knowing again of something that is
present and familiar, but seemingly overlooked or forgotten due to the clamour of
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.

It is the remembrance or prayer to which St. Matthew referred when he said, ‘But
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret’.

In fact, our essential, irreducible self, pure awareness, cannot be remembered in the
way that an object, person or event is remembered, for only something with objective
qualities can be remembered. Nor need awareness be remembered in that sense, for
only something that is lost or missing needs to be remembered.

However, if we are lost in the contents of a movie, the screen will seem to be missing
or unseen. Of course, the screen is always being seen, although we have temporarily
overlooked or forgotten it due to our absorption in the movie. Likewise, awareness is
always present and aware of itself, but seems to cease knowing itself as it truly is
when it loses itself in objective experience.

31
In such a case, awareness’s knowledge of itself becomes mixed with its knowledge of
other things and, as a result, it seems to cease knowing itself clearly. The experience of
being aware becomes distorted or obscured by the qualities of objective experience.

Awareness becomes mixed with and, therefore, apparently limited by the qualities of
thinking, feeling, sensing and perceiving, and thus seems to become a temporary,
finite self or mind.

Awareness of objects eclipses awareness of awareness.

Only the infinite can know the infinite; only the finite can know the finite.

In order to know objective experience, infinite awareness assumes the form of the
finite mind, but in order to know itself it need not assume the form of the mind. In
other words, in the form or activity of the mind, awareness knows thoughts, images,
feelings, sensations and perceptions, but in the form of the mind it cannot know itself.

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.

Everything the dreamed character knows is a reflection of the limitations of her own
mind, and therefore she cannot know the dreamer’s ‘unlimited’ mind,* although her
own mind is made of it. The limitations of her own mind prevent her from knowing
her unlimited reality. For the same reason, the finite mind can never know unlimited
awareness, although it is a modulation of it.

Just as a movie could be said to be the activity of the screen, or a current the activity of
the ocean, so mind is the activity of awareness. As such, mind is awareness in motion;
awareness is mind at rest.

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

Mind is the activity or creativity of awareness in which awareness itself seems to

become entangled. Awareness seems to lose itself in its own creativity; it veils itself
with its own activity.

Meditation is the disentangling of awareness from its own activity.

In meditation the simple experience of being aware is extricated from everything that
we are aware of.

When we come out of bright sunlight into a dark room, we cannot do anything with

32
the mind to make the objects appear in the darkness. We just stay there and relax, and
slowly the objects emerge.

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.

Meditation is the subsidence of the activity of mind and the subsequent revelation of
the very essence of the mind – pure knowing or awareness – to itself.

Only awareness knows awareness. In the non-activity or non-practice known as

meditation, the activity of the mind subsides and, as a result, its essence of pure
awareness, having lost its apparent limitations, stands revealed to itself as it is.

If someone were to draw our attention to the white paper on which these words are
written, we would suddenly become aware of it. In fact, we were always aware of the
paper but we didn’t realise it due to the exclusive focus of our attention on the words.

Awareness is like the white paper. It is the luminous, self-aware presence upon which
or within which all experience appears, the transparent knowing with which all
experience is known and, ultimately, the substance or reality out of which all
experience is made. The poet Shelley referred to it as ‘the white radiance of eternity’.

The recognition of awareness – its recognition of itself – is not something new that is
seen or known; it is a new way of seeing or knowing what is always and already
present and in plain view.

Enlightenment or awakening is not a new or extraordinary kind of experience. It the

self-revelation of the very nature of experience itself.

Awareness cannot be discovered; it can only be recognised.

The disentangling of awareness from its own activity can be effected by asking a
question that invites the mind to trace its way back from objective experience towards
its essential, irreducible nature.

One such question is, ‘Am I aware?’ Most questions lead awareness to direct the light
of its knowing or attention towards objective knowledge or experience, but a question
such as, ‘Am I aware?’ is a sacred question that invites the mind in an objectless
direction.

As the mind proceeds in this objectless direction it begins to relax, sink or fall back
into the source of awareness from which it has arisen. The mind progressively loses its
colour or activity until its essence of pure awareness is revealed.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was referring to this sacred investigation when he wrote,

33
‘Follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought’.

That is, seek absolute knowledge of the eternal, infinite, self-aware being that shines in
each of our minds as the experience of being aware or the knowledge ‘I am’, at the
very source of the mind itself, prior to all objective knowledge and experience.

The answer to the question ‘Am I aware?’ is obviously, ‘Yes’. The question ‘Am I
aware?’ is a thought, in which we are not yet certain of the answer. The answer ‘Yes’
is a second thought, in which we are absolutely certain of the answer.

Something takes place between these two thoughts which converts the uncertainty
expressed in the question to the certainty expressed in the answer.

Whatever occurs between these two thoughts is not itself an appearance or activity of
the mind; it occurs between two such appearances or activities. And yet whatever
happens in that placeless place – placeless because in the absence of the activity of
mind no time or space is experienced – gives us the conviction from which we are able
to answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Am I aware?’ with absolute certainty.

In order to answer the question ‘Am I aware?’ we must ‘go to’ the experience of being
aware. In other words, we must know the experience of being aware. We must be
aware of being aware.

If we were not aware of the experience of being aware, we would not answer ‘Yes’
with such certainty to the question ‘Am I aware?’

One might then wonder, who is the ‘we’ or the ‘I’ that is aware of the experience of
being aware?

Only awareness is aware. Therefore, in the pause between the question ‘Am I aware?’
and the answer ‘Yes’, awareness ceases directing the light of its knowing towards
objective experience and, as a result, becomes aware of itself.

In fact, awareness doesn’t become aware of itself. Awareness is always aware of itself,
just as the sun is always illuminating itself.

However, when awareness directs its attention or the light of its knowing towards an
object, its awareness of itself is mixed with its awareness of objects, and thus it seems
to cease being aware of itself as it truly is. Therefore, in the gap between two such
objects or thoughts it seems to become aware of itself anew.

Awareness’s awareness of itself is not, in fact, a new, mysterious, uncommon or

exceptional experience. It is the most intimate, familiar and ordinary experience that it
is possible to have. It is simply the knowing of our essential, self-aware being – its
knowing of itself. It is the simple experience to which each of us refers when we say,

34
‘I am’. It is the knowledge of simply being.

The question ‘Am I aware?’ and the answer ‘Yes’ are thoughts. They are activities of
awareness, rather than objects appearing in awareness, just as a movie could be said to
be the activity of the screen rather than an entity with its own independent existence
that appears on the screen.

As such, being aware of being aware – awareness’s awareness of awareness – is

revealed between two activities of the mind, that is, between two thoughts or
perceptions, just as the blank screen is exposed between two frames of a movie.

In the pause between the question ‘Am I aware?’ and the answer ‘Yes’, the mind is
relieved of its activity and, as a result, its limitations, and stands revealed as infinite
awareness, illuminating or knowing itself alone.

Awareness is aware of awareness.

To begin with, awareness may seem to find it difficult to remain with itself, that is, to
stay with the non-objective experience of simply being aware, so accustomed is it to
assuming the form of mind and, as such, directing itself towards objective experience.

As 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.

The mind can only stand as such by attending to an object, so when the mind asks
itself the question ‘Am I aware?’ it embarks on a journey in an objectless direction – a
pathless path – away from thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions and
towards its essential, irreducible essence of pure awareness.

Ramana Maharshi referred to this non-process as ‘sinking the mind into the heart’.

During this directionless journey, the mind sinks or relaxes backwards, inwards or
‘selfwards’. As it does so it is, in most cases gradually, occasionally suddenly,
divested of its finite, limited qualities and, at some point, stands revealed as pure mind,
original mind or infinite awareness.

In fact, to suggest that the mind embarks on a journey to rediscover its essence or
reality may be misleading. How much distance is there between an image and the
screen?

The path of the finite mind to its fundamental, irreducible essence is not a journey
from one place or entity to another, although, as a concession to the mind’s belief in

35
itself as a separate, independently existing entity, this discovery is often depicted as a
journey, path or pilgrimage. It is more like the fading of an image on a screen.

Mind is the self-colouring activity of awareness. Meditation is the fading or dissolving

of this self-colouring activity and the subsequent revelation of the colourless essence
of the mind, pure awareness itself.

Being aware of being aware – awareness’s awareness of awareness – is a colourless,

non-objective experience. It is an experience of the essence of the mind after it has
been divested of its finite qualities. It is, as such, pure mind – awareness itself –
knowing its own intrinsic, irreducible, indestructible essence. In the Zen tradition it is
referred to as ‘our original face’.

The transparent, colourless experience of being aware or awareness itself cannot be

known or remembered by the mind because mind – the activity of awareness – is not
present, or rather, is not active there.

The mind, at best, overlooks the non-objective experience of being aware and may
even deny its very presence. Such a mind is like a wave denying the existence of
water.

However, a mind that is accustomed to repeatedly dissolving in its source or essence

becomes progressively saturated with its inherent peace. When such a mind rises again
from the ocean of awareness, its activity makes that peace available to humanity.

Such a mind may also be inspired by knowledge that is not simply a continuation of
the past but comes directly from its unconditioned essence. This inspiration brings
creativity and new possibilities into whatever sphere of knowledge or activity in which
that mind operates.

* In reality the dreamer’s mind is limited, but in this analogy the dreamer’s mind represents unlimited awareness.

36
 CHAPTER 5

THE EFFORTLESS PATH

he word ‘attention’, from the Latin a-, meaning ‘to’ or ‘towards’, and

T tendere, meaning ‘to stretch’, implies a stretching or directing of awareness

towards an object of knowledge or experience.

Just as the sun shines the rays of its light on an object in order to illuminate
it, so awareness directs the light of its knowing towards a thought, feeling, sensation or
perception in order to know it.

However, just as the sun cannot shine its own light on itself because it is already
standing at itself, so awareness cannot direct the light of its knowing towards itself
because there is no distance from itself to itself.

It is not because awareness is so far that it seems to be unknown or missing; it is

because it is so close. It is closer than close.

If someone were to ask us, relatively speaking, to stand up and take a step towards
ourself, in which direction would we turn? We cannot take a step towards ourself,
because we are already standing at ourself. Nor indeed can we take a step away from
ourself, because we take ourself with us wherever we go.

Likewise for awareness. In order to know itself it doesn’t have to do anything or go

anywhere. It doesn’t have to direct its knowing towards itself, because it is already
standing at itself. Awareness is too close to itself to know itself in subject–object
relationship.

In order for any knowledge or experience to be known, a knowing subject must stand
apart from the known object, other or world. Attention is the distance between the
subject and the object. As such, the subject–object relationship is the means by which
all conventional knowledge and experience are known.

Everything apart from awareness, that is, all objects of thought and perception, is
known by something other than itself – a separate subject of experience – but
awareness is known by itself alone. Therefore, awareness’s knowledge of itself is a
unique kind of knowledge. It is the only form of knowledge that does not require the
subject–object relationship. It is absolute knowledge. That is, it is the only knowledge
or experience that is not relative to or dependent upon the finite mind, the apparently

37
separate subject of experience.

In fact, all relative knowledge and experience are derived from and are a refraction of
this single, non-dual, absolute knowledge, just as the apparent multiplicity and
diversity of the objects and people in a night dream are refractions of a single,
indivisible mind.

In order to shine on the moon, the sun’s light must travel a certain distance through
space. But in order to illuminate itself, the sun doesn’t need to go anywhere or do
anything. The sun’s nature is illumination. Just by being itself the sun illuminates
itself.

In other words, for the sun, to be itself and to illuminate itself are the same.
Illuminating itself is not something that the sun does; it is what it is. It is self-
illuminating.

Likewise, awareness knows itself simply by being itself, without the need for any
other agency. That is, awareness knows itself by itself, in itself, through itself, as itself
alone, without the need to rise in the form of mind or attention.

This is what Balyani meant when he said, ‘I knew my Lord through my Lord.’

Awareness is our primary experience; that is, being aware is awareness’s primary
experience. Before awareness knows objective experience, it knows itself.

In order to know something seemingly other than itself, such as a thought, feeling,
sensation or perception, awareness must shine its attention, the light of its knowing,
away from itself, towards that object, but in order to know itself it does not need to
direct the light of its knowing away from itself.

Awareness’s nature is pure knowing. It is self-illuminating, self-knowing, self-aware.

There is no difference between our own being and the knowing of our own being, just
as there is no difference between the sun and its shining.

Awareness knows itself simply by being itself.

Awareness is so close to itself that there is no distance between itself and itself and,
therefore, no room for a path. Any path would be a path from awareness towards an
object.

From awareness to awareness there is no space, no distance, no time and, therefore, no

possibility of a path or practice. Thus, being aware of being aware is a non-practice.

This is why the Direct Path is referred to as a pathless path. In the Direct Path we start
with the goal and we stay there. That is, awareness starts with itself and stays with

38
itself. Thus, the highest meditation is simply to be.

For this reason, there can be no effort in this non-practice. Any effort would involve
directing the mind towards an object or trying to control the focus of attention.

Just as the stretching of a rubber band sets up a state of tension that is always tending
to revert to its original, relaxed condition, so attention, or the directing of awareness
towards an object, establishes a subtle tension that is always tending to revert to its
natural state of equilibrium.

The desire for peace or happiness is the desire to return to our original, inherently
relaxed condition.

Meditation is the relaxation of the tension in attention and the subsequent return of
awareness to itself. It is a dissolving of the mind in the heart of awareness, not a
directing of the mind towards any kind of objective experience.

In fact, to say that awareness ‘returns’ to itself is a concession to one who believes
himself to be a separate self or finite mind and, as such, seems to be cut off from his
inherently peaceful nature of pure awareness. For such a one, there seems to be a
returning. For awareness, there is just a recognition.

Meditation is not something we do; it is something we cease to do. Thus, it could be

called self-returning or self-resting.

Everything apart from the knowing of our own being requires some kind of activity.
Thinking, feeling, acting and perceiving are all activities of mind, although in almost
all cases we have become so accustomed to this activity that it is no longer registered
as such.

However, being aware of being aware – awareness’s awareness of itself – is the only
truly effortless experience there is. Everything else, even breathing or thinking,
requires energy.

This is what Ashtavakra meant when he said, ‘For the sage, even blinking is too much
trouble.’

Mind is the activity through which and as which awareness knows objective
experience. Therefore, in awareness’s knowledge of itself – being aware of being
aware – there is no need or room for any movement or activity of the mind.

There is no pathway from our self to our self, from awareness to awareness. Having no
room for a path and, therefore, no room for a practice, there is no room for a
practitioner or a self to travel from awareness to awareness.

We could only practice being aware of something apparently other than awareness.

39
Indeed, the separate self or ego exists as the very activity that ensues between
awareness and its object.

The sun that illuminates is the sun that is illuminated. The awareness that knows is the
awareness that is known.

Meditation is between awareness and itself. It is simply awareness being itself, resting
in itself, knowing itself alone: being aware of being aware.

This is why it is said in the Book of Revelation, verse 22:13, ‘I am the Alpha and the
Omega; I am the first and the last; I am the beginning and the end.’

T. S. Eliot referred to the same understanding in his poem ‘Little Gidding’ when he
wrote:

What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to
make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

In the Direct Path, awareness is simultaneously the origin, the path and the goal. Being
aware is simultaneously the subject that knows, the process of knowing and the object
that is known.

Being aware is being aware of being aware.

Awareness is aware of awareness.

Knowing is knowing only knowing.

Being aware of being aware is the essence of meditation. It is the only form of
meditation that does not require the directing, focusing or controlling of the mind.

We cannot become what we essentially are through any kind of practice. Through
practice we can only become something that is not essential to us.

We can become fifty years old. We can become tired. We can become married. We can
become lonely. But our essential, self-aware being is prior to all becoming, and indeed
remains present, albeit usually unnoticed, throughout all becoming.

However, once we seem to have become a separate self or finite mind, our essential
nature of pure awareness seems to be missing, veiled or lost. Therefore, from the
perspective of a separate self or temporary, limited awareness, there seems to be a
practice that must be undertaken or a path that must be travelled to find or know again
our essential self and, above all, to access the peace and happiness that are innate to it.

Thus, as a compassionate concession to the belief in being a temporary, finite entity or

self, the non-dual teaching will, in most cases, encourage the practice of meditation, in

40
the form of self-enquiry or self-surrender.

This point is often misunderstood in contemporary expressions of non-duality. In order

to accommodate the experience of suffering and yet maintain an apparently
enlightened perspective, such a teaching claims, ‘All suffering appears in awareness,
but there is no one here who suffers and, therefore, nothing to do.’

In such a statement, the non-dual teaching is being used in the same way that objects,
substances, activities, states of mind and relationships were previously used, namely,
to distract the apparently separate self from its suffering. In other words, the separate
self has appropriated the non-dual teaching and is using it to perpetuate its own
illusory existence.

If we are suffering it would be better to be honest with ourself and investigate the one
who suffers. After all, if we are suffering we are, by definition, seeking. Doing nothing
is not an option for one who considers himself to be a separate self.

For such a one there are only two possibilities: to seek temporary relief in objects,
substances, activities, states of mind and relationships, or to seek the source of
suffering within himself through self-enquiry or self-investigation, which naturally
leads to self-abidance or self-surrender.

Thus, for most people, meditation, self-enquiry or contemplative prayer will seem, at
least initially, to be an activity that they as a separate self practise, and only gradually,
as their understanding matures and their practice is refined, will self-enquiry give way
to self-abidance, self-resting or self-surrender.

That is, only gradually, in most cases, will it become clear that meditation is what we
are, not what we do, and that the separate self or finite mind is what we do, not what
we are.

Until this is recognised, meditation will seem to require an effort, and if this is the
case, and for as long as it seems to be so, we should make the effort.

In time it will become clear that we cannot make an effort to be or know our self – we
can only make an effort to be or know something apparently other than our self – and
at that point our effort will come spontaneously to an end.

In order to clench our fist an effort is required, but after some time of holding our hand
in that position, the clenched fist will seem to be the natural condition of our hand and
we will no longer be aware of the effort required to maintain it. If we were now to
open our hand, it would seem initially that we needed to make an effort to do so.

It is only because the clenched fist seems to be the natural condition of the hand that
an effort seems to be required to open it. Once it is understood that the natural

41
condition of the hand is one of openness, it becomes clear that the opening of the hand
did not require a new effort but rather the relaxation of the previously undetected
effort of closing it.

The separate self or ego is like the clenching of the fist. It is a contraction of infinite
awareness into an apparently finite mind.

Most of us have become so accustomed to the tension inherent in the separate self that
we believe and feel that it is our natural state, and so from this perspective it seems
that we have to make an effort to know and rest in and as awareness.

However, once our true nature of pure awareness has become apparent, we realise that
no effort is required either to return to it or to remain there. In fact, we become
sensitive to the subtle effort that the mind almost continuously makes in order to
maintain the illusion of a separate and independently existing self.

As an inevitable corollary to this understanding, to remain knowingly the presence of

awareness becomes increasingly our natural condition, until there is no longer a
distinction between meditation and life.

Effortless being is our natural state.

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 CHAPTER 6

THE INWARD-FACING PATH

wareness shines in each of our minds as the experience of being aware, the

A feeling of being or the knowledge ‘I am’. As such, the knowledge ‘I am’ is

awareness’s awareness of itself.

The knowledge ‘I am’ shines briefly in our experience at the end of every
thought, feeling, sensation or perception, although it usually remains unnoticed due to
its brevity, as when the screen is revealed between two frames of a movie.

The knowledge ‘I am’ is also present during all thinking, feeling, sensing and
perceiving but seems to be veiled by them, just as the screen remains present during a
movie but seems to be obscured by it.

The knowledge ‘I am’, or awareness’s knowledge of itself, is thus prior to and beyond
all the finite mind’s relative knowledge and experience, as well as being its ultimate
reality. As such, it is absolute knowledge.

In religious terms this absolute knowledge is known as God. Thus, our knowledge of
our self is God’s knowledge of Himself. It is for this reason that in the mystical
Christian tradition, the resting of the mind in the heart of awareness is known as the
practice of the presence of God or the surrender of the mind to God’s infinite being.

The Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj referred to it as focusing on the ‘I am’, by
which he meant resting in the experience of ‘I am’, that is, simply resting in and as our
essential, unconditioned, self-aware being.

The use of the word ‘focusing’ in this context is a concession to the mind’s normal
activity of directing itself towards or focusing on objective experience. To such a
mind, the teaching suggests reorienting attention towards the knowledge ‘I am’.
However, this is not a directing of the mind but rather a resting of the mind in its own
essence, the simple, non-objective experience of being aware or awareness itself.

For a mind that is accustomed to directing itself exclusively towards objective

experience, the experience of being aware, the feeling of being or the knowledge ‘I
am’ is a trace or a hint in the mind as to the direction in which to look for the peace
and happiness for which it longs.

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The knowledge ‘I am’ is like a small image of a screen appearing on that screen. From
the standpoint of the image, the image of the screen is part of the image; from the
standpoint of the screen it is the screen. From the point of view of the mind, the
knowledge ‘I am’ is an experience within the mind; from the point of view of
awareness, it is awareness itself.

It is this recognition that is referred to in the Sufi saying ‘I searched for God and found
only myself; I searched for myself and found only God.’

Thus, the knowledge ‘I am’ is the experience in which the finite mind and infinite
awareness intersect. It is a beacon that shines with the presence of awareness in the
midst of experience. It is a portal through which the mind passes on its journey back to
its source.

It is for this reason that the words ‘Know Thyself’ were carved above the entrance to
the temple of Apollo in Delphi. And it is for the same reason that Balyani said,
‘Whoever knows their self knows their Lord’.

The journey that the mind takes from the objective content of its experience to its
ever-present, innermost, irreducible essence is known in the Eastern traditions as
meditation and in the West as prayer. It is sometimes referred to as the inward-facing
path or the path of discrimination. This is not meant to imply inwards into the body,
but rather inwards, away from the objects of experience, towards the irreducible
essence of the mind.

In Sanskrit it is referred to as atma vichara, which is often translated as ‘self-enquiry’

or ‘self-investigation’. However, this can be misleading because the words ‘enquiry’
and ‘investigation’ in Western culture suggest a process or activity of the mind. ‘Self-
abidance’ or ‘self-resting’ would be a better translation.

Having said that, the phrases ‘self-enquiry’ and ‘self-investigation’ are legitimate
because this process is, in most cases, initiated by a question such as, ‘What is it that
knows or is aware of my experience?’, ‘Where do thoughts come from?’, ‘What is the
nature of the knowing with which all knowledge and experience are known?’, ‘Am I
aware?’ or ‘Who am I?’

As the mind ponders these questions, it becomes progressively refined, travelling back
through layers of objective experience, gradually purifying itself of all objective,
limiting qualities. In this way self-enquiry or self-investigation gradually loses its
dynamism and gives way to self-abidance, self-resting or self-remembering, in which
its own essential, irreducible essence stands revealed.

The word ‘revelation’ comes from the Latin revelare, from re-, meaning ‘back to the
original’, ‘again’ or ‘anew’, and velare, meaning ‘to cover or veil’. Thus, a revelation
is not a new experience but rather the laying bare or uncovering of an essential truth

44
that was previously obscured or distorted. As such, meditation or prayer is the
unveiling of the mind and the subsequent exposure of its essential, irreducible essence.

In other words, although meditation may seem at first to be an activity that the mind
undertakes in order to achieve some new state or experience, it is later understood to
be the very nature or essence of the mind itself.

Meditation is what we are, not what we do.

Most forms of meditation involve directing the mind towards some kind of object,
such as a mantra, a flame, a deity, a guru, the breath or the pause between breaths. In
the case of conventional prayer our love is directed away from ourself towards God,
who is conceived to exist at an infinite distance from ourself.

All these forms of meditation or prayer require directing the mind towards more or
less subtle objects and, as such, they all maintain the subject–object relationship.
Whilst these are entirely legitimate and, in many cases, necessary preludes to the
ultimate meditation or prayer, they must at some point be abandoned.

All paths have their strengths and potential pitfalls. For those on a path of devotion, to
relinquish the object of devotion is the ultimate surrender. For those on a path of
knowledge, to relax the focusing of attention or the controlling of the mind is the final
test.

Subject and object are like two sides of the same coin. They cannot arise or exist
independently of one another. In order for the mind, the separate subject of experience,
to disappear or, more accurately, to lose its apparent limitations, the separate object of
experience must also dissolve.

In order for love to be experienced, both the lover and the beloved must vanish.

Being aware of being aware – abiding in and as the self, resting in the ‘I am’,
practising the presence of God – is the only form of meditation or prayer in which the
ego, the apparently separate subject of experience, is not maintained. It is, as such, the
highest form of meditation or prayer. It is the meditation or prayer for which all other
meditations and prayers are preparations.

Our essential nature of inherently peaceful, unconditionally fulfilled awareness –

which shines in each of our minds as the simple experience of being aware or the
knowledge ‘I am’ – is equally present and available to all people, under all
circumstances, in all situations and at all times.

It is not awareness that is obscured or missing; it is we who have turned away from it.

45
That is, it is the mind that has turned away from its source and essence.

However, I do not mean to suggest that mind is one thing and awareness another. The
mind is in the same relationship to awareness as the character in a dream – from whose
point of view the dreamed world is known – is to the dreamer’s mind. All there is to
the character in the dream is the dreamer’s mind, but the dreamed character does not
know this.

As long as the dreamed character is focused exclusively on the objective content of her
experience, she will never recognise the nature of her own mind or, therefore, the
reality of her world, and will never find the peace and happiness for which she longs.

In order to know her own nature, she must turn her attention away from the objects of
experience, towards that with which they are known. She must know the nature of the
knowing with which all knowledge and experience are known. She must become
aware of the experience of being aware, which is the essence of her own mind.

At night, the sun doesn’t disappear. It continues to shine with the same brightness. It is
the earth that has turned away from the sun and, as a result, has fallen into partial
darkness. As soon as the earth turns round, so to speak, that part of it that was in
darkness lights up.

The Fall in the Christian tradition is simply the turning away of the mind from its
essence. It is the turning away of the soul from God’s infinite being.

The presence of awareness always shines with the same brightness, behind and in the
midst of all experience. All experience is saturated with its presence. All that is
necessary is to ‘turn round’.

Lalla, a fourteenth century mystic and poet from the Kashmir Shaivite tradition,
referred to this turning around when she said, ‘I travelled a long way seeking God, but
when I finally gave up and turned back, there He was, within me.’

We have searched for so long in objects, substances, activities, states of mind and
relationships for peace and fulfilment. Although the acquisition or experience of any
of these brings our search temporarily to an end and, as a result, gives us a brief taste
of the peace and fulfilment for which we long, they do not last.

It is only when we ‘give up and turn back’ – only when we cease seeking peace and
fulfilment in objective experience and turn the mind in the directionless direction,
allowing it to sink deeper and deeper into the heart of awareness from which it has
arisen – that we begin to taste the lasting peace and fulfilment for which we have
longed all our life.

From the perspective of the mind, this non-practice of abiding or resting in the

46
experience of being aware or awareness itself seems to be a blank or dull state.
However, in time, awareness’s innate qualities of imperturbable peace and causeless
joy emerge, in most cases gradually.

This giving up and turning back, the turning around of the mind, was referred to in the
early Orthodox Church as Hesychasm, the silence of the heart.

It is the remembrance to which Isaiah refers in the Old Testament when he says, ‘Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.’

It is the non-activity in which the path of knowledge and the path of love or devotion
meet. It is the experience in which self-investigation and self-surrender are understood
to be one and the same.

Awareness’s recognition of itself – being aware of being aware – is not some kind of
new knowledge; it is simply the clear seeing of what was always and already the case
but seemingly obscured by the activity of thinking and perceiving. Nor is awareness’s
recognition of its own essential nature an extraordinary experience to which some
minds have privileged access.

Being aware shines equally brightly in all experience. Even a deep depression is
illuminated by the light of awareness. Being aware is not buried, veiled or hard to find.
It is the very light of knowing with which all experience is known.

Ramana Maharshi and the Buddha did not have special access to the nature of their
own minds, nor any special qualifications. The Buddha just sat down under a tree and
said to himself, ‘I am going to stay here until I recognise the nature of my own mind’.
The essential nature of his mind was exactly the same as the essential nature of each of
our minds.

When Ramana Maharshi was suddenly overcome by the fear of death, he lay down on
the ground and simply asked himself, ‘What is the essential nature of myself? What
cannot be removed from myself? What happens to awareness when the body dies?’ In
other words, he spontaneously engaged in the process of self-investigation.

As a compassionate concession to people’s difficulties and objections, all the great

spiritual and religious traditions have enumerated various disciplines and practices to
refine and prepare the mind for its eventual subsidence in its source or essence.

Ramana Maharshi bypassed all these progressive means and went directly from his
current experience to the essential nature of his mind, thus resurrecting the Direct Path
for our age.

This is the age of the Direct Path.

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 CHAPTER 7

TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY

magine an actor named John Smith who plays the part of King Lear. John Smith

I represents infinite awareness and King Lear the finite mind or apparently
separate self.

Just as John Smith and King Lear are not two different selves, but rather the latter
simply an imaginary limitation self-assumed by the former, so infinite awareness and
the finite mind are not two different entities. The finite mind is simply an imaginary
limitation, self-assumed by infinite awareness for the sake of manifesting objective
experience.

Imagine that John Smith played his role so effectively one night that he forgot who he
really was and believed, as a result, that he actually was King Lear. What would King
Lear have to do in order to realise that he was John Smith and thus be relieved of his
suffering? In reality, King Lear could not do anything, because there is no real person
called King Lear.

To suggest that King Lear has to do something to become John Smith would validate
King Lear’s belief in himself as an independently existing person or entity, and would
thus subtly perpetuate the cause of his suffering. However, if King Lear does nothing
he will simply remain King Lear – or at least he will seem to do so from his own
imaginary point of view – and, as a result, will continue to suffer.

In this case, King Lear will continue to seek relief from his suffering through the
acquisition of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships – a
never-ending search that will only compound his unhappiness.

Therefore, as long as King Lear believes that he is King Lear, there is something for
him to do. In fact, it is not possible for King Lear to exist without undertaking some
activity to relieve his suffering. If we are suffering we are by definition already
engaged in a relentless search for happiness in objective experience, and therefore
‘doing nothing’ is not an option. Seeking happiness in objective experience is the
activity that defines the apparently separate self.

As a compassionate concession to one in such a predicament, the non-dual teaching

will suggest some activity or practice whereby the one who suffers will be led, either

48
directly or indirectly, to the source of peace and happiness within herself.

If the one who suffers is sufficiently mature, the teaching will guide her attention
directly to the source or essence of her own mind, wherein lie the peace and happiness
for which she longs.

However, if her mind is so accustomed to seeking happiness in objective experience

that it is not yet stable or mature enough to turn away from the objects of experience
and towards their subjective source, the teaching may give her some intermediary
practice aimed at preparing her mind for its eventual return to and dissolution in its
own essence.

These preparatory practices involve disciplining the body and the mind for the purpose
of freeing attention from its fixation on the objects of experience. When attention has
been purified, at least to a degree, of its habit of pursuing peace and happiness in
objective experience, the mind will only need a small hint as to where to find the
peace and happiness for which it longs. A question such as, ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Am I
aware?’ will suffice.

Whilst all such preliminary practices are legitimate and appropriate solutions to the
various inclinations, abilities and degrees of maturity of spiritual seekers, they must all
lead sooner or later to divesting the mind of its limitations.

The Direct Path, by which the mind returns directly to its source through the
recognition of its innate peace, clarity and luminosity, is the essence and culmination
of all spiritual practice and can be found at the heart of all the great spiritual and
religious traditions.

Let us return to King Lear, and let us assume that in spite of being deeply involved in
the affairs of his kingdom, his mind is sufficiently mature to reflect on its own
essence.

What does King Lear have to do to recognise he is John Smith? He need only ask
himself about the essence of his own mind: ‘Who am I really? What is it that knows or
is aware of my experience? Am I aware?’

Each of these questions will lead King Lear away from the objective content of his
experience – the drama with his daughters and courtiers – towards the essence of his
own mind, the simple experience of being aware or awareness itself. In other words,
each of these questions will draw King Lear closer to the knowledge of himself as
John Smith.

As King Lear travels back through layers of his own mind, discarding anything that is
not essential to it – his thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations and
perceptions – the essence of his mind will begin to emerge from its apparent obscurity.

49
At some point, when all superfluous knowledge and experience have been discarded,
the knowledge ‘I am John Smith’ is revealed.

However, it is not King Lear who recognises John Smith. Only John Smith has the
experience of being John Smith.

John Smith is one person, so the knowledge ‘I am John Smith’ is non-dual knowledge:
it does not take place in subject–object relationship. The John Smith that knows is the
John Smith that is known. The ‘I’ that knows is the ‘I’ that is known. John Smith does
not need to do anything or go anywhere in order to know himself. He knows himself
simply by being himself.

Likewise, only awareness is aware of awareness. The finite mind is not an entity in its
own right. It has no existence of its own. It is the activity that awareness assumes in
order to know objective knowledge and experience, just as we might say that King
Lear is the activity that John Smith assumes in order to manifest the drama of the play.

Just as John Smith never ceases being John Smith or becomes King Lear, likewise, at
no point does awareness cease being awareness or become a finite mind. And just as it
is not King Lear who knows John Smith, so, likewise, it is never a finite mind that
becomes or knows infinite awareness.

It is for this reason that Balyani said, ‘No one sees Him except Himself, no one
reaches Him except Himself and no one knows Him except Himself. He knows
Himself through Himself and He sees Himself by means of Himself. No one but He
sees Him.’

When King Lear and John Smith each say ‘I’, they refer to the same essential ‘I’,
although for King Lear this ‘I’ is coloured and thus apparently limited by thoughts,
feelings, sensations and perceptions, whereas for John Smith it shines clearly as it is.

In reality, the self of King Lear is the true and only self of John Smith. The ‘I’ of the
finite mind or apparently separate self is the true and only ‘I’ of infinite awareness.

This is what Meister Eckhart was referring to when he said, ‘The eye with which I see
God is the same eye with which God sees me.’

The apparently separate self or finite ‘I’ around whom all experience revolves is the
true and only ‘I’ of eternal, infinite awareness – the ‘I’ of God’s infinite, self-aware
being that shines in each of our minds as the knowledge ‘I am’ – temporarily coloured
by thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions but never being or becoming
anything other than itself.

No self other than eternal, infinite awareness, or God’s infinite, self-aware being, has
ever come into existence. To believe so is blasphemy.

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There is only infinite awareness, assuming the activity of the finite mind, thereby
veiling itself with its own activity and appearing to itself as a multiplicity and diversity
of objects and selves, but never actually being, becoming or knowing anything other
than its own eternal, infinite being.

We do not have to eradicate a separate self in order to be knowingly eternal, infinite

awareness or God’s infinite, self-aware being. There is no separate self to be
eliminated. To attempt to dissolve or annihilate a separate self simply perpetuates its
illusory existence. To discipline the separate self is to maintain the separate self.

The separate self is an illusion that seems to exist only from its own illusory point of
view. However, all illusions have a reality to them. The reality of the apparently
separate self or finite mind is infinite awareness.

Seeing the reality of infinite awareness is the death or dissolution of the apparently
separate self or ego. This is referred to in the Zen tradition as the Great Death. It is
represented in the Christian tradition by the crucifixion.

Until this point the separate self or ego has been equated with the finite mind due to
the identification of the self with the mind. However, we must now make a distinction
between a finite mind that believes in its own separate and independent existence –
that is, the separate self or ego – and a mind that has been divested of all such beliefs
and feelings and, as a result, shines with the knowing of its own reality.

In the case of the latter, the finite mind will continue to arise from its source or essence
of pure awareness, but its sense of separation and limitation has been neutralised in the
clear light of this self-recognition. Although its ability to mislead us may linger for
some time through force of habit, it is only a matter of time before it fades.

It is for this reason that when the Indian sage Atmananda Krishna Menon was asked
how to know when one is established in one’s true nature, he is said to have replied,
‘When thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions can no longer take you away’.

To refer to the death or dissolution of the separate self or ego is, at best, a concession
to the mind’s belief in its own independent existence. More often it is a
misunderstanding.

In reality, the mind cannot be said to have disappeared or dissolved, for there was no
real, independently existing entity or mind present to begin with, just as King Lear
cannot be said to have vanished because he never truly existed as such.

King Lear is an illusion. However, like all illusions, there is a reality to him. The
reality of King Lear is John Smith. When everything illusory has been removed from
King Lear, John Smith stands revealed as he is. In other words, no new knowledge has
been added to John Smith. It is only that ignorance has been removed from him.

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The recognition of our essential, self-aware being – its knowing of itself – is the self-
knowledge that shines after ignorance has been removed from it.

The removal of ignorance and the consequent dawning of true knowledge is referred
to in various spiritual traditions as awakening, enlightenment, self-realisation,
salvation, illumination, liberation, satori, nirvana, moksha, bodhi or prajna.

However, these terms tend to confer a degree of the exotic or the unfamiliar on our
direct, intimate knowledge of our self, whereas in fact nothing could be less
extraordinary than the knowing of our own being.

For a mind that is accustomed to giving its attention exclusively to objective

experience, this non-objective recognition may trigger waves of profound relaxation in
the mind or the body, in which the knots and contractions that have accumulated over
a lifetime are released.

The release of these tensions may precipitate unusual effects in the mind or the body,
but such external signs should not be confused, as they often are, with the simple
recognition of our own being.

Alternatively, this recognition may happen so quietly that the mind may not even
notice the transition that has taken place over some time.

When the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki was once asked why he never referred to his
enlightenment experience, his wife, who was sitting at the back of the hall, stood up
and said, ‘Because he never had one!’ The recognition of our true nature is not an
exotic experience. Indeed, it is not an experience at all.

In this recognition, our essential, irreducible, self-aware being simply loses its
apparent limitations and its reality stands revealed: open, transparent, luminous,
indestructible, unborn and undying.

When such a mind rises again from the heart of awareness and ventures out into the
realm of objective experience, it does so, as Wordsworth said, ‘trailing clouds of
glory’.

That is, it rises from awareness still saturated with the imperturbable peace and
causeless joy that are the essential qualities of awareness, and makes these qualities
available to humanity.

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 CHAPTER 8

THE OCEAN OF AWARENESS

f awareness were likened to an ocean, thoughts would be the waves that play on

I the surface and feelings the currents that flow within it. Just as all there is to the
waves and currents is the movement or activity of the ocean, so all there is to the
mind is the motion or activity of awareness.

It is always still in the depths of the ocean; likewise, the heart of awareness is always
silent and at peace.

For this reason, all the mind has to do to find the peace for which it longs is to sink
into the heart of awareness. As Rumi said, ‘Flow down and down in ever-widening
rings of being.’*

As a wave or current flows ‘down and down’ into the depths of the ocean, it loses its
agitation and ‘widens’ until at some point it comes to rest. Having no activity or
motion there, the wave or current has lost its form and, as a result, its limitations.

The wave and the current do not disappear. They never existed in their own right to
begin with. The wave and the current are simply the movement of water.

The water doesn’t appear when the waves and currents appear, and it doesn’t
disappear when they subside. Nothing new comes into existence when the wave and
current appear, and nothing is removed from existence when they disappear.

Likewise, as the mind sinks progressively into its essence it quietens and expands –
that is, it is divested of all that is finite, conditioned or limited within it – and stands
revealed to itself as its essential, irreducible essence: clear, luminous, silent awareness.

When the waves of the mind rise in the form of thoughts, images, feelings, sensations
and perceptions, nothing new appears, and when they subside, nothing real disappears.

As it says in Chapter 2, verse 20 of the Bhagavad Gita, ‘That which is never ceases to
be; that which is not never comes into existence.’

Just as the waves that play on the surface of the ocean and the currents that flow
within it are only the formless water moving within itself, so all thinking, imagining,
feeling, sensing and perceiving are only awareness vibrating within itself, appearing to

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itself as the multiplicity and diversity of objective experience, but never ceasing to be
or know anything other than itself.

Each of our minds is an apparent limitation of infinite awareness. Just as a wave or

current gives the formless ocean a temporary appearance, so each of our minds gives
unlimited awareness a provisional limit, and thus a temporary name and form.

The finite mind is the activity that infinite awareness freely assumes in order to bring
manifestation into apparent existence. In assuming the form of the finite mind, infinite
awareness seems to limit itself and, as such, becomes a separate subject of experience,
from whose point of view it is able to know itself as a separate object, other or world.

Meditation is the reversal of this process. When the activity of the finite mind
subsides, nothing happens to awareness; it simply loses a temporary name and form.

It is for this reason that in the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism it is said that the
path by which we fall is the path by which we climb. The pathway through which
infinite awareness assumes the form of the finite mind is the same pathway, traversed
in the opposite direction, through which the finite mind loses its limitations and stands
revealed as infinite awareness.

In doing so it is gradually, in most cases, but occasionally suddenly, divested of the

limitations that it freely assumed in the first place in order to manifest creation.

The Direct Path – the pathless path of self-investigation, self-abidance or self-

surrender – is the means by which the finite mind is divested of its freely assumed
limitations until its essential, irreducible, indivisible, indestructible and imperturbable
nature of pure awareness stands revealed to itself as it is.

At no point, either in the outward process of manifestation or the inward path of

returning to its essence of infinite awareness, does a finite mind ever come into
existence in its own right.

There is no such entity as a finite mind or a separate self. A finite mind is the freely
assumed activity of infinite awareness, through which and as which awareness knows
itself as the world. The finite mind is thus the agency of God’s infinite being, never an
entity in its own right.

There is only one reality – one infinite, indivisible, self-aware being with nothing in
itself other than itself with which it could be limited or from which it could be
separated – from which all apparent objects and selves derive their seeming existence.

Infinite awareness never ceases being infinite awareness in order to become a finite
mind. It just colours itself with its own activity and appears to limit itself. There is just
awareness and the colouring of awareness but never the absence of awareness, nor the

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existence of any other mind or self.

A wave cannot find peace and fulfilment in another wave. The only way for it to find
lasting peace and fulfilment is to sink into the depths of itself, thereby progressively
losing its agitation.

Likewise, the only place in which an apparently separate self or finite mind can find
lasting peace and fulfilment is in the depths of its own being. The separate self or
finite mind that longs for peace and fulfilment in objective experience is like a current
in the ocean in search of water.

Although the search for peace and fulfilment is temporarily alleviated by the
acquisition of an object, substance, activity, state of mind or relationship, it is never
fully satisfied and, as a result, resurfaces as soon as the new experience ceases or
disappears.

It is only when the apparently separate self or finite mind dives deep within itself that
it finds the rest, the peace and the fulfilment for which it longs.

The finite mind or separate self is an illusion that is seemingly real only from its own
illusory perspective. However, this does not mean that the finite mind or separate self
does not exist. It simply means that it is not what it appears to be.

All illusions have a reality to them, and if we are experiencing an illusion we are, by
definition, experiencing its reality. It is not possible to watch a movie without seeing
the screen.

The ‘I’ of the separate self is the true and only ‘I’ of infinite awareness, seemingly
mixed with and, therefore, apparently limited by the objective qualities of experience.

With this apparent limitation of awareness comes a limiting of the peace that is
inherent within it. It is for this reason that the primary motivation of all apparently
separate selves is to find peace or fulfilment.

The wound of separation that lives in the hearts of most people is an invitation from
the heart of awareness, drawing the mind inwards to the peace and fulfilment that live
at its source and essence.

Just as attention or mind is awareness directed towards an object, so our longing or

devotion is love directed towards a person or god. And just as the peace and happiness
which the mind desires live at the source of attention, never at its destiny, so the love
for which the heart longs resides at the origin of its longing, never in its fulfilment.

As such, our longing originates from and is made out of the very substance for which
it longs. In the words of a sixteenth-century Italian monk, ‘Lord, Thou art the love

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with which I love Thee.’

The returning of attention to its source is the essence of meditation; the dissolving of
devotion or longing in its origin is the heart of prayer.

The mind that seeks peace and happiness and the heart that longs for love must
subside or dissolve in their essence.

We must die before we die.

In being aware of being aware, there is no room for a separate self. There is just
eternal, infinite awareness, resting in and as its own inherently peaceful,
unconditionally fulfilled being…knowing, being and loving itself alone.

It is for this reason that Rumi said, ‘In the existence of your love, I become non-
existent. This non-existence linked to you is better than anything I ever found in
existence.’

In being aware of being aware – the knowing of our own essential, irreducible being –
the mind loses its agitation and the heart is relieved of its yearning.

What remains cannot be given a name, for all names refer to the objects of knowledge
and experience, and yet it is that for which all minds seek and all hearts long.

* Translated by Coleman Barks.

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 THE ESSENCE OF MEDITATION SERIES

The Essence of Meditation Series presents meditations on the essential, non-dual

understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions,
compiled from contemplations led by Rupert Spira at his meetings and retreats. This
simple, contemplative approach, which encourages a clear seeing of one’s experience
rather than any kind of effort or discipline, leads the reader to an experiential
understanding of their own essential being and the peace and fulfilment that are
inherent within it.

Being Aware of Being Aware

Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2017

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 PUBLICATIONS BY RUPERT SPIRA

The Transparency of Things – Contemplating the Nature of Experience

Non-Duality Press 2008, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016

Presence, Volume I – The Art of Peace and Happiness

Non-Duality Press 2011, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016

Presence, Volume II – The Intimacy of All Experience

Non-Duality Press 2011, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016

The Ashes of Love – Sayings on the Essence of Non-Duality

Non-Duality Press 2013, Sahaja Publications 2016

The Light of Pure Knowing – Thirty Meditations on the Essence of Non-Duality

Sahaja Publications 2014

Transparent Body, Luminous World – The Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception
Sahaja Publications 2016

The Nature of Consciousness – Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter

Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2017

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www.rupertspira.com

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