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 awareness in motion; awareness is mind at rest.

Rupert Spira

Become aware of the chair ( or whatever you are)  sitting on right now. You can become  aware of it, right?  Is the chair aware of itself? Of course not, you tell me. "The chair doesn't have a brain or a mind.  It is an inanimate object." Okay. So. we can establish that the chair can't be aware of itself but you can be aware of it. 

Stare at are at your hand. You know the hand is there because you can see it.  You can touch it and feel it...again confirming that you know it is there. But does the hand know it is there? Does the hand think about itself?  No, of course not.  There is no brain and no mind in the hand...the hand doesn't have a self concept...at least not in the way we percieve the thinking mind. Yet, you know it is there.

You look at it and likely refer to it as, "my hand".  Why? It is a part of the body you define as "my body".  If I were to go over and slap your hand you may jump back and yell, "Don't slap 'me'!"  The 'my hand', the 'my body' becomes "me". Why? Because the you that is observing the hand has identified itself with it and the body it belongs to. 

What is this "you" that is staring at the hand and identifying with the body as "me"? There is something observing right? Something that felt the slap and reacted with the "me" statement of resistance? What is that? It is not the body because the body is that which is being observed, right? The body cannot observe itself.  So who or what is observing the  body and the reaction of  the body? Who or what is observing and experiencing that which is being observed? It must be an observer, right? That which observes is an observer. Somewhere in this experience of  body observation and reactivity, there must be an observer doing the observing.

What is this observer? It can't be the body because it is observing the body. (The body cannot observe itself).  It can't be the experience of discomfort and resistance that came with the slap to the hand because it is observing it. (The experience...in order to be an 'experience'...must have an experiencer experiencing it.) 

So we know that the observer is not the hand, not the body, not the reaction, not the mind that saw the body as 'me' and therefore caused the reaction in an attempt  to protect this sense of "me." These are all just objects of observation. These are just objects in the forefront of experience and there is someone or something back here observing and experiencing these objects. 

I am going to give you some names for that thing that is observing and experiencing the objects of obervation and experience. These names, however, are not that which is observing ...they too are objects of observation. Consciousness, Awareness, Self, Spirit, Sat chit Ananda...are the names I can give you for this.  They are, however, just names...they are not that which they are pointing to.  Just like the " me" we are trying to protect in the above hand slapping scenario,  they are merely concepts...with no substance. 

Yet, these concepts point to something deeper than that which "me" points to.  "Me" points to an idea of the you that is observing, as being the body and mind which it is observing. ( And we see the fallacy in this because we know that which you are observing cannot observe itself.) "Me" is not who you are ...it is just an identity you ascribed to the object of consciousness you are observing. It is simply an object of consciousness

So "Consciousness", "Awareness", "Self", "Spirit", and my favorite "Sat Chit Ananda" are labels too. They are just words and mind concepts that point to something deep inside this observer you, past the illusion of "me". I am telling you that you are this observer you...not only that, ...this observer you is awareness, Sat Chit Ananda etc. 

Yet, my telling you this is nothing more than more concepts and words. Until you remove your obsessive focus off of this "me" thing you created and spend your life trying to build,  protect, and defend; until you recognize yourself as the observer of this "me" and not the "me"; until you fall back into the observer in the background of your observing experience; and until you become aware of being awareness and begin to  experience yourself as this awareness... will you be beyond concepts and illusions. Until awareness becomes aware of itself , and aware that it is aware of what it is aware of... you will not experience this Sat Chit Ananda ( Eternal, Consciousness, Bliss) that you are. 

Hmm! I was reminded of that truth today upon listening to Michael Singer .

Serendipitous moments? 

Maybe these are insignificant and nothing more than a grasping woman's desire to put meaning onto something purely coincidental. I just feel a certain like -mindedness with Michael Singer that comes out in a very "coincidental" way. We both seem to be thinking of the same things at the same time (sometimes lol)   

I have been thinking heavily about a passage ...the exact words were rushing through my mind again and again throughout the day yesterday  and while I was meditating this morning. Then, I hear these exact words in this podcast like I knew I would, "The rush of holy waters"

I have also been thinking and writing about the poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" over the last two days, had those words on my mind as well,  and he refers to the "albatross" around the neck. "Ping" feel that connecting string being tightened  again. lol

I also wrote down on a list this morning, a few poems I had written that I would like to revise and edit for a chap book . The first one I wrote down was a poem I wrote about leaving the garden of Eden and making one's way back. (It was inspired by one of his previous podcasts)   And he used that exact analogy again today. The second poem I placed on this list, he also used the analogy of that.

Merely coincidence?  Possibly but I feel a pull.  I feel a pull towards something I will never understand. There is like this like- mindedness that seems so "extra-ordinary".  Does it have to be extraordinary? If there is only one consciousness and we are both yogis attempting to get beyond the personal identification with the ego...so we can expereince this consciousness...wouldn't this similar thinking be perfectly expected? 

Silly, I know.

Anyway. All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe () The Self -Concept: The Pull Downward. https://tou.org/talks/