Incredible site!

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Awareness Bliss ('Chitananda')

Recently I found myself entering and enjoying a long and rather special state of heightened ‘awareness bliss’ uniting a trance- or dream-like state of field awareness with the most intense and ‘awake’ experience of sensory and sensual bliss. This lasted for about one and a half hours.

The first hour was experienced sitting at a table by the window with Karinji in a restaurant by the sea front here in Whitstable. The last half hour was spent walking, whilst at the same time sustaining this state of awareness bliss.

Throughout this time, my sensory awareness of the different things and persons I perceived around me was sharpened to the point of almost orgasmic bodily and waking intensity by their erotic points and surfaces of contact with the surrounding space - that Shiva-Field of pure awareness within which different sights and sounds each clearly manifested and touched me from within with their own most sensually blissful tones, textures, shapes and qualities of awareness - their Shaktis.
 
I have rarely described in writing such intense experiences of awareness as have come to me over the years and decades. Yet here, as in my experiences of inter-personal soul-body intercourse or 'Maithuna' described by Karinji, it was the sensual intensity of the experience that was paramount. For this also was an experience of the erotic union or Maithuna of Shiva and Shakti, yet sensed as occurring all around me - at the triangular cornices of roofs, through the “inner vibrational touch” of young children's voices, even just watching particular people eat and talk.
 
The episode began with an experience I have had many times - that of falling into a type of blissful trance or 'swoon' merely by watching a particular person eat. The experience happens rarely because it doesn't come about watching anyone eat - and yet there is nothing special about the particular people who evoke this experience and they can differ hugely in age, gender, class and manner of eating. Rod Lloyd has suggested that the timeless quality of the swoon, which always feels as if it could go on for ever, together with the anonymity of the persons connected with this experience, makes it into an experienced metaphor of Mother Kali herself ‘eating time’.

The felt experience of sound as a type of inner vibrational ‘touch’ became something most important in initiating what then became an extended experience of awareness bliss. Thus the sound of a feisty little girl's voice felt was within me as vibrating with unique intensity of tonal textures and qualities which seemed to touch me with the entire power of The Mother (whilst in contrast, her biological mother, also present, felt totally dead and lacking in vitality of Shakti).

Then there was the calm demeanour of a middle-aged man sitting at the table next to ours, who, though not in any way fat, felt as if he embodied a most mellow, full and rounded soul-body, pervaded with awareness qualities of mellow calmness - yet with a core of vitality of Shakti, one revealed only by a spark in his occasionally darting eyes and shifts of expression, and totally absent in his wife.

The animated expressions of a woman talking at a table outside the window next to which we were sitting, evoked - each time I looked at her face - a lightning flash opening of a vast space of pure awareness space around her seemingly compact and charged body, a space which I knew as her larger awareness body. I began to be reminded by it of a saying from the tantras: “Shiva am I, of compact mass of consciousness and bliss, and the entire universe is my body.”

The rather plain electric ceiling lights of the restaurant - though it was still evening light outside - were sensed as streaming the most intense rays of light-bliss-vitality into my eyes and through them into my soul body.

Walking home, the topmost roof-edge and triangular roof cornices of a rather long, plain and boring warehouse-type building were sensed as exquisite ecstasies, like lightning conductors of Shakti which I sensed as electrical ‘charges’ - each touching and exciting different points at the top and back of my shaved scalp.

The seemingly countless shale tiles of another building with a large angled roof surface - all the tiles slightly separated from one another - I heard as a chorus of goddesses or Shaktis. The topmost part of a fur tree – seen leaning inward slightly toward a row of similar trees - was sensed as its laughter. The rough textures of brick, stone and tarmac were felt as the gritty textures of awareness that were their physical soul.

And then the sky with its swifts - swirling and swooping in the evening light. No, not birds flying though space, but space flying through birds! And Shiva as the sky itself and the emptiness of space - an awareness-space embracing the most diverse ‘sensorium’ of manifesting forms or Shaktis – yet also in an 'electrically' charged, divine-erotic contact with each and every one of them.

No ugliness whatsoever in this entire sensorium of sights and sounds. No ugliness even in the rectangular grey-metal aggregate silo that is the 'eyesore' in our harbour, along with its complex of tubes and conveyor belts that convey gravel from the barges that dock beside it. Instead feeling the inner texture of its METAL in my body as the inner ‘mettle’ of its soul.
 
And so on, and so on...

Yet having already spoken of sensed ‘electrical’ charge, I will add only that as we finally approached the forecourt of our home I beheld again the large and strangely-structured metal structure that is a fenced in electrical 'sub-station' right by one side of our house. Except that this time it appeared quite literally as a manifest deity or Murti - indeed as the divine powerhouse of the house itself. Leading into to a particular box type structure that formed part of its structure, my awareness became focussed on a row of thick electrical connectors inserted into sockets. These I sensed as a series of connecting Shiva-Linga and Shakti-Yoni – feeling in them an extraordinary flow of power between Shiva and Shakti occurring in front of my very eyes.
 
‘The New Yoga’ is that path which leads from a heightened awareness of sensory experiencing to a new and sensual experience of awareness as such. Like other most sensual experiences of awareness, this one confirmed once again that God - AS awareness (Shiva) is truly everything, and that everything in turn IS a manifest or embodied portion and expression of that awareness - a Shakti.

In particular however, it also taught me that each thing and person too is a ‘Murti’, a solid idol or personification of divinity, innately charged with that divine contact and intercourse of Shiva and Shakti that is their erotic union or Maithuna – the singular and divine reality that is Shiva-Shakti.

“The twinned form of Shiva and Shakti is known as the union. It is termed the power of bliss because the entire universe is emitted by it.”

Sri Abhinavagupta

Acharya, awareness in your hands is as a severing sword. I am now cut adrift from my former unwitting use of the terms "spirit", and "spirituality". You are right to point out its terrible vagueness of meaning and application, in support of whatever ill-thought stuff some preach others to confusion with. I continue to appreciate your ability to clearly articulate the unformed hesitancies I have felt on numerous themes. This one on spirituality, in the context of Sri Chinmoi, is one. It initially presented itself in my previous thinking, as the conundrum of how the decidedly unspiritual, in the sense of outwardly "closer" to that big being "God", should ever get near "Him", seeing as many proponents of faiths often require a level of "spirituality" prior to engaging one. It translates itself as an unspoken requirement to be "nice", to belong, which unfortunately disbars many a not-so-nice human being from the start of any quest for light they may undertake. All of us have parts,or times when we are not so "nice", surely.
But the equation of 'spirituality" with awareness, cuts the cord of confusion cleanly. The Awareness Principle, or the Great Awareness we might call "God", or Shiva is inherent in every individualised aspect of it, namely each and every one of us, as you continue to so rightly teach. It is not far away, nor is it the result of our good or poor behaviours, or our level of "spirituality" or purity, or the result of many decades of study or religious discipline, as helpful and instructive as they may be. Simply increased individual awareness of this Great Awareness, encouraged by good and careful teaching, appears to me to be what it means to advance in any "spiritual" quest. Too many have had dependence fostered in them, and years long confusion by portraying the "spiritual quest" in a misdirected and poorly or non-thought out manner, as you describe.

The "spiritual quest" would appear to demand nothing but openness to receive more Awareness, Itself giving freely of Itself leading to more awareness of Itself in everything and everybody. This why we chant Shiva, the Auspicious One, or The One of Grace and Givingness. Such Awareness heals, leads to light and ultimately rescues in any and every circumstance, as Somananda reminds us. It would seem, whether we are at toilet, or on a crowded train, in the midst of a domestic argument,or at an opera, or in ecstatic puja, the very moment we return our focus to that Awareness that we are experiencing it all with, at that moment, we are as "spiritual" as we will ever get. Thank you Acharya. Om Namah Shivaya

Some Initial Reflections on the ‘Philosophy’ of Sri Chinmoy

If only out of profound respect and reverence for all the great, learned, cultured and deep-thinking teachers I have learned from (whether modern European and German teachers such as Marx, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, Adi Shankara, Somananda and Sri Abhinavagupta) I have to say in all true honesty that I have never come across such a sanctimonious stream of empty phraseology as I have in the ‘philosophical’ lectures of Sri Chinmoy – which literally speak volumes about everything from ‘God’, ‘Spirituality’, ‘Oneness’ and ‘Peace’, to ‘Meditation’ and ‘Yoga’ – and yet say nothing. That his lectures are even described as ‘philosophy’ is an abuse of the word, for they make not the slightest attempt whatsoever to question what is actually meant by any of these seductive words that he throws about – not least the words ‘Spirituality’ and … ‘God’. So let me begin with this one word.

To ask whether ‘God’ does or does not ‘exist’ already assumes that just because the word God exists, it necessarily denotes some sort of existing or non-existing ‘entity’ or ‘being’. To assume - without any deeper questioning – that we already all ‘know’ what ‘God’ essentially is – namely some sort of ‘supreme being’ - is either philosophical ignorance or supreme arrogance. For it is to ignorantly or arrogantly ignore thousands of years of profound philosophical questioning, both in the East and in the West, as to what constitutes the essential nature of God - indeed what constitutes the nature of ‘Being’ as such – the very ‘being-ness’ or ‘is-ness’ of any being - including a supreme ‘God-being’. To simply speak of the ‘existence’ of any thing or things, being or beings, implies a prior or ‘a priori’ awareness of that thing or those things, that being or of those beings. Therefore awareness as such must – in principle – be recognised as a more primordial or fundamental reality than beings (human or divine) that we are aware of.

What has this to do with Sri Chinmoy? The answer is that his lectures about “God” and “God-Consciousness” are presented as “philosophy” – yet do not ask even such basic philosophical questions as “What is ‘God?” and “What is ‘Consciousness’?”. This is one reason why they are an abuse of the word ‘philosophy’. The other is that Sri Chinmoy neither refers to, gives respect to, or shows any deep knowledge whatsoever of the richly diverse and millennia-long history of different philosophical conceptions and experiences of ‘God’ and ‘Consciousness’ - both in India and the West. Sri Chinmoy is an Indian ‘guru’. Yet his pseudo-philosophising is also either a sadly ignorant or a supremely arrogant dismissal of the history of Indian philosophical and religious thought (The Eastern Mind) in particular - as well as its complex relation to the history of Western thought - the Graeco-German philosophical tradition in particular. The philosophy of The New Yoga, on the other hand is rooted in profound knowledge of the long history and evolution of both the Graeco-German and Indian philosophical traditions respectively – and an affirmation of the culminating recognitions they attained:

1. The culminating recognition of the Graeco-German philosophical tradition that came to expression in the 20th century through the meditations of Martin Heidegger, namely that “Being is not a being” – that Being as such cannot be reduced to an individual being (including a supreme ‘God-being’ to or a set of such beings.

2. The culminating recognition of the Indian philosophical tradition that came to expression in the treatises or ‘tantras’ of the 10th century Indian sages of Kashmir, namely that ‘Consciousness is not ‘a’ consciousness’ – that it is not reducible to a set of individual ‘consciousnesses’ or ‘minds’, to the property of an individual self or subject, ego or ‘I’, or to a ‘product’ of the body or brain.

The philosophy of The New Yoga is also the Supreme Synthesis of these traditions, uniting them through the recognition that: (a) God is Consciousness– a consciousness that is not yours or mine, but a universal consciousness that is the very essence of the Divine, and (b) that ‘beings’ as such are nothing but individualised portions and expressions of that singular, universal and divine consciousness – a consciousness whose essential nature is pure awareness (Paramshiva) and its innate potentialities and power of manifestation (Paramshakti).

Let us return then to the seductive and glamorous term ‘God-Consciousness’ and ask some simple basic philosophical questions. Does the term refer to ‘our’ consciousness ‘of’ a God – of some being – or to a consciousness belonging ‘to’ that being? Both answers assume that consciousness is the property of a being or beings. In this way they ignore the most fundamental question of all – how do we know that anything ‘is’ or ‘exists’ in the first place – that there are any beings in the first place. Indeed how do we know that we exist? Only out of an awareness of being. Since it is only out of an awareness of being that we know that we or any other beings ‘are’ or ‘exist’ in the first place, it follows that awareness itself cannot - in principle – be seen as belonging to us any being. This understanding is what I call ‘The Awareness Principle’.

The only way in which the term ‘God-Consciousness’ can be said to make any sense is to understand its two sides (‘God’ and ‘Consciousness’) as identical. However that means we must drop the deep-seated assumption that consciousness ‘belongs to’ or is the property of beings - either individual beings or a supreme ‘God-being’. Instead we need to understand individual beings as individualised portions or expression of consciousness as such - that divine-universal consciousness which is ‘God’ - and that I call ‘awareness’ to distinguish it from ordinary notions of ‘consciousness’. To experience consciousness in its divine-universal dimension – as that supreme awareness which its not a being and yet is the divine source of all beings - and to realise that God is Consciousness and not any being ‘with’ consciousness - is to cast a wholly new light on the very nature of ‘God’, ‘Consciousness’, ‘God-consciousness’. Yet this is something that, in all his voluminous ‘philosophical’ talks on them, Sri Chinmoy does not even begin to do.

Yet I feel bound to refer also to another group of words – the words ‘Spirit’, ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Spirituality’. I say right from the start that these words form no part of my vocabulary – except in so far as to expose their hollowness and misuse. For none of these three words have any equivalent in Sanskrit, in any of the sacred texts of Hinduism or in any yogic manual or ‘tantra’. No-one who uses them can actually say what they mean by them. Though they might state and enforce strong beliefs about what is and is not ‘spiritual’, none of them actually say – or even ask - what ‘spirituality’ itself is. I can and I do. It is Awareness. That is why, instead of ‘Spirit’ and ‘Spirituality’ I speak of ‘Awareness’. And instead of ‘Spiritual’ I say – Aware. Understood as Awareness there is nothing and no one that is not ‘Spirit’, and in that sense not ‘Spiritual’, for there is nothing and no one that is not a portion and expression of Shiva - the universal awareness behind and within all things. True, some people are more aware than others – and in that sense more ‘spiritual’. Yet since there is nothing we can possibly be aware of – including unhappiness, sadness, anger, anxiety, insecurity, hate or fear – that is not itself a form of awareness, it is impossible to say that anything we are aware of is unspiritual. The body is nothing ‘unspiritual’ – is the very embodiment of spirit. Spirit – awareness - is what bodies. Sex is nothing ‘unspiritual’ – it is a human embodiment of the essential dynamic of awareness - the union of the divine masculine - pure awareness - and the divine feminine, the living and embodied expression of that awareness. The only thing that can possibly diminish ‘spirituality’ or be seen as ‘unspiritual’ is a lacking awareness of something – not the thing itself. Yet even a lack of awareness is something we can become aware of. So even this lacking awareness - understood as part of an eternal process of becoming more aware – cannot ultimately be said to be ‘unspiritual’. Therefore who has the right to say what or who is ‘spiritual’ and what or who is not? The answer is - no one.


‘Shiva is resplendent in sorrow too.’ Somananda



See also: 'Beyond Guru Lineages and Migratory Genealogies' in the NEW essays section of the site archive.

2 Gifts I received and would like to share:

Murti Meditation, June 4, 2009

In the mirror, which holds the image of the murti of Shiv meditating,
Looms the image of Karin meditating the small murti of Shiv in front of her.
And behind Karin’s back she feels
The towering presence of Shiv.
Om namah Shivaya.

I wish I had an image of the murti meditation or could in other ways convey the powerful sense of protectiveness,
watching over and being watched over, by Shiv.
When meditating Shiv, do we guard him as he guards us?



Puja, June 5, 2009

There is neither emptiness nor fullness.
There is neither heat nor is there cold.
There is no darkness and there is no light.
There is neither rest nor is there unrest.
There is neither war nor is there peace.

Neither is there poverty nor wealth.
No feast is there nor is there famine.
There is neither strength nor weakness.
There is no youth and no old age.

There is neither stimulation nor boredom.
There is no crowd nor is there loneliness.
Neither is there noise nor is there silence.

There is neither joy nor is there sorrow.
There is neither illness nor is there health.
There is no life nor is there death.
There is no me nor you.

There is only Shiva,
My Lord of the Living Light.

‘Waiting Upon Awareness’ – a response to Rod

Truly, there need be no effort or ‘trying’ demanded in order to be, abide or dwell in awareness - just as no effort or trying is required for us to be, abide or dwell in space. Similarly it usually requires no ‘trying’ to see whatever there is to be seen before us – unless we are blindfolded. Then all we need do is not to try to see despite the blindfold but to remove it. In the case of awareness it is not a question of removing an obstruction to seeing or hearing things. Instead the challenge to venture removing an obstruction to sensing, not a sensing of any ‘thing’ but a bodily SENSING of awareness itself - as the very space and time within which we see hear, feel and think things. Then the empty space around us and around things is itself experienced AS pure awareness, just as every period or interval of ‘empty time’ - before, between and around all of our everyday activities and experiencing – is experienced as a pregnant time-space of awareness.

“The body as a whole is a sense organ of the soul.” Whilst for most people it is second nature to see and hear, for most of mankind it has long since ceased to be second nature to be so aware of their bodies as a whole that they once again become an awareness - a ‘sense organ of the soul’ – thus allowing them to sense space and time themselves as a time-space OF awareness.

The great yogis recognised that the first step on the road to recovering and cultivating this whole body sensing and awareness was to cultivate awareness of breathing, and in that way come to experience it as a breathing OF awareness - with and through our whole body, and though all our senses.

For the tantrika, our capacity and desire to see and hear, feel and touch is not a blindfold to ultimate reality. Desire and sensory experiencing need no ‘blowing out’ or ‘exitinguishing’ (the root meaning of ‘nirvana’). From the perspective of The New Yoga what is needed is not to remove but to add something to our sensory and bodily experiencing – that pure awareness of experiencing that finds expression in the mantram: ‘There is an awareness of…’, for example ‘There is an awareness of seeing or hearing this or that, sensing or feeling this or that, thinking this or that. Just as there is also an awareness of that ‘I’ which claims these dimensions of experiencing as ‘mine’ and as its ‘own’ - rather than recognising them as present or arising expressions of awareness as such. This is the egoic ‘I” whose mantram is the very word ‘I’ – with which it says to itself ‘I see and hear this or that’, ‘I think and feel this or that’ etc. And though that ‘I’ can urge itself to ‘stop trying’ or to ‘let go’ etc. we know from the limitations of Zen ‘disciplines’ that this itself is too much trying.

Truly speaking, all that is required is not that this ‘I’ stops trying and instead lets go but that there simply be an awareness of this very ‘I’, and an awareness also of its trying or not letting go. It is no urging or act of the egoic ‘I’ but a simple awareness of that ‘I’ that releases us – effortlessly - from the grip of its grasping and effortful trying.

Anupaya, the ‘path of no means’, is in essence the simple recognition that the egoic ‘I’ cannot by any means of its own, however skilful, free itself of Anavamala (belief in the ‘I-ness’, ‘my-nesss’ or mineness’ of experiencing) thus attaining an awakened awareness. What The New Yoga adds however, is that the simple awareness of that ‘I’, of its I-ings, myings and tryings and of its mantra – the word ‘I’ itself - is enough to do so. ‘Letting go’ then, is no activity of the ego or ‘I’. It is nothing more or less than an awareness of ego. For the awareness of ego, being distinct from ego, is what in and of itself frees us from the grip of the ego and of its grabbing and grasping.

Once again then, we are returned to the basic mantra ‘There is an awareness of…” in this case in the form: ‘There is an awareness of an ‘I’ that is trying, mying, ‘I’-ing or ‘I-dentifying’ with its experiencing’.

Yet even recognising the significance of this mantra, we cannot escape a basic paradox. This is the paradox that abiding in the pure awareness of experiencing, what we attain is itself a mode of experiencing, albeit a higher mode of experiencing - a sensual-transcendental experiencing of awareness as such (for example as space and time, light and bliss, the god or the goddess). Similarly, even abiding in the pure awareness of thoughts arising, what we attain are themselves thoughts – albeit higher thoughts of the sort that do not merely reflect our experiencing but arise from and grant recognition to pure awareness. That is why the mantram ‘There is an awareness of….’ needs constant ‘reflexive’ iteration or ‘re-iteration’ - a repeated ‘stepping back’ into awareness - not just from ordinary dimensions of experiencing but also from higher experiences of pure awareness itself. We need not only to be able to say ‘There is an awareness of experiencing this or that’ but also ‘There is now an awareness of experiencing pure awareness itself – for example as space and time, as air and light, as the form and gaze of Shiva - or as one’s own form and gaze reflected in a mirror.

This principle of ‘reflexive’ iteration or ‘re-iteration’ of the mantram ‘There is an awareness of…’ allows us also to overcome all difficulties experienced in identifying with pure awareness, and that without any trying. For as soon as we are aware of such a difficulty, what forces us to identity with it or even to ‘try’ to overcome it – rather than just recognising that ‘There is an awareness of difficulty’ – thus identifying with the pure awareness of the difficulty, rather than with the difficulty itself. Awareness can easily becomes second nature to us, simply by repeatedly stepping back into it from each and every dimension of our thinking and experiencing, even the most transcendental or problematic.

I have defined the essence of The New Yoga as a path that takes us “from a new awareness of experiencing to a new experience of awareness”. This path leads also to the experiencing of pure awareness as one’s very Self - yet not just in its transcendental dimension - as Shiv - but also in its most intimate and immanent dimensions of individuality, themselves a unique expression or Shakti of Shiv.

Truly, “when attending upon Shiva in murti form, we are looking at our Self”. Conversely, yet no less truly, when attending upon ourselves or another in murti form – as a bodily form or image – we are looking at an individualised expression or Shakti of Shiva. Hence also the significance of our innermost, most individual names as well as that of Shiv himself.
Truly, “ON NAMAH SHIVAYA is one of the major tantric approaches to the experience of one’s own nature.” That nature has two distinct but inseparable aspects however - firstly that Self whose nature is nothing but pure awareness (the Chaitanya or Para-atman) and secondly, one’s “own nature” in its individuality. This aspect of “own nature” or “individuality” is not of course a nature owned by the ego. Instead it is one of countless individual natures, forms and faces borne from, belonging to and ‘owned’ by the Divine Awareness ‘itself’. The most dangerous and potentially damaging confusion transcended by The New Yoga is the confusion between release from the grip of the ego on the one hand, and any sort of sacrifice of individuality on the other. Since we are each individualised portions of the divine awareness, to sacrifice our individuality is a sacrifice of our very divinity, no less a sacrifice than the sacrifice of awareness to its objects and to objectification.

Truly, awareness cannot be reduced to an ‘It’ in the sense of some object, for its essence its pure and absolute subjectivity. Yet the German expression for ‘There is…’ is ‘Es gibt…”, meaning is ‘IT gives…”. The English language says ‘There is…’. The German language says ‘It gives…’. This ‘giving’ is echoed in the other major mantram of The New Yoga: meditation understood as “Giving time to be aware…”. Who or what however, is the giver, if not ‘It’ – that which freely gives or grants itself to us as the open field of awareness that we experience as time and space.

Recognising this ‘It’ gives the phrase ‘Giving time to be aware…’ a different and far deeper sense. This deeper sense was first explored and indicated by Martin Heidegger in his ‘Conversations on a Country Path’, and is at the same time intuitively suggested by your words: “…attending unto awareness in precisely the same way we simply attend upon, wait before our Shiva murti in puja”. Here the two phrases ‘attending upon’ and ‘waiting before’ unite to hint at this deeper sense of ‘giving time to be aware’, namely as a patient ‘WAITING UPON’ awareness. The 'Waiting upon’ is no mere waiting ‘for’ something - something of which we are ALREADY aware - but rather an openness to a NEW experience of awareness and to new ‘awarenesses’.

‘IT’ is that open field of awareness, sensed by us as the time-space within and upon which we await. ‘It’ is also that which first holds opens that time-space and that whhich is in constant ATTENDANCE to every being and possibility it holds within it.

The verbs ‘attend to’ or ‘tend to’ have also a specific sense of to ‘wait upon’ - in the sense of serving and giving service to. ‘Waiting upon It’ –‘WAITING UPON AWARENESS’ - we open ourselves to receive the gift of all that can newly arise and come to awareness within it, together with all the ways in which that Awareness can itself (‘its-self’) be seen and heard, thought and thanked, sensed and served.

Truly therefore, “the potentialities of awareness are watered and seeded by Awareness attending” – waiting upon us in the same way that we in turn are called upon to wait upon It. Murti darshan is that waiting ‘before’ and in the face of Shiv which offers us the most sacred time-space to wait upon awareness Itself, thus letting ourselves be waited upon and gifted by It. The ‘It’ itself is that of which there is ‘non-higher’ - thus named in the tantras by the term ‘Anuttara’.

Om Namah Shivaya
    
Acharya

Edited by author 30-05-2009 12:38 PM
Dear Acharya

I have seen that there is the challenge of seeing ourselves, of being aware of that which we are, made a challenge simply by being that same Awareness, similar to trying to discover that which we are, by examining ourselves, through the same eyes with which we are looking. This is known to the Ages.
This sort of attempt is coloured and amplified by the Western analytical approach. The harder we try, seeking to grab hold of, cling to Awareness to examine it, the quicker it disappears. It becomes an "It", separate from us, and we flounder in duality. What are we to do?
Two things have occurred to me, in explaining my understanding and experiencing of this.

Stop trying. Let go. Sink into that Ocean of Awareness that we are, become aware of simply being aware, as you have taught. "There is an Awareness...", is a mantra. By expanding our localised awareness, we come to know its greater dimensions. And thus the Recognition of a totally different order arises, and presents itSelf.
One becomes the Seer, the Seen, and the process of Seeing at once, not linearly. Now. Always now, the eternal present of the Great Awareness, that we know as Shiva. We stop trying. We let go. This leads to Nirvana, its very meaning.
With this also arises another thought about this challenge of becoming aware of one's own nature. Murti Darshan, as you have taught, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA, is one of the major Tantric approaches to the experience of one's own nature. Awareness, resonating and embodied, becomes mirrored as it were, in the beloved Murti. By attendance upon the sacred representation of Awareness, Shiva, that has emerged from within the awareness field of the accumulated myriads of devotees, their dream of Lord Shiva, as it were, resonates at another level with us. This enables a door through which the Great Awareness ever discovers Itself anew, and thus the repeated analogy of the mirror, that many different paths have expressed.
When attending upon Shiva in murti form , we are looking at Our Self.

Shakti manifestation of potentiality, bringing to birth, ever creating anew from within this same Awareness is also this very process being described. By the power of his shakti, Shiva becomes aware of himself. Thus you have taught anew, and thus the sages have taught, and seeing it, Recognising it, Re-cognising one's true Self is attainable by numerous means, as the Vijnanabhairava Tantra explains. These means are not about "trying" or "clinging" to some teaching or method, but rather about the opposite, about NOT trying, NOT clinging, and talks of space between the breaths, and simply remaining quiescent, attending unto Awareness in precisely the same way we simply attend upon, wait before our Shiva murti in puja. The potentialities of Shiva-Shakti are watered and seeded by Awareness attending. Am I in order here, Acharya?

Through correctly interpreting my essay on 'depression', doing so in the context of The Awareness Principle, and then coming to a wholly appropriate re-framing of 'the depressive process' as 'The Awareness Process' (which made me think immediately also of a correspondig term -'The Awareness Position') Andrew has made a fundamentally new and powerful contribution to THE most basic vocabulary of 'The Awareness Principle' and its Practice.

Indeed I can already see a way in which the explicit use of the term 'The Awareness Process' can be used to reframe the very articulation of both The Awareness Principle and The Practice of Awareness as such.

The task and opportunity that presents itself now is to set about defining 'The Awareness Process' (and 'The Awareness Position') independently of the issue of 'depression', and yet in a way that encompasses and integrates - as Andrew has already indicated it could - all the most basic elements of The Practice of Awareness as set out so far.

In this context, I see the term 'The Awareness Position' as potentially offering a new way of introducing what I have previously called the 'The Fundamental Distinction'and 'Fundamental Choice', being precisely that 'place' or 'position' from which we can abide in - be - the pure awareness of all that we are experiencing. This is what I have called 'being in awareness' or 'being awareness' (Sat-Chit).

Abiding in The Awareness Position corresponds to the central mantram of The Awareness Principle: "THERE IS an awareness of...", the value and significance of which Rod has just eloquently re-emphasised in his post.

Yet this Position is (as Rod affirms) no mere place of detachment, but rather one from which we can engage in that meditative PROCESS - most appropriately called by Andrew 'The Awareness Process' - of freely letting arise, affirming and even amplifying each and every element of our experiencing -"whatever bodily feeling IS THERE".

Attaining and abiding in the 'The Awareness Position', whilst at the same time following 'The Awareness Process', then together constitute a summation what I have described as 'The Foundation Meditation' of The New Yoga - its basic Practice of Awareness.

The terms 'Awareness Position' and 'Awareness Process' also correspond to Shiva and Shakti - these being the quiescent and dynamic, source and manifesting dimensions of Awareness as such.

Awareness as such of course, is not itself a 'Position', but rather non-local, having no specific location 'in' space and yet at the same time being that spacious field within which the process of arising is constantly occurring and felt from a variety of different places or 'positions' within and around us.

The 'There is' (Awareness Position) is an egoless awareness which facilitates a deeeper feeling relation to all that 'is There' (Awareness Process). What 'is There' in this Position INCLUDES the awareness of an individual self or 'I'. Thus 'The Awareness Position' cannot be a position taken BY the individual 'I’, but is rather a pure awareness OF that 'I'.

At any time and in any place "There is.." a specific bodily awareness of an individual identity, self, ego or 'I' - an awareness which is not itself the property or activity of that identity, self, ego or 'I'.

'The Awareness Position' therefore indeed needs to be felt and understood as an inner bearing, posture or 'mudra' - one which allows a continuing recognitive relation to and identity with pure awareness and the 'There is.."

Only that 'self' or 'I' which IS nothing but a pure and transcendental AWARENESS of selfhood (embracing all its unfolding and changing aspects, states and modes of being) can be said, in the language of the tantras, to be the ‘chaitanyatman'.

In terms of The New Yoga and 'The Awareness Principle', this is 'The Awareness SELF' (Shiva) from whose all-pervasive, non-local place or 'Position' the 'Awareness Process'(Shakti) constantly and eternally unfolds.

Dear Acharya,
This is my first proper post, after initial difficulties with using the Bulletin Board, arising from my own misapplication. My warm greetings to other subscribers/followers also. I am now giving time (somewhat belatedly) to the fine posts being placed and the replies to them. The 'flow of awareness", starts to rush as I read. Thank you. On Karin's suggestion I mention for your interest my own blog arising from my transformative encounter with Acharya and the New Yoga. http://contextplus.blogspot.com/ I am hoping this link is correctly formatted in the post.

Acharya, it is remarkable to me that it can be but a phrase that grabs one's awareness, that can help so much. I refer to your recent post on The Awareness Principle. Your suggestion to inwardly change the thought from "I am aware of ..." to "There is an awareness of ..." I have found most helpful in re-orientating one's awareness "posture", particularly in my case, the moment I recognise I am conducting an inner dialogue with someone arising from an encounter, usually upsetting in some way.
This inner statement of expression, "There is an awareness of..." almost immediately leads to a calming distancing and separation from the inner dialogue that has become dominant in awareness, and the evoked awareness-lessening emotion. The inner sentence repeated, "moves around" attaching itself to the various emotions also, "There is an awareness of anger..etc", and moves onto other aspects, the person,and the encounter itself in memory. It does not become a psychological analytical thought process. This is no doubt helpful in itself, but can lead back into being "trapped" by "I-ness". "There is an awareness of..."
Some see the inner detachment inherent in the above process as a divorcing from the practical, living problems of life, but rather "I" become aware of being more effective by becoming more aware of the emotions arising, of the other and the meanings arising from the event. It is very stabilising.

The phrasing also leads one naturally to recall the Awareness Principle, the Awareness Field that is Shiva in which it is all arising.

Om Namah Shivaya.

Peter,

It has taken me some time to respond to the piece: ‘On the Meaning of ‘Depression’’
‘- from the word to a widened awareness’ (http://www.thenewyoga.org/meaning_depresssion.htm) because I think(?) it marks some sort of watershed and thus I had to read it many times etc. Of course it could be that it is simply a watershed for me and not necessarily you but it seems to me that this small paper draws together the New Yoga and all of your previous work since Listening, Madness of the Market, Little Black Book. Probably a better way of putting it is that it puts all your previous work within the New Yoga. I’ll explain what I mean:

If I follow you correctly, babies, children and people develop abstract thinking (meditative thought?) through trying to express and communicate ‘absence’. I take this to mean that absence is in a sense, felt sense. That is, we have a felt sense of something which isn’t present, and if we can tolerate this absence then we can stay with felt sense until it expresses itself in thought through and within us. If we cannot tolerate absence then we go through the whole object relations stuff, the paranoid-schizoid position, the magical conversion of a ‘feeling bad’ (verb) into a ‘bad feeling’ (noun), projection, introjection etc, which doesn’t work in the long run anyway. Along with this we learn to become precocious scientists, having to try and read the ‘weather’ from the signals on faces, rather than a direct sense of inner reality, with the result that we develop calculative thinking.

But if we learn to tolerate absence, then we can allow ourselves to ‘sink’ into the pain of absence or whatever bodily feeling is there, LISTEN and allow it to change us, with the result that felt sense becomes embodied in and as us, in our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. In short the depressive process. And then we are able to enter the blessed state of meditative thinking.

Now starting off from TNY, the Awareness Principle itself makes clear that being in Awareness allows all the freedom we need to be able to ‘sink’ into anything, inner or outer, thus being changed by it, developing meditative thinking, and explaining why simply being conscious and not necessarily aware leads to all the problems of life. Thus the Awareness Process rather than the Depressive Process?

Having written that it seems so short, yet it took me a good few days of meditation to produce it!

Dear Steve:

Thank you for reminding me again and emphasing the significance you sensed in Aristotle's account of perception.
 
Taking your hint and meditating again on the idea that the soul "takes on the form" of the object made me aware of the way in which I myself do in fact directly experience this 'idea' almost all the time. As a result, your letter has led me to ponder ways of describing my subtle experience of "taking on the form of objects" - and to reconsider also how this can be best conceptualised in ways that do indeed transcend "the usual subject-object dualism".
 
I certainly see and feel a definite and important connection between this sense - of taking on the form of objects - and what you refer to, quite rightly, as the "enhanced aesthetic enjoyment" that can arise from awareness. I also see a potentially useful connection, one indeed relevant to my piece on helping others to understand and experience 'The Awareness Principle' - with what you described as the desire of the newcomer "to connect to something bounded, pleasing as in the sense of touch."
 
That last phrase is in some ways key to a type of experiencing I have come to take for granted and enjoy. This I could describe and conceptualise in a number of (seemingly different) ways.
 
I will use the term 'object' for convenience, with the proviso that what I am referring to is the experience - itself and by nature subjective - of any 'body' in space, whether that of a thing or person.
 
1. There is a direct sense of not only seeing a particular object in space but of feeling it. This sense is expressed in an observation I have often that when we look at an object we also 'see' its 'actual' visible features (colour, shape etc.) but also sense how it would potentially feel to our touch. Rather than experiencing this as a mere sensual potential however, there is a way in which, simply looking at an object I already and actually feel its form, including not only its shape or configuration but also the qualities of its surface texture(s) and densities. Thus looking at an object with a smooth surface I sense that smoothness - albeit in a way that includes a qualitatively differentiated sense of the surface smoothness of paper, plastic, wood or metal etc.
 
2. I also experience a most tangible bodily sense of taking on the 'form' of the object in the more basic sense of its 'geometry' i.e. its spatial form and size - and that in every dimension and in every detail.
This 'bodily sense' is one I do relate to 'sensing' or 'feeling' the object with my whole body - not just looking out at it through the peepholes of my eyes. In particular there is a sense of sensing the object in an area corresponding to the surface region of my chest.
 
3. Exploring this bodily sensing and sense of the object further I have also noticed and noted in the past that there seemed to be a direct correlation between sensing my own body surface - in particular the front surface of my chest, and sensing the visible surface form of the object. Again however, it is not just the surface form but the surface qualities of the object that I sense. Thus seeing but also sensing in a bodily way the flat brick surface of the houses I see from my window on the other side of the road, is a quite different sensation from sensing the fabric of the wallpaper in my room, the rug on its floor, the leather surfaces of my armchair and sofa, the polished wooden surfaces of their oak armrests etc, not to mention the glass surfaces of the framed pictures I have on my wall, or the plastic and pseudo-metallic surfaces of my retro-style radio-CD player or plastic-housed television. The same subtle but most tangible differential sense of surface textures applies to small objects too, from the variety of glass, plastic or metal objects such as phones, bowls, mugs, penholders and ashtrays that I see around me, to books, notebooks or mere sheets of paper lying around.
 
4. I also experience a directly felt, bodily sense of weight and density as well as surface texture. Thus looking at a cushion I sense directly its relative lightness as well as its soft surface and the feel of its fabric.
Again, this sense has the character of most tangible tactile sensation in the region of my chest - it is certainly not an imaginative process or sensation of touching or feeling the object with my hand. And yet it is in this context that your reference to something not only "bounded" but also "pleasing" - "as in the sense of touch" [is pertinent]. For what I am effectively describing is a type of synaesthetic visuo-tactile sense, albeit one independent of the hands.
 
To conceptualise my so far purely descriptive 'phenomenology' of this visuo-tactile sense is another matter. For my phenomenological awareness of it has at least three aspect.
 
1. Firstly, there is a sense of non-separation despite apparent distance in space, a sense of the awareness of the object not being something that is 'here', 'in' my mind or even 'in' my body but is right there where the object itself is - and therefore also a sense that the awareness of the object is itself actually touching and feeling the object. That is why I have in some writing deliberately used the term feeling awareness rather than just 'awareness' or 'pure awareness' - or even defined the central power or Shakti of 'pure awareness' as its feeling character - not in an emotional way only but also in a directly tactile way.
 
2. Secondly, there is a tangible sense of the space 'between' my body and the object, as well as the space surrounding the object, actually being that very tactile feeling awareness. To get over this sense to others I often ask them to imagine how a particular tree (with all its differently shaped branches, together with the texture of its bark and leaves) might feel to the space surrounding that tree and/or to the air in direct contact with it. That gives them at least a mental clue to how it might feel to not only sense and identify with the space surrounding objects but to be touching and feeling a particular object from all sides as space (and thereby also as and from an all round field of pure awareness).
 
3. Thirdly however, and points 1 & 2 notwithstanding, there is also an awareness of 'my' body itself "taking on the form" of the object in shape and texture - though it is vital that, no matter how tangible the sensation of shape-shifting is, the 'body' in question be understood not as my physical body but as my inwardly felt body. One way of conceptualising this third dimension of my experience is through the Rupert Sheldrake's notion of 'morphic resonance' - albeit in the specific I understand and have written about it in my book 'Inner Universe' and also in 'Tantric Wisdom for Today's World'. What I am getting at through this notion is the idea that sensing any 'body' out there, not from 'in here' but within and as the seemingly empty space around (and touching) that body, turns this felt sensing into a type of resonance with the outward form (morphe) of that other body. This resonance in turn, brings about a transformation or meta-morphosis of my own inwardly sensed bodily form in the likeness of that other body. Referring back to my writings again, this is why I have declared in some of them that our bodies retain the resonant mnemonic trace of every other body (whether that of a thing or person) that we have ever experienced, in this life or any other.
 
The three angles or vertices from which I have described this most sensually pleasing and therefore 'aesthetic' experience of 'other bodies' can perhaps also be integrated through my particular understanding of 'morphic resonance' as a relation of outward form on the one hand, and inner 'sound' on the other. The term 'resonance' (re-sounding) is no mere metaphor, because, as I am also acutely aware, the very form of any particular 'object' or body (its shape and texture etc ), also has a specific inner sound or 'silent sound', one that can be silently sensed at a distance in an aural as well as tactile way. Thus a soft cushion also has a softer and duller inner 'sound' - in marked contrast say, to the sharper, more high-pitched inner sound I sense as the silver-metallic ashtray and drinking mugs I have. That is why it has always made perfect sense to me to understand - as the tantras do - all bodies, not simply as 'having' sounds if you strike them, but as expressions of sounds.
 
The equation I am making here is that Form = Sound and Sound = Form. Thus any "bounded" form of the sort that can be "pleasing to the touch" is also a sound. And every sound in turn, like the sound or 'tone' of someone's voice has very specific qualities such as sharpness or flatness, loudness or softness, lightness or heaviness, dullness or clarity, warmth or coldness - not to mention spatial or geometric qualities of roundedness or angularity, and textural qualities such as roughness and smoothness.
 
It is such sonic or tonal qualities of awareness that I believe are what actually lie behind and manifest as the form of bounded objects and as the sensory qualities of these forms - including their basic spatial shape and texture. The recognition that vibration (spanda) and sounds (matrika) are the source, mother or 'matrix' of all bounded things - all bodies - is of course central to the tantras.
 
All these senses, understandings and tantric recognitions come to expression in the act of puja as murti darshan. For the murti is a human bodily form given to (and inseparable) from the formless awareness that is its source. Not just seeing but sensing the body of the murti with one's whole body allows one to enter a state of resonance with the divine qualities of awareness or 'higher state of consciousness' it embodies.
 
This resonance - or rather the aware activity of 'resonation' or 'resonating' in turn allows one to:
 
(1) experience both one's own body and that of the murti as embodiments or expressions of the same immanent-transcendental qualities of the divine awareness (spaciousness, bliss etc.)
 
(2) to experience one's own body as inwardly taking on the shape and form of the murti, and thus (3) experience not just one's 'own' body and that of the murti but every body in the entire universe as "one's own" body - that is to say, as 'owned' only by 'one' - not the limited self or ego but that ONE Awareness of which all bodies are an embodiment.
 
In this sense the Self (capital S) being identical with the One Awareness does indeed engage in a pure activity (Gentile) of "becoming other" - of bodying itself in countless forms. 'We' do not become other, Rather It becomes and bodies us in ever new or other ways and forms.
 
In this response to your letter lies the key to all I have written also about the nature of 'tantric pair meditation' in The New Yoga - which involves the far more daring act of inwardly sensing and identifying with the bodily form of another human being - thus coming to actively sense and resonate with their soul, and to actively embody and incorporate their soul in all its qualities - not within one's 'own' soul so much as within the One awareness that is the Self. Better this than abiding in a state of dualistic separation of 'self' (small 's') and 'other' - or feeling one's body possessed by the soul of another.
 
As for Abhinavagupta, Utpaladeva etc. let us then not speak of them or 'their' experiences of objects - as if they were bounded selves. Rather let us recognise them as they recognised themselves -as
identical with that One Awareness embodied in all 'objects' - all bounded things and beings.
 
 
Acharya

Dear Peter:

One of the barriers the average person faces when first told about the fundamental ideas and practices of TAP is his assumption space is something physical, if intangible. Not in experience but "outside" it. As an encapsulated "I" the newcomer craves to connect to something bounded, pleasing as in the sense of touch.This is how he's always gotten his temporary gratification. Having read about Shaivism, the idea of objects in space as objects in awareness becomes plausible, and a notion of a payoff from the practices, in the form of something like an enhanced esthetic enjoyment begins to seem possible, and so does the goal of freedom from identifications and addictions. Then it would be nice to find mentors and peers who have experienced awareness as something more than what you thought it was; as alive, and a fundamental reality. Usually you're surrounded by people who you can't discuss these things with, and caught up in anavamala; including personal memories, complexes or whatever. The challenge becomes getting to a place where there begins to be positive reinforcement from experiences of transcendance,or transcendance/immanence.

I've been thinking, after reading many accounts of Abhinavgupta, Utpaladeva etc., about HOW these people experienced objects appearing in their awareness. In connection to this, I mentioned Aristotle's account of perception, in point 7 of the list I made and sent on Jan. 22. When the soul perceives an object, according to J. Lear, Aristotle's explanation is that it "takes on the form" actually becomes the form, of the object. The thought and the object of thought are one. And he says this is how God thinks. The jiva, the average man or whatever, does not experience that this is what is happening. Either he just thinks the object is "there" in space, separate from and unrelated to his soul, or that there is the process described by science of a transmission of vibrations between separate bodies resulting in a brain process which causes him to see an object in his head. Wonder if Lear's -Aristotle's idea of perception if experienced as such, could be likened to the experience of Shiva-Shakti: the usual subject-object dualism is not the fundamental reality, actually it's Shiva's play. It also reminds me of Gentiles "pure act" in that the "play" is that of the Self becoming other (causa sui).

Anyway, the point is that there are barriers, of anavamala, personal history, cultural beliefs, which come up in practicing the New Yoga, and it seems important that there be some initial experiences of positive reinforcement, however these can be triggered. I find reading and contemplating to be effective at times in opening up the imagination.

Steve

Helping others to ‘TAP’ – to understand and apply ‘The Awareness Principle’

What follows are some simple ways of explaining ‘The Awareness Principle’ to people with no prior knowledge of yogic philosophy, Shaivism or The New Yoga - and helping them to experience the benefits of Practicing Awareness in everyday life. The principal outcome of the carefully worded explanations and suggestions below is to come to an understanding and experience of pure awareness as empty space – and thus as fundamentally distinct from anything we are aware of in space – whether thoughts or things. This is the ‘Fundamental Distinction’ that allows us ‘The Fundamental Choice’ – the choice to identify with the pure awareness of something, rather than with any particular thing (or thought, or emotion) that we are aware of.

Explanations 1:

Have you heard of The Awareness Principle (TAP)? This is a new philosophical and therapeutic principle which comes from Indian yogic philosophy and is part of something called ‘The New Yoga of Awareness’ – a way of practicing meditative awareness in everyday life. A central principle of The New Yoga is that awareness is not something inside us or contained in our heads and bodies. Instead it’s the other way round. We are inside awareness, which is the space in which we all exist and in which we experience all things. Understanding and applying The Awareness Principle can be very helpful in freeing us from getting lost in, worked up by or bound up with our thoughts and feelings. Would you like me to introduce you to it and show you how to apply it?

Questions 1:

To begin with, if you can answer the questions I’m going to put to you with a ‘yes’ or follow any of the suggestions I am going to give you, raise your right hand. Do you understand?

Is there a difference between the empty space of this room and the things in it?
Is there a difference between your body and the empty space around it?

Suggestions 1:

Be aware of an object in this room (…such as that chair/table over there).
Now be aware of the empty space around it.
Can you be aware of the object (chair, table) and of the empty space of this room at the same time?


Explanations 2:

The Awareness Principle is about what is called ‘pure awareness’. Pure awareness simply means awareness as such, rather than any particular thing we are aware of. The Awareness Principle teaches that awareness as such is like empty space, different in principle from everything we are aware of within it.

In fact, The Awareness Principle teaches that pure awareness is the space in which we experience or become aware of things - not just things around us like tables and chairs but also things going on within us like thoughts and feelings.

Just as the space around some thing or some body is not the same as that thing or body we experience in it, neither is awareness the same as any thought or emotion we experience in it.


Suggestions 2:

Be still for a while and raise your hand when you are aware of a thought coming up in your mind.

Now be still again, but this time, when a thought comes up attend to the simple awareness of the thought being there, rather than the thought itself.

Did you feel the difference when you attended to the awareness of the thought rather than the thought itself?

Explanations 3:

Just as there is a difference between any thing we are aware of and the space in which we are aware of it, so there is also a difference between any thought or feelings we are aware of and the pure awareness of it.

Like the empty space around it, the awareness of a table is not itself a table.
Similarly – and these are words to learn by heart:

The awareness of a thought is not itself a thought.
The awareness of a sensation is not itself a sensation.
The awareness of an emotion is not itself an emotion.
The awareness of a feeling is not itself a feeling.

This recognition – that just as there is a fundamental difference or distinction between space and things in it, so there is also a fundamental distinction between awareness as such and anything we are aware of – is called ‘The Fundamental Distinction’. The Fundamental Distinction offers us what is called ‘The Fundamental Choice’.

The choice is between identifying with anything we are aware of – whether an object, thought, emotion or sensation or alternatively, identifying with the pure awareness of that thing, which is like the space in which we are aware of it – in fact it is that space.

Questions 2:

How much space do you feel you take up in this room?
How far beyond the boundaries of your skin can you feel your awareness extending into space?

Suggestions 4:

Be aware of a feeling or sensation in your body. Now attend to the pure awareness of it - which is the same as the empty space around your body and filling this room.

Feel your awareness as something filling the space of this room and not encapsulated within your skin or confined within your head.

Explanations 4:

The understanding that awareness is different from anything within it is healing and therapeutic. That is because it frees us from identifying with anything that is going on within or around us. In particular it frees us from identifying with our thoughts, emotions and impulses.
Daily Practices of Awareness 1:

In any situation where you find yourself worked up by and bound up with any particular thought or emotion – identified with it – remind yourself that:

• The awareness of the thought is not the thought!
• The awareness of the emotion is not the emotion!
• Feel that awareness pervading your body like clear empty space -
        and extending into the entire space around your body.

Explanations 5:

One way of helping us identify with pure awareness is by changing the mental words with which we think our everyday experiences. Instead of thinking or saying to ourselves: ‘I feel really angry/upset’ we can simply say: “there is an awareness of an angry/upset feeling within me”.

The trick is to drop the word ‘I’ and instead say ‘there is an awareness of…’

Suggestions 5:

Think of a typical situation in which you tend to get really worked up by or bound up with your thoughts and emotions – identified with them.

Recollect or imagine you are in such a situation right now.

Instead of identifying with the thoughts or emotions it brings up identify simply with the awareness of the situation, and with the awareness of those thoughts and emotions.

Daily Practices of Awareness 2:

When you are out in the street and are just aware of any ordinary thing such as a particular shop, car, bus, cyclist, person, tree, dog etc. say to yourself ‘there is an awareness of this shop’, ‘there is an awareness of this car’, ‘there is an awareness of this tree’ etc.

When you enjoy a piece of cake or a sunset, say ‘there is an awareness of pleasure’ or ‘there is an awareness of delight’ or ‘there is an awareness of sweetness’.

When you hurt yourself or see something you don’t like, say to yourself ‘there is an awareness of pain’ or ‘there is an awareness of annoyance’ or ‘there is an awareness of feeling upset’.

By removing the word ‘I’ from your awareness of things, and replacing it with ‘there is’ you can remind yourself of The Fundamental Distinction and practice The Fundamental Choice – identifying with the pure awareness of something and not with the thing, thought or feeling itself.

Daily Practice of Awareness 3:

Whether you are walking outdoors or sitting indoors, be aware of the space all around your body and all around all the things you are aware of.

• If you are outdoors regularly glance up at the sky and remind yourself of the vastness of space.
• If you are on the street attend as much to its empty space as to the houses, cars and people in it.
• If you are indoors, keep returning your attention to the empty space filling the room and surrounding the things in it.

Through these simple daily Practices of Awareness it will become second nature to you to be as much aware of empty space as of things in it. As a result you will learn to feel space as a field of awareness, and be able to distinguish that awareness from anything you are aware of within it. You’ll be able to identify with pure awareness, which is the space in which exist we experience all things.

Explanations 6:

To the extent to which you are able to feel and identify with the space of pure awareness around your body, you can begin to give more and more intense awareness to whatever it is you experience as going on within that space and within your body – sensations, moods and emotions for example - yet without identifying with them.

Sugggestions 6:

If you feel a mood or emotion inside yourself allow yourself to be aware of where and how you feel that emotion in your body - rather than thinking or talking about it, and without having to either express or repress it.

Seek to feel your bodily sense of any particular mood or emotion more intensely rather than less, and to stay with it as long as it is there in awareness – affirming and even amplifying it, whilst at the same time using the mantram ‘There is an awareness of ….’ to avoid identifying with it.

By giving a particular mood or emotion more time and a more intense awareness, it will in time reveal itself to you as an awareness in its own right - something that brings new things to light in the larger space of awareness that surrounds it.

Be prepared for new and unexpected insights – a new and unexpected awareness - to ‘come to mind’ as you stay with the mood or emotion - not by thinking ‘about’ it but by simply staying with your direct bodily awareness of it.

Daily Practice of Awareness 4:

Do not ignore or dismiss anything you are aware of within or around you, no matter how disturbing or discomforting, but instead focus on and even deliberately intensify your bodily awareness of it – the way you sense it outwardly with your body or the way you feel it inside your body. At the same time stay in touch with and remain identified with the larger space of pure awareness around it and around your body.

This daily practice will ensure that identification with pure awareness does not dissociate or detach you from yourself, other people or the world, but instead intensifies and enriches your sensual, feeling awareness of all that you experience within and around you.


If you want to know more about The Awareness Principle and how to apply it check out: www.theawarenessprinciple.blogspot.com