Introduction

This is a fairly deep dialogue – almost a snapshot of Advaita (till Witness Stage) – which I had with my friend who is not a student of Advaita but has been greatly inspired by the teachings of J Krishnamurti. In several of my blog articles and pages, I have mentioned that I follow the teachings of J Krishnamurti unto a certain point and then switch to Advaita. This happened in my own personal journey, thus it also becomes the basis of my teaching methodology for students in my NEEV Psycho Philosophy Group and NEEV Advaita Study Group.

Unfortunately, I never got around to stating the reason for this switch because of its complexity. I did write another article, on the same theme: Differences Between Advaita and J Krishnamurti : A Dialogue some time back, which could capture only a few aspects. Fortunately, however, this dialogue happened with my friend, and it went into great detail about the differences between teachings of traditional paths like Advaita, Yoga and Krishnamurti. The conducive aspect of this dialogue for many readers would be that since I was talking to my friend who is not very inclined to Advaita, even sceptical about all paths, I did not, rather, could not use any Advaita or Yoga path specific vocabulary.

Through this dialogue I show how ancient, time-honoured and tested paths have developed a very rigorous methodology for liberation. They have been critiqued, refined and commented upon by generations of deeply committed seekers and realizers of truth. Krishnamurti undercut these very strengths of these paths, calling them authoritative, mechanical, traditional and imitative techniques which dull the mind. To, rebellious new age, public school educated minds, the message of Krishnamurti came as a huge relief. It was a refreshing sight to see a person speaking about discovering truth in simple but exquisite English, clad in a suit stitched from Bond Street in London, driving a Mercedes Benz and hobnobbing with the rich and the famous. To a young mind bursting to the seams to know the mind through discovery within and of the world, the antiquated figures of saffron clad or semi clad saints with their ponderous vocabulary of archaic terms and a renunciate lifestyle seemed a big downer.

For these reasons my discovery of Krishnamurti was an explosion in life. I discovered him in the right phase of my life: in college. I have spoken about this in one of my audio interviews. For about seventeen years, he guided me in the spiritual journey, through the heat and dust of the world, grooming me from being a spiritual toddler to becoming a mature spiritual mind, razor sharp in the art of discrimination. I am heavily indebted to him for that. But his teachings has paradoxes.

One must differentiate between tradition and traditional. We may not like the traditional but the tradition leading to Moksha/Eternal Freedom is not talking about matters caught in the matrix of space-time. All these traditional paths are talking about eternal principles. Their terms may be archaic, but their import is valid across all space-time. Krishnamurti missed this point. And what’s more, it so happens, his teachings fall squarely in its principles, within the domain of some Indian school like Yoga of Patanjali (though his method is slightly different) and Theravada Buddhism – which leads to the same reality. It’s just that his language effectively couched the metaphysical principles he was basing his path on. Though he says that there is no path, there was certainly a path in is system, which I reveal in this dialogue.

This article shows how sophisticated the traditional systems are, how deft, well-structured and comprehensive they are as tools to lead an earnest seeker to liberation. These attributes are sorely lacking in Krishnamurti’s teachings. They are diffuse, unstructured, not graded and leave many questions unanswered for a serious seeker. Having said that, he has his place. His psychological style of exploring mind through real life relationships is something unparalleled. Thus, his teachings can be the gate for many a modern seeker to enter the bewildering world of spirituality and liberation. And most certainly what he said about truth was the same as all the paths say – it is never known as any object or concept of mind. Truth is revealed when the psychological mind ends, along with all its conceptualizations of ultimate reality.

For the sake of my friend, in the end I also mention English philosopher, Douglas Hardy who discovers the reality – Awareness, through a totally scientific exploration.

Contents:

1. Dialogue
   1. What is the Beginning of Inquiry?
   2. Inquiry Culminates With the Realization that You Are Not the Inquirer Ultimately
   3. The “Individual I” Arises Along With the World
   4. Space and Time Appear to Awareness
   5. Neti-Neti: A Teacher Does Not Reveal Awareness. He/She Only Removes Ignorance Clouding Awareness.
   6. Difference Between the Paths of Yoga, Advaita and Krishnamurti
   7. Awareness Never Really Became this Body/Mind and Phenomenal World: Separation is not Real
   8. Who Does the Inquiry and How is Awareness Realized?
   9. All Forms are Awareness Appearing Due to Different Conditioning Sheaths/Adjuncts
   10. Difference Between I Know Awareness vs I Am Awareness
   11. A Scientific Way of Knowing You Are Awareness

Dialogue

What is the Beginning of Inquiry?

Questioner:

The source of seeking is from a separate self. “I” exists because of “You”. Because the world demands me to be a separate entity, the “I” is born. And, the seeking is born because I am separate. The separate “I” wants to be part of the whole. The effort put to enlighten the intellect is by the “self”, which still exists with a very refined or non-existent intellect. That self is still a separate entity.

Anurag:

All inquiry, as you rightly said, exists because of the feeling of a separate self. Thus, all inquiry is born out of an illusion that one is a form or BMI – body/mind/intellect. Without this illusion inquiry won’t begin and there would be no need for any inquiry at all.

Inquiry Culminates With the Realization that You Are Not the Inquirer Ultimately

But paradoxically the inquiry culminates in the insight that you are not a form or BMI, that you are actually empty awareness. This insight does not mean that you were a form before the inquiry began and then inquiry made you empty awareness. It means that you were always empty awareness (no I, no you, no world), before the inquiry, during the inquiry or after the inquiry. The inquiry only makes you realize that reality has always been empty awareness.

Initially when you saw a mirage, you thought that the water was real, and you rush to drink the mirage water to satisfy your thirst. After inquiry, you come to know the mirage to be just a superimposition, then you don’t care for it, even if it appears: you don’t rush to satisfy yourself with it because you have seen its unreality. All the while, before you knew it was a mirage, or after you knew it to be a mirage, the mirage waters never contacted or wet the desert sand and had always been free of the form of the mirage. You as desert sand or awareness had always been free of true multiplicity of forms.

So the body/mind/intellect along with the world of phenomena in the two states of dream and waking as well as the unmanifest in the state of sleep, all appear as a mirage to a Jnani. The Jnani is not a person. That is how he appears to others and to Awareness. The Jnani is nothing but Awareness from the ultimate viewpoint. From the phenomenal viewpoint, he/she is a being who knows himself to be Awareness as opposed to beings who don’t know themselves to be Awareness but are Awareness anyway. Both the Jnani and others see the phenomenal world but the Jnani includes his body/mind/intellect as an object in the world of phenomena he sees, and knows himself to be other than any of these changing forms. The ignorant people consider themselves to be the BMI and all other forms as real as their BMI.

The “Individual I” Arises Along With the World

Also, you wrote,

“The source of seeking is from a separate self. “I” exists because of “You”. Because the world demands me to be a separate entity, the “I” is born.”

The form “I” and the world exist together. You cannot have an “I” till you have others as different from “I”, one form as opposed to another. So there is no question of “the world demands me to be a separate entity”. The moment there is a phenomenal world there are forms which are delineated in space at all levels – body/mind/intellect – and the “You” and “I” arise.

If the phenomenal world were to be the only reality, there would be no escape from the “I” and there would always be a form de-limited by other forms. But inquiry shows that the phenomenal world is not a reality. We are only “assuming” it to be real. Thankfully this is the case, otherwise, we could never be free of the limitation and suffering from forms.

In the state of dream sleep, as long as you are in the dream, you experience the pains and pleasures in that state. But as soon as you wake up from the dream, all the pains and pleasures that appeared so real to you in the dream appear to be unreal from the waking state view. You experienced all these pains and pleasures, and yet they appear to you unreal from the waking state point of view.

Now let’s see the waking state with perspective to deep sleep. You can be suffering from cancer in your waking state but when you are in deep sleep state, there is absolutely no suffering. In deep sleep, there are no forms (no I, no you and no world) and no suffering whatsoever. So even the waking state of the world of forms and its suffering is totally wiped out in sleep state as long as this state continues. So how real is the waking state? Each state cancels the reality of the other. But here we have a clue. While suffering is experienced in waking state and dream state where there is an “I” and the world of forms, there is absolutely no suffering present in deep sleep state which is formless. But also see one more paradox. You can inquire only in the waking state, where there is an “I” and other forms. You cannot inquire in the dream state and most certainly you cannot inquire in the sleep state where all suffering is absent (perhaps that is why. LOL!)

Space and Time Appear to Awareness

Questioner:

1. The awareness has self at the root, because this awareness has all the human experiences within it. To posit that there is this state of formless awareness within you means, you have recognized it as a state of formless awareness which you are describing. It either means there is a form that is describing the formless state which can only be in the past. The formless state, if it exists cannot be described in the present.

2. Deep sleep doesn’t erase the reality. So, the reality of the phenonomenal world exists even in deep sleep, except that there is no demand on us to be the form or the “I”.

Anurag:

Perhaps you did not understand what I wrote or you did not pay adequate attention to the words.

1.) All experiences are not within awareness. They appear to Awareness, which I am and everyone is essentially. A formless state is timeless. It exists at all times. In fact, space and time appear to Awareness.

2.) Perhaps you are not sleeping well :-). Deep sleep means that there is no space and no time and no forms. Deep sleep definitely does not erase reality because reality can never be erased. What can be erased is falsity and deep sleep does absolutely that. It erases the world of forms which is not real.

Questioner:

Whether within or appearing to awareness, they still exist. Awareness takes up a higher, superior position and space and time takes up a lower position. The separation still exists. It’s an individual awareness.

Anurag:

Lol ! How can something be individual (i.e having a form) and yet be formless

Questioner:

That’s precisely the question to you. Awareness is not formless.

Neti-Neti: A Teacher Does Not Reveal Awareness. He/She Only Removes Ignorance Clouding Awareness.

Anurag:

Do you know Awareness? I am not talking of Awareness the way Krishnamurti uses that word.

Questioner:

This is where communication would break down. Because, whatever you know about awareness can only be communicated through words, and which then would be perceived by me only through the words, and so I can never get what you know about awareness because the words would project something based on my background and conditioning. I can only reach the outer limits of thoughts as I see it. And leave it there, because ultimately, if I keep trying to see something other than what is, “I” will be always active. And, to believe that I have got ridden of the “I” is never possible. So, all teachers have no place because they can never ever communicate something which is not thought.

Anurag:

I agree Vijay, and Advaita too, agrees with what you say. So in Advaita, we never communicate what is Awareness. We communicate “WHAT IS NOT AWARENESS”. The method is neti-neti. All that is not Awareness are objects which are impermanent. When every single impermanent object is negated, then eternal Awareness shines by its own. Awareness is self-revealing. I don’t have to tell you what the sun is. The teacher just removes the clouds. The student sees the sun on his own because it shines when all clouds are removed. What is the cloud in self-inquiry? The cloud is ignorance? What is ignorance? That you have identified your sense of Self with body/mind/intellect. So Advaita only helps in removing your ignorance by removing your false identification with body/mind/intellect. When you see that you exist even when these three are negated, you shall see that this existence is formless. That is why Awareness is called Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat means existence.

Difference Between the Paths of Yoga, Advaita and Krishnamurti

Also, I have been saying continuously one thing which you are missing. Non-Duality is not about getting rid of the “ego-I”. That is also an approach. It is the Yoga approach, where you end the psychological mind. That is the approach which Krishnamurti too follows. This is the approach followed in dualistic paths like Yoga. No harm with that path. It too shall lead you to formless Awareness.

What Non-Dual paths say, is that the reality is present all the time. It is not that the reality, Awareness, is absent when “ego-I” is present. In fact, “ego-I” cannot be present without the substrate of Awareness. You are yourself talking of getting rid of “ego-I”. Which means you know that it is a conditioned reality. It means you somehow know that “ego-I” is not actually who you are, your real “I”. Which means that you exist even when the “ego-I” does not exist. In fact, in Advaita when a person calls himself as “I”, that “I” is actually Awareness itself, which is getting mistakenly identified with the “ego-I”. The “ego-I” in Advaita is not the psychological mind but the “ego-I” in Advaita has a very different meaning. The “ego-I” in Advaita is the ignorance in the intellect which is causing the false identification of Awareness with the body-mind-intellect.

So what all non-dual paths say is that “I” as the reality – formless Awareness is always present and unaffected by the “ego-I”, whether it stays or does not stay. Even the dualistic path of Yoga, too, says that the reality as Awareness remains unaffected by the mind at any point. So where is the difference between these two paths? Non-dual paths say that you can know the reality because YOU ARE THE REALITY. What hides the reality, therefore, is not something very real or physical like matter but just a superimposition caused by wrong knowledge. When you see a snake on the rope, there is not a physical snake on the rope which needs to be removed to know the rope. What do you do? Just shine a light. In Advaita, that light is knowledge which dispels the ignorance or wrong knowledge that you are the body, mind and intellect.

In the Yoga path, the ‘ego-I’ is taken to be real. It’s taken to be something really existent, like a physical snake on the rope, which will not be removed by knowledge but by killing the snake or killing or ending the ‘ego-I’. What you are talking about is a way to end the “ego-I”. You end the “ego-I” by not doing anything about it. It dies its own death. This is the way of Krishnamurti. It’s not exactly Yoga way, but the assumption in both is common: that the ‘ego-I’ is an actual entity. But if you look carefully at the formulation of your own words, you shall see that there is still something that can be asked from you. You wrote, “I can only reach the outer limits of thoughts as I see it. And leave it there,” Who is the “I” that sees the outer limits of thought? Who is deciding to leave it there? Who is making this choice? Is it not the “ego-I” itself that you are talking about? You see Krishnamurti actually skirted this issue. I guess, once, only once, he responded by saying that there is a part of your brain which is “unconditioned”. The problem with Krishnamurti is that he does not go with philosophy at all. He does not need to because his method does not require much. But the method is relying on a background set of philosophical assumptions. To an onlooker, the goal is made to look very simple: end the “ego-I” or the psychological mind. But who takes this decision? Who thinks about how to or how to not end it? Yoga school talks about these questions. It relies on its theoretical underpinnings for another school called Samkhya. It then does a little innovation in the Samkhya school. But the point is that the bonnet of Yoga school is open to be seen, examined and critiqued. Thus, it comes under heavy fire from Advaita philosophy in particular and other schools in general. Not that Yoga schools have not returned fire. I am sure they must have. Just that I have not got time to get around to their critique of Advaita. Another interesting this is that gradually Yoga got co-opted in Advaita and Advaita started looking more and more like Yoga with a different metaphysics. Krishnamurti did not want his theoretical underpinnings exposed. His interlocutors were often too weak to get it exposed. In his dialogues, he would often get agitated when cross-questioned and would abruptly snub some valid and brilliant questions. He developed a style, a language and a vocabulary that ‘seemed’ very free of all theorizing. His teachings draw the masses or somewhat intellectuals but if someone goes very deep metaphysically, someone who is more analytical and philosophical rather than psychological, one is bound to uncover serious contradictions in his teachings, because unlike Yoga school, whose basic principle he is following, the underlying philosophy of his method is hidden. Yoga is said to be a psychological path and Advaita is a more philosophical path.

Krishnamurti finally did leave clues in “Ending of Time”. He describes his own stages of experiencing in his journey – from mind (ego-I) to cosmic mind (cosmic-I) to emptiness (no ego-I & no cosmic-I but just the potential of both these I’s) to the source (I-Awareness). These are the exact stage of Yoga. LOL! What Advaita says that there is no need to travel this distance because all the while you are already I-Awareness. You just discriminate between all these other I’s (ego-I, cosmic-I and no-ego, just potential of both these I’s) and Awareness (which is always existent) and know that You Are the substrate of your body/mind/intellect and all the universe. In his later years Krishnamurti became a little Advaita like, where he started talking about liberation just by listening to the teacher – instantly. This is the exact Advaita way. But it happens only with very qualified minds.

Ultimately, if one is a Krishnamurtian, one has to question Krishnamurti too. Why not look at the criticisms levelled at him from other paths?

So which path is right? Which is wrong? There is nothing like that. You take the path which suits you, gives you peace and happiness I am not saying Advaita is the only path available. Though, one must remember that each path has a critique for the other. Advaita has for Yoga and Yoga has for Advaita. Krishnamurti has for all paths and all paths have for Krishnamurti.

Questioner:

Thanks for the detailed examining of some of the facts. What we both agreed upon at the beginning is that there is a separation that has happened, which created the “I”, and because we see/feel/know this separation, the inquiry begins. What is before this separation? You are saying that when we negate the separateness, we reach the source, and which is awareness and which is present in the separate forms as well. You are also stating that this source is also the “I” and which we are mistakenly identifying as a separate BMI.

So, thought is also seen as a superimposition on this awareness. So, awareness and thought are one and the same which is awareness. The ignorance according to what you are saying is that thought is identified as a separate form as “me”. If not, thought is also awareness. What you are saying is that the negation is done on the identification of the form as “my” form, not on the form itself.

Awareness Never Really Became this Body/Mind and Phenomenal World: Separation is not Real

Anurag:

Well, in Advaita, the separation has not “really” happened. The separation is caused due to a “superimposition” on the Real Self. The Yoga school philosophy, which Krishnamurti follows too, states that there is a “real” separation between “Awareness/Source” and “I”. Thus, in Advaita, your “ego-I” is not something psychological, it is a philosophical knowledge misunderstanding, an error of perception that superimposes the BMI on your real Self which is Awareness/Source. In Yoga, you have to actually remove the “ego-I” – which is a whole range of mental conditioning (called vasanas in Yoga language), and not a philosophical error as in Advaita. The “ego-I” is actually eliminated in Yoga through the experience of samadhi (asamprajnata samadhi or nirvikalpa samadhi), which is what Krishnamurti says too but through a different method. Well, in Advaita too, one cannot just jump to Jnana Yoga and its superimposition theory before a lot of mental conditioning is removed. This is where I use Krishnamurti’s teachings. In traditional Advaita, (Raja) Yoga is at times taken as a preparation too.

Who Does the Inquiry and How is Awareness Realized?

What Krishnamurti does not address in his teachings, which is a very big lacuna, that Yoga does address, is the fact of who is doing the inquiry. If the “ego-I” is the only thing that exists and it is all conditioned, then how can it ever get out of itself. This is the kind of loop Krishnamurti gets you in and never resolves. But then he uses some vague words and terminology like “flowering of intelligence” etc. The question that needs to be asked is if there is only “ego-I” then from where is this intelligence born? Even prior to this question is the question, “From where does the intelligence come in the first place even to question this “ego-I”?” So you see, all this is hidden under the cover with Krishnamurti. Yoga and Advaita are quite clear and comprehensive in this regard. They distinguish between the intellect and mind. What Krishnamurti means by “ego-I” roughly translates to chitta or mind of Yoga. What is the intelligence that can do inquiry and free the mind? It is called “intellect” in both these systems. The intellect/buddhi due to it’s greater proximity than body and mind to Awareness, reflects the light of Awareness. Thus, it is the intellect which does the heavy lifting work of inquiry in Advaita and the action of dissolving the mind in Yoga. In Advaita, at a certain point of inquiry, an insight arises that takes you beyond the intellect to Awareness. There is only one such though that can do this. It is called akhandakaravritti, a thought modification that takes you beyond thought. It is also called the tiger in the dream. Why? Because when you are dreaming, you are considering all of it real. But there can come a tiger in the dream that can scare you and wake you up. It was not a real tiger but a dream tiger, but it did its work of waking you up which other objects in the dream could not do. So in Advaita, the akhandakara vritti is the only thought modification in the illusion that can take you out of the illusion. This thought, like the dream tiger, gets destructed the moment you wake up to your real identity of Awareness. The whole of Advaita is also now seen as nothing but the contents of the dream reality of forms.

So you see, both in Yoga and Advaita, you are not caught in chains. There is the intellect which can inquire in Advaita and the intellect which can dissolve the mind in Yoga. In Yoga, once the intellect does its job of dissolving the mind (vasanas/psychological thought patterns/mental conditioning) it becomes latent. It arises only when required for some functional purposes but otherwise, there is total silence. The intellect in Yoga is not veiling Awareness, it is the “ego-I” that veils awareness and which needs to be ended.

All Forms are Awareness Appearing Due to Different Conditioning Sheaths/Adjuncts

Anurag:

Awareness is not present in separate forms. Awareness is the base of all forms. When a snake is superimposed on the rope, the snake as a head, body and tail of. Similarly, your body/mind/intellect and all other body/mind/intellects of others are seen as sheaths in increasing order of subtlety which are superimposed on Awareness like a snake on the rope. You are right in saying that all these sheaths are also Awareness because the snake is ultimately the rope only. There was never any real snake. But this is how things are in Advaita. Yoga would say that the form intellect, “ego-I” and body/mind are real. Intellect is prior to “ego-I” in it’s scheme of evolution. So in Yoga, the intellect dissolves the ego, which dissolves the identification with body/mind. It’s like a chain of evolutes. You break the link at “ego-I” and then you are liberated. But it is again clear here who is breaking this link “ego-I”. It is the intellect which itself becomes latent after doing the work and allows the Awareness as Source to be revealed.

Thus, in Yoga, the source is revealed only when the psychological mind is ended whereas in Advaita, there is no need to end the mind. One has to just discriminate between BMI and Awareness on which this BMI is superimposed. This discrimination is not just an indirect knowledge, just like other objects in a dream. It has to be direct knowledge, an insight, the akhanadakara vritti that shatters the dream in a single instant. At that very moment You who was doing the inquiry becomes the object and Awareness or the real “I” becomes the subject who is looking at the BMI of You as an object. This Awareness is not the BMI. It does not think or act or experience. All that is done by the BMI. This subject – formless Awareness is not You because You is part of the whole world of phenomena which are objects to Awareness, which is never absent.

So you are right in your understanding as per Advaita that your BMI is also Awareness, just as the snake on the rope is nothing but the rope. In Advaita, we call it conditioned Self/Awareness. But the word “conditioned” here is not meant psychologically. It is a philosophical term, meaning that the BMI is how formless Awareness appears when there is an error in perception. Awareness never became the BMI just as the rope never became the snake. The BMI is just an appearance on Awareness which you always are.

Finally, yes, You are just like any form or any object appearing to Awareness just like all other objects of the phenomenal world. In fact the whole phenomenal world is an object to Awareness.

Awareness is Never Known As An Object: You Are Awareness

Questioner:

I have a problem in saying that this is the end, and there’s nothing more than this. That once awareness is known, then we have realized. It is a marketing ploy by the spiritual teachers from the ancient till now to state that this is it, for they wish to proclaim themselves as having arrived and then go about converting others. I don’t see this knowing as the ultimate reality. This knowing is a perception by the brain rooted in the same substrate as the forms of thought that separate. One has only removed the identification thought. The awareness is still an illusion.

Anurag:

Awareness is not known as an object. So it is not You knowing Awareness as an object or concept or thought or sensation or form. There is no You in Awareness. There is absolutely no form there. You that talks and speaks and writes is an object to Awareness. The correct way of saying is that You Are Awareness in essence, without any superimposition of BMI. There can be nothing more than Awareness because Awareness is formless. It is already nothing. So if you say that there is something more than this, you would land up saying something absurd like nothing came out of nothing. LOL !

Awareness is that in which the split between the knower, knowing and the known has not occurred. Imagine light in space. You cannot see it. You shall see only darkness. The light is known to exist only when there is an object in space. Then it shines with the light of Awareness. The knower is that object which shines in the light of Awareness. That is why in Advaita, the knower is referred metaphorically as the moon and Awareness as the Sun.

About the marketing aspect of teachers who say that they have arrived I would say:

1.) If you are talking about me, I can say that I don’t charge any money from anyone. I have started no organization to induct any followers. I have not tried in any way to market and propagate myself. I just write. If people would like to learn or discuss things with me, I do so. Otherwise, I am going about my writing business quietly. I am not promising any reward to anyone like bliss, visions, ecstatic experiences etc. Awareness is devoid of all experiences. My students are good friends who are on par with me. Because as Awareness no one is high or low. As forms of Maya, there are distinctions. Two pots are made of clay. One pot knows itself as the form and therefore it fears the destruction of its form while the other pot knows itself as clay and does not fear any destruction of form as it will still remain clay. When you see the essence as clay, all pots are the same. When you see all pots as forms then all appear of different qualities, shapes and sizes. Same goes for people. So I know you as Awareness itself. Why shall I convert you? I cannot convert you into anything other than Awareness? Only forms can be converted, not formless Awareness. So why should I bother with conversion? You are already Awareness in your essence. LOL !

2.) I did not come to you to tell you that I shall teach you. You have approached me with your doubts, scepticism and questions. You could lay such a charge if I had come to you in the first place to induct you as a student In fact, Awareness is actionless. All action is happening only in illusion or Awareness conditioned by the waking state and dream state.

3.) Advaita is never about conversion. It is not a faith. If you see it, you see it. If you don’t, you don’t. Even if you don’t see, you are still Awareness. LOL !

Difference Between I Know Awareness vs I Am Awareness

You are right about someone knowing Awareness is still an individual. If someone says, I know Awareness, then he considers himself a knower seeing awareness as an object. I shall repeat the same thing again (because this is the most difficult aspect to realize). Awareness is a knowingness. It is not the knower. The knower is a superimposition on this knowingness. Awareness is that to which the knower appears. The knower is an individual. So the correct way to state is “I Am Awareness”. And this holds true for everyone at all times.

Talking about the brain, it is something very gross. It appears only in the waking state. In fact, the brain appears to the mind. Mind and brain are separate things Mind appears to Awareness, the brain appears to the mind. So it is something like Awareness – Mind – Brain, in the increasing order of grossness. From formless to form. You are locating awareness in your brain whereas it is just the opposite. Actually, this is the illusion engendered by Maya.

Finally, It’s my humble request, if you respond next time, please do not make the same statements that you have made earlier. Because I see that you come back to the same premises again and again. If you have anything new to say, it would merit my response. It seems a pointless exercise for either of us to keep saying the same things again and again to each other. I am sure you would agree with this 

Remember, I did not start this conversation, so I am not out there to convince you of anything. On the contrary, if you would like to convince me that I am under the illusion of having known the truth, which seems to be the case by your coming back again and again to the same premises, I have got your point. You do not need to keep driving it further. To this, I shall say what I have already said earlier: you are free to think anything of me. After all, the thinker, thinking and thought are only forms in Awareness. LOL !

A Scientific Way of Knowing You Are Awareness

I think I am getting your basic problem now. You are all the time thinking that I am talking of Awareness inside the brain. Well, that is how we are hardwired to think. This is the way Maya deluded us with its layers. Because the fact is just the opposite. It is the brain which is in Awareness, and that too it’s the gross projection of Mind.

English philosopher Douglas Harding understood that he was Awareness, in a totally scientific way. You can visit his website too. Perhaps you are averse to tradition and paths and be more open to a very “scientific” style which is free of traditional references. Whatever way you choose, if you don’t stop at any station like experiences, God etc. you land at Awareness only. LOL ! You know why? Because all paths and all forms are objects to Awareness. Douglas Hardy found the same using only tools of science.

Here is the website: https://www.headless.org/douglas-harding.htm

Questioner:

The journey is made beautiful with your insights and sharing. Words emerge and disappear. What is left is the essence. Thanks for the discussion and exploration.

Anurag:

Wow. That was so beautiful. Thanks !