A Distant Cousin of Awareness: Attention - 7th November 2017

Sometimes I see that the seeing also happens from two places. I'm not sure if this is my imagination or true; this is what I want to check with you. Sometimes I am away from the place of the witness being the subject and phenomena being the object, but sometimes it feels like the awareness is itself being observed. I am no more in the place; the awareness itself becomes like an object that is observed, that is observing the world here.

That is so. What happens is that in this phenomenal state, as you know, that which we call the waking state, then there's a power which is available here which is like a distant cousin of awareness, which is called attention. It's a cousin because it is quite similar; it does not have a color, it does not have a shape, it does not have a size. So when attention moves—suppose it moves from here to here to here—then it seems like different objects come to life. And as I allow attention to do something, it can feel like I went there: I went to my talk, I went into imagination, I was daydreaming, I was with this person, I was in Satsang. So basically, it is so intimate that we confuse it with 'I' very often.

So this is what we are talking about. One is this attention, which is the power of phenomenal perceiving, that which means a nominal object level. And it is so intimate to the self, it can seem like it is 'I'. So this is perceiving. If you were to check, 'Okay, where is this attention reporting back to?' then you will find that it is reporting to the self. This is unchangeable. Whether the attention went on this, or the attention went on this other, or attention came to even the presence—where is the content of what this attention is bringing? Where is it being delivered? Who is attention reporting to? Then you will find that it reaches the self. And this self is always aware of the movement of attention.

We get caught up in the content of the attention and we feel like we are there. So that is one, like perceiving: 'I am the content of what I am perceiving.' And sometimes it is this clear seeing that whatever this attention might be bringing to me, it is only I am just a self. So when we are identified with the content of our attention, it can feel like we are an object. When we see that I am empty of all limitation, empty of all boundary, and empty of any physical attribute, I cannot make a picture of myself. So this is your non-phenomenal, non-experience experience of the self.

If you feel that there is an object which you're finding which is awareness itself, then find out what is aware of that. Find out what is aware of that, and you will see that that which is aware of any object ultimately itself is not an object. And yet it is you. This is the beauty of Satsang. And you see that you are not an object, and yet you are. This is the most ordinary and the most extraordinary discovery that you can make. Ordinary because it has always been this; there is nothing special in this. And extraordinary because you wonder how you ever considered yourself to be an object.