Awareness Is Not The Same as Attention - 2nd August 2016

It's directed towards something, so it seems to be specifically directed. And the fact that attention seems to be specifically directed also implies then that it is limited, you see? Because if it needs to be specifically directed, or it is specific in what it is conveying or bringing—the content that is being drawn—that means that it is not by default everywhere at once. So, as opposed to awareness, which is unchanging in this way and is all there is at the background of all of this, this way of awareness playing in the phenomenal level as attention seems more like it is limited. So we will do experiments over the areas where we say that we cannot bring our attention. We can be with that completely and be with an external scene. Through a series of movements, one of them starts to glow as our focus changes. That itself shows us that attention is used in this way, you see? Whereas awareness remains untouched through all of this.

So what is dependent on this attention? I want this to be a bit like a class, but it's important too because there are some questions about this. What is dependent on this attention? Attention is our phenomenal perceiving, because there is no phenomenal perceiving which is possible without our attention. So therefore we can say that, depending on the attention, phenomenal perceiving is present or absent. But we cannot say that about awareness. It is a very important but subtle point, which is that depending on the presence or absence of attention, there is phenomenal perceiving or not. We can never say that there is awareness or not, because even to say phenomenal perceiving was not there, there is an awareness of it. So that is why you see that it is the phenomenal perceiving which belongs to Being, and attention reporting back to Being in some way. Although it seems as intimate to awareness, actually at one point I have to call it a 'train whistle' because it is phenomenally impossible to distinguish the point of birth of Being and attention. So the other way of saying it is that some also use them synonymously. But it's very good to look at it this way to see that that which we call the phenomenal perception is dependent on this primal force called attention. Therefore, that phenomenal seeing is different from awareness. The phenomenal perceiving is different from awareness in the very nature of its limitedness and dependence on this force of attention, versus awareness being unlimited by any constraint of any sort.

This seeming distinction... now let's see whether we can pull it back together to show that literally this is one. So this is just having some fun. I don't want to sound very serious when I say that it seems synonymous with the Being. How? With the explanation of the Self. While we bring our attention on the source of 'myself,' that's what I'm saying. You were saying the other day that many are saying that Being conscious of, or bringing attention to something, is the same thing. So I like to distinguish between the two so that it's clear. So now we rolled it out in a sense, and I don't know how many actually... I hope some of you are seeing that the phenomenal perceiving seems dependent on this force called attention, and yet the awareness which is the backdrop of all of this is independent of this attention. This is important to see.

Now, what is the point of this discussion? It is not to inject reality into Advaita. It's not that. But to see that for awareness to experience itself in a dynamic way, it's almost like this: if this hand was awareness and the hand wants to experience the hand, then a finger must arise from the hand to be able for the finger to experience the rest of itself in a dynamic way. So what happens is that within this awareness itself, the primordial phenomena called Beingness takes birth, and yet it is only made up of this awareness. In the sleep state, only awareness is. So if awareness is even this Beingness, it is made up of that. Yet to experience itself in a dynamic field, this Being is created, and this Being then can be said to be the witness of all that is phenomenal. Even though this awareness is aware even of this, this phenomenal witnessing is really subject to our attention, whereas this awareness is not subject to even attention.

So when we say that you bring our attention back home or to the source, you're actually bringing it to the point where the distinction between the manifest and the unmanifest starts to dissolve, to the point where the Yin and the Yang meet. They are only there in the section of awareness, and Being is there, and it is seen to be one. Why it is important to make these points is that otherwise there can be a lot of confusion between awareness and that which is the phenomenal perceiving like sight, hearing, taste. There is a very nice distinction if you notice. This is also made up of awareness ultimately, but phenomenal perceiving is subjective, whereas awareness is not. In fact, there can only be phenomenal perceiving if there is a change. The other day after Satsang, was it where we were wondering whether the sleep state must come when they run out of this limited quantity of attention that we seem to have? So that's also another beautiful contemplation.

Can you explain how sometimes I can focus on the content and focus on the 'I'? You can see the object, but actually the thinking mind is not there. The attention is on 'I'.

Yes, we can take the very severe case of these people like those who say, 'I've always had a low attention span.' When someone tells them to have a longer attention span, isn't it so? Attention, that's why in all the world it is so similar to awareness. It's colorless, attributeless. You cannot really measure the size of it. Yet it is almost like a witness playing the phenomenal role, like bringing its head out and looking up its neck, you know, the world through the eyes of attention. So because it is so intimate to itself, many use attention to describe awareness, and then they become confused. So then this is awareness, and awareness is so much more. What they are actually describing is the play of the attention. And because it is so intimate to awareness, there is no awareness outside of attention? But there is. Because there's a question also from a seeker that when we close our eyes, does it die? Please, I'm not sure.

To see that there is something called... see, there is no phenomenal perceiving, no force of attention, none of these primal forces in operation, yet awareness is. So that which is not coming and going, irrespective of this clearance, yet to be able to say that yes, this kept something which comes up, it is not just sleep. It is not a mental construct, certainly. So without there being attention, awareness remains. It's important to check on these things because otherwise the utility of attention can easily be confused to be awareness itself. But when you see that the potential for putting a little attention span, or 'I cannot give my attention to something,' and some will say 'I can multitask,' that means if attention can have various roles and play in this limited nature, how can we say that about awareness? So to see this functioning of this phenomenal perceiving through our attention, and yet having the awareness of the entire way of perception, and this awareness remaining untouched by the content of the truth—it's a very beautiful point to come to. And I know that this is not really... and I hate to use a word like 'advanced seeker,' but I feel just to use words, we can say that this is for those who have really been in Satsang and have been contemplating these things so deeply.