Freedom is Not a State Where Attention Completely Rests Only in Awareness - 18th Jan. 2016

Yes, but the enjoyment of it is not identification with it?

Yeah, okay. This is a very good point because sometimes this confusion can be there that, 'Wow, this beautiful love here and peace here can be experienced and there's great joy which comes.' Enjoyment of it... it's like swimming and drowning and swimming, and it can be like that. Then the mind will come and judge it and say, 'See, now you're enjoying, means you identified.' It's not like that. To attach means to identify, means that there's this feverishness about it not going, or it staying just like this. Really, that is attachment purely. If it's just wonderfully seen, wonderfully felt, nothing wrong with that. But as awareness, which is unconcerned even with presence or not presence, then it is definitely not concerned with any feeling, no matter how sublimely beautiful it might be.

And it is found usually—not that... that's why I don't say this enough because sometimes it can become an expectation or benchmark like this—but it is found usually that those who are not concerned with any thing which is arising, then all of these feelings and these beautiful chocolate flavor things, they seem to chase those. Those who are chasing these things, then these energies seem to be running from these forces. And there's a great trust in being also. That means that it knows when, how much to give. Yeah, I used to say this earlier, you'll remember, that God knows exactly how to cook this recipe because how much sugar, how much spice, how much... so when you're not attaching to the mind and saying, 'You could mess it up, I want more sugar, more chocolate,' so like this, when we know that that which is the creator of all of this knows exactly what to do.

And yes, and there's not even a desire for... actually it's more just clear seeing. There's no desire for any sort of feeling experience, but it's just sometimes it comes very strong. Looking and like really looking, well just looking and confirming, then it's just clear. And that somehow the experience of that clarity is different when I'm not like actually looking, if that makes sense. Like I know it's always the most... anytime I check in my heart, it becomes like this.

Yes, I feel this is important to clarify for all of you. Freedom is not a state where attention completely rests only in awareness. It's important to know because there can be this expectation that once I'm free or realized or something like that, then my attention will only be in awareness itself. Then if that is what it was, if that was God's will, then God would not project this world. So if this waking state is happening, the natural flow of attention moving to objects and to other things will flow. And when attention is there, then it doesn't seem like awareness is just aware of itself because other phenomenal things are coming into our attention, see?

But the good news is that attention is reporting back the same being, which is ultimately the same awareness. Attention is reporting to who? He said, 'Look at this.' The attention we say is going, but is it going completely? Because then I would not be able to call it my attention at all.

It's gone. When you give me some fresh attention, it doesn't... like, it's more less common now that it just goes and completely gets lost or whatever in the appearance. It's like... but that makes sense. Like even though it can still go, it goes outwards, it doesn't...

What happens is it becomes less mind-riddled. Yes, it becomes less mind-riddled and the fogginess, the sense of fogginess reduces. And how does the fogginess come? Have you contemplated this? Sometimes we have that... you try to bring your attention to your mind thoughts and to the world, and suddenly everything becomes blurry. The attention is limited. When you try to put it on two different things at the same time, everything seems to blur. This computer will be blurry when my attention is on at home. But this blurriness reduces because we are not that mind-riddled anymore. So it's almost like this practice of mindfulness where we're completely with what is seen. So it seems very clear and it is seen in this because there are not too many pulls and pulls to our attention. Because our mind is not as magnetic as it was, then you find that life seems to have a lot more clarity and space. Our vision seems much more global, just accepting, you see?

Regular people in the world, especially in the workplace, all their life things like this, they're not... not there usually. They're just confused between the external world and the mind and what's going on. Now what's happening is that it's just settling. The... we see it's not going anywhere because it's still my attention. It's reporting back to me as being, and this being is ultimately made up of awareness of all. So you can never lose touch with the awareness that it is. So we were seeing the other day, it's like a dog on a beach which is not going anywhere. But if the purpose of it was for the dog just to stay home—this dog example is coming—then you would not take it out for a walk at all. If the purpose was for awareness just to be aware of itself, then you could not create this world, you see.