What is Self-awareness? As for Self-awareness, how to start? Because Self-awareness is an important element within my talks; because Self-awareness constitutes the basis of the Recognition of the Truth about who we are.
We cannot confuse the image that we can investigate, the image that we have about ourselves, the image that we have about who we are… The investigation of that image…
The purpose of Self-Awareness is not to give you knowledge about who you believe you are, but to discover the illusion of who you believe yourself to be. Notice the difference. The idea you have, the image you have, the concept you have of yourself, this concept, this image, this idea, this is not real.
This set of beliefs, this block of beliefs, that you have about who you are, is what sustains you within a psychological, internal condition of ignorance. This ignorance is the lack of the Truth about You.
So, here we put the word “Self-awareness” in a new sense – in fact, quite different from the one that psychology uses. Self-awareness is the observation of yourself. How do you approach something you don't know about? You can't approach it with an idea, with a set of beliefs, with a huge block of images.
You approach what you don't know as an investigator, as someone willing to look closely at what it is. This is how we have to approach ourselves.
The lack of this approach keeps you identifying yourself or giving identity to all these images, beliefs, concepts, to everything you believe to be. This continues because of the lack of true Self-awareness.
So, what is Self-awareness? And what is the importance of Self-awareness?
Self-awareness brings you closer to the Vision of the Truth about Yourself, the end of the illusion about who You are. Therefore, Self-awareness is something that can only be truly understood within a vision of non-duality. Only non-duality must be the basis for this investigation, not the image you already have, the belief you already have, the concept you already have about yourself.
Thus, approaching oneself must be based on the Truth of Advaita Vedanta. So, Advaita Vedanta has a true approach to this issue of Self-awareness.
The result of Self-awareness is the Truth of your Essential Nature, your Real Nature, which is non-dual… the non-dual nature of your Being. Your Being is one Reality with everything; therefore, it is this non-dual Nature – there is no you in your Being and the world outside; there is no you in your Being and the other outside.
The movement of history, the movement of memory, the movement of recollections, of situations, events, incidents, accidents… whatever happened to you happened to this body-mind, did not happen to the Truth of your Real Identity, of your Real Nature.
Thus, all this cultivation of memory – which concerns a memory linked to this body and mind – all this memory is not something relative to what You are in your Being, but to this mechanism, this living organism.
Self-awareness will make you realize the Truth that You are not the body, You are not the mind and You are not this story, You are not this memory. Because you are getting confused with this story, because you are getting confused with this memory, you are seeing yourself as someone placed in time – this is the time of memory, it is the time of images, the time of remembrances.
This past, present and future are something that exists only within this psychology of yours. So, we are referring here to a time that is not real, to this psychological time, which is basically memory; and memory is basically thought.
So, we have to investigate this, investigate ourselves, learn from ourselves, discover the Truth about ourselves – this is Self-awareness.
Here, as we deal with Truth, Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening, the Revelation of your Being, we cannot neglect this – the importance of True Self-awareness – because the Truth of your Being is the Divine Truth, it is the Truth of God. So, you are not the “person” you believe you are.
All the knowledge you have is always the knowledge of thought, memory, remembrance, a set of images, recollections, which is basically this time that is not real; it is the time of thought – it is the past, which is thought; it is the present, also imagined by thought; and the future, also imagined by thought.
The Reality of Life happens in your Being, as your Being here and now, and here there is no “I”... this “I” to be known.
Therefore, the expression Self-awareness here does not refer, in these meetings… We have meetings here online and also in person, in addition to retreats, in addition to these videos that you have access to here on YouTube. We have several videos on this subject, on the all-important subject of the True Meditation and Beauty of Self-awareness, of the Truth of Self-awareness. There are two issues linked here, showing you that Self-awareness is not the knowledge of this “I,” but the Realization of the Truth of the “not I.” The absence of this “me” is the Truth of your Being.
An approach to Meditation, this approach to Meditation, is an approach to your own Being through Self-awareness. So, the path to Meditation passes through Self-awareness. Without Self-awareness, there is no True Meditation; Whatever you mean by that word, whatever you imagine about that word, doesn't reflect what we're talking about here.
Note that Meditation goes through this investigation of the false. That which you can perceive in yourself and discard, in this self-investigation, is the false.
This set of beliefs, this set of ideas, this set of images that you've formed, over all these years, about who you are, is not real, it’s something illusory. This contact with Self-awareness, which is the observation of this movement of the mind bringing these memories, these remembrances, this being seen here and now… Looking at this requires you to get closer so you can see it up close.
So, Self-awareness is this approach where you can look at what is happening here and now, at these more superficial memories and at these more hidden memories.
What is at the conscious level is what is closer to be perceived, and what is at the deepest level, at the unconscious level, is what seems to be a little further away. And yet everything is here, as part of this mind consciousness, this egoic mind.
This mind consciousness, this egoic mind, is composed of this memory, this psychological memory, this psychological memory that constitutes the “I,” the ego, the “me.”
Thus, Self-awareness is looking at this “me,” this “I,” observing each thought, each feeling, each emotion, every sensation, whatever is appearing right here and now.
Then, it is possible for you to free yourself from the psychological conditioning by discovering your True Self, your True Nature, the Nature of God present here and now.
The importance of this is that when there is this Self-awareness, this contact with Meditation happens simultaneously, so you have this Revelation of this innate Happiness, this innate Love, this innate Peace of your Being.
So, all these models we know of psychological unhappiness are nothing more than frames constructed by thinking and feeling about who we are. With these frames, we identify and confuse ourselves because of the lack of this Freedom from illusion, this misunderstanding, this deception; because of the lack of this Freedom from this programming, the psychological conditioning, which makes us egocentric, unhappy creatures.
These frames are frames that are well recognized by all of us – the sadness, the anguish, the pain of loneliness, the different fears, the psychological restlessness, this internal chatter within each one of us, the different models of conflicts, contradictions, dilemmas, of psychological pain present in this “I”… For example, we have envy, we have jealousy, we have ambition… and where there is ambition, envy, jealousy, there is no Love.
Our relationships… We desire, in our relationships, Love. But there is no Love! We can have affection, tenderness, we can have complicity, we can have companionship, but along with that, we have aggression, competition, envy… All this because of ambition, the desire to dominate. It is always the sense of the “I,” of the ego, in its model, in its pattern of egocentrism.
So, this structure of egocentrism is present because of the absence of Truth, which is the Revelation of your Being. So, our work here is to discover the beauty of our Divine Nature, the Nature of our Being. Realization of That, some call Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening.
This Divine Grace, this Divine Energy, this Divine Presence in us, when Awakening, when Awakened, we are beyond this illusion, the illusion of a mistaken identity, of a false identity, of an illusory identity, trapped in the model of psychological conditioning, trapped in this egocentric structure, trapped in this illusion.
The work of True Meditation, here and now, becomes fundamental, the Recognition of who we are, the study of ourselves – not the study of books, not what the books say about who we are, not what the books of sociology, psychology, theology talk about God or about us. Knowing what the books say will not work.
Here, it’s about looking at yourself, seeing your reactions, seeing your motivations, your intentions – the intentions so declared and the hidden ones – being aware of yourself here and now, moment by moment.
This constitutes the beginning, the start of Self-awareness; this reveals the True Meditation and so you can release that illusion, the illusion of being “somebody” here and now, within this model, by realizing that this model is something that can be observed without an observer – thought can be observed without a thinker, feeling can be verified without that identity wanting to react to it, fight it, do something about it.
Here, the observer perceives the illusion of himself through Self-awareness. This is quite paradoxical! Self-awareness is the direct realization that there is no “I,” there is no observer. That falls away, that illusion disappears, because when there is no longer this separateness between that which is observed and the observer, the observer realizes that it is nothing but a thought, and as a thought it disappears, and That which is present is that Reality, is this Divine Truth, is this Real Consciousness.
In general, we use the expression “consciousness” and, here, consciousness is just that mind consciousness. All consciousness that you have about who you are is mental. That which is Real Consciousness transcends this “me,” this “I.” This Consciousness is the Real Consciousness, it is Life, it is the Whole, it is Existence, it is your Being, which is non-dual.
So, there is no you and the world, you and life, you and God, you and the other; there is only Consciousness! This is Spiritual Enlightenment, This is Spiritual Awakening, This is True Self-awareness or this True Self-awareness shows you the Truth of That which transcends this “I” and this specific knowledge.
So, we are before That which is nameless, unspeakable; we are facing Spiritual Enlightenment or Spiritual Awakening.
That is our subject here. Therefore, this is the subject that we deal with here in our channel.
If this is something that makes sense to you, leave your “like,” subscribe to the channel... Reminder: we have online meetings and also face-to-face meetings, and we can work on this together. OK?
Thanks for the meeting. See you soon.
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