Who is not conscious of you being aware? [public version]

NSo over the Easter weekend, I was on a little family camping trip. I was lying in the tent listening to the ambient noise, the trees, the wind in the trees, and I drifted off to sleep. Then I was having some really elaborate dream when that sound reappeared — the ambient sound of the wind and the trees — and it was like a channel switching. Yes, you have one soundscape and suddenly it switches, and that pulled me out of the dream, and then the visual side of it slowly faded away and the thought stream switched.

Anyway, so why am I telling you this? So when we look at dream to waking, or asleep to waking, it makes this very striking demonstration of everything that makes up an identity. It's easily replaceable. You can swap it out any moment. The soundscape can switch, the landscape can switch, the thoughtscape can switch. And it happens. It happens all the time. And just because of that ambient noise, it put it a bit more in perspective.

Or if you catch it from no dream, nothing to waking — again, I talk about that often. What you see is what I identified as myself the whole life. This whole life, it has no self-essence. Like in Buddhism they say all five skandhas are equally empty. Equally empty of anything that could be combined to create a self-entity, a conscious entity, because they are in themselves dependent on Sentience.

So all these streams combine and they create the entirety of an experience that's called life. But they cannot create a conscious, sentient, aware entity. And so you see it this way. All of this lacks any taste of "I" in the sense that everybody thinks there's an "I." It has no such taste. There's no individuality built into the streams. It is only by using these experiences to describe yourself that that assumption can be made. But what you see is all this is just — it's all happening. It's all observed. It's witnessed. However, it does not define what you are and it does not sustain you.

There's this deep belief that you are sustained by life — that these experiences describe you, define you, and they sustain you. But in fact, they do not. They are sustained by you, by what you are.

And if you look at this — all that's passing by, all that's being observed in that way — and then see what am I? It's very clear you are only just the Sentience, and there's no individual traits in all this. It's channels which can switch all the time. They're switching all the time.

All right, let's do Q&A. Yes, Neil.

QHi, Nabeel. Hi, everyone. I just wanted to say actually how much I really enjoyed Consciousness in the Absolute, the latest video. That's an awesome video. I mean, I was watching it again today and it's just wow. My reason for sort of stepping in here is — I don't know, as time goes on apparently, and after particularly watching your videos lately, I just find I've said a little... there's not a lot. I've got less and less to say. I had less and less questions. I mean, I see myself just a short while ago and it was just so much — so many questions, so much to ask. And I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing or it's just the way it is. But there's just like a contentment that happens.

It's almost like an Emptiness but in a good way. It's not like a... it's a beautiful setting. I feel like it's a beautiful setting — that the place that I had, that so many questions bubbled up from, it's still there. I mean, it's not like it has gone away, but there's just this sense of lightness. There's just a sense of... yeah, I can't even really put a word on it. I find it very difficult to express it. And I really do put it down to some of the stuff that you've given me, Nabeel. I've been reading Maharaj. I've been reading Consciousness in the Absolute — and you know, which is quite nice, the connection between your video and... I think you actually recommended that book to me, and that is just powerful, powerful, powerful stuff. And it was so great watching your video because of the things that you were talking about — I've already been... it's just nice the way it all meshed together for me.

But yeah, fundamentally I haven't got a question because I'm running out of questions in the field. It's like you just get to a point where it's just... I don't know if it's that thing of going back to the root, you know, that maybe there's something happening there — that it's just like there's just this kind of letting go of stuff and wanting, even wanting to understand, even wanting to... the feeling of like, well I've got to do something, there's somewhere to go. And it's kind of just... I don't know. Do you — anything you can tell me, is anything you could share about that? I'd be very grateful.

NYeah. I mean, the questions do drop off. Or because the thing that produces the questions might continue for a while — so it's producing the questions — but you know, the answer... the questions can be a thousand, but the answer is always the same. So then after a while, every time the questions come, you already know the answer. They just die off. And the answer also sets the perspective — like there's nothing to do, nothing to attain, nothing like this. So again all that also dies off.

And even for me, this running this channel — the interest has died off. First day it was very like every week I was doing something. So that's the way it goes. That's the arc of realization. Because the answer is so deep, and it is not about you. It's not about you as the individual. It is an answer about the nature of Reality. And so what is there to do? What is there? And who will try to understand it better? It's just the perfect answer. And that is why this contentment and calm and all that. It's the way things are. You've realized it, and the way things are is perfect.

QYeah, thank you.

NTurn that off. All right. Yes, James.

QHello, Nabeel. How are you?

NGood. How are you? Nice to see you again.

QYeah, good to join you. I'm not sure when daylight savings stopped, but yeah, only 5 a.m. for me in WA, so you can hopefully see me. Still pitch black outside. Yeah, I still have a few questions, so that's why I joined. A few of them I've written down, so maybe I'll just ask them one by one. I don't know.

For me, I'm still fairly early, I think, in any long practice or anything like that. As you know, I have had a spiritual practice but I'm not regularly meditating or anything like that. But this idea that a lot of teachers talk of — of just becoming aware of Awareness and meditating on Awareness. And then I read recently — it was either Rupert Spira or maybe it was in Perfect Brilliant Stillness that I've started reading as well — that Awareness is your natural state. So you can't really become aware of Awareness. It's just what you are when you're not thinking. But then teachers point to becoming aware of Awareness or following that stream back to its source. How does that feel any different to you if you were doing that versus not thinking? Is it the same thing?

NYeah. So I mean definitely you cannot be aware of Awareness. Awareness is how the Self is described. You are the Awareness. But what you can notice is the fact of being aware. That one is obvious. And so to meditate on Awareness is to meditate on the Self and your one quality of being aware.

Okay. And again it's not the formal meditation that's important, but only to see how deeply that is your only quality. And you can see it in all kinds of ways. And the less effort involved, the better — the more it hits you. Like what I was describing — just waking up from a dream, you notice: oh, all of that was not me. All of that which a moment ago I was so involved in as "this is the world, this is the character," and so on — none of that was you. So what was you? Because you were there and now you are here. So that one constant factor to all that is the quality of being aware. Whether thoughts are there or not there — that's the quality of being aware.

And it's the sage's focus, or as they're going down that path, is only discarding everything else until you arrive at that one factor. This is it. This is what I am. But you do not know yourself as an object or as something to observe, but as the basis of the observations.

So to follow — when they say go back to the source — but what is the source of Awareness? There is no source. Yeah, a lot of the instructions they can confuse there. Someone says meditate on Awareness. Well, how do you do that? You can't. Someone says go back to the source. Well, there is no source because Awareness is the basis. You could maybe trace a thought to its source. Then you say okay, yes, there's this — but there's nothing to observe, because the thought spontaneously arises within Awareness, but you cannot observe that because it's not a substrate. It is actually like the fundamental Reality does not have a substance. It is just real and present but also unobservable.

QYeah, thanks. Yeah, I guess that is what some people talk about as well, with the dualistic nature of language — that trying to describe or point somewhere, and all these beautiful analogies and this type of thing, but after a while they can be maybe counterproductive. Or they obviously help, but then if you focus on this whole notion of seeking and this type of thing, I guess that it becomes a bit of a trap almost, or blocks you from it.

So can I ask — the other question I was wanting to ask was around... what have I written here? I've got... so I'll just ask what I've written if this makes sense. Do you still think in your head "I" like before? Does anything change in the thinking mind? So this idea of the I-thought of before realization, let's say, and then after — does it still feel the same? Is there anything that changes in that regard?

NYeah, you could say that. Definitely, whenever the thought "I" arises now, it's hollow in a way. Like I had a certain meaning before; now the meaning of "I" is not that. But in language and in thought the "I" can still rise up with that old meaning, but immediately it's not actually meaning "I" — like synonyms, you know, which word, which meaning is being used at that moment. So when thought talks about "I," I know it does not mean I-I. So there's the actual realization of what the Self is, and that is done. It's clear. You can't take it back once it's done. You can't.

And then anything that says "I," anyone that says "I," "you," whatever — you can operate with that language, but it does not actually mean "I." It actually relates to your previous question. The pointer that was very effective for me was from Sri Ramana Maharshi. He said — it's part of a longer dialogue, but that one line was: "Awareness is another name for you." It's redefining what do you mean by "I." And then you go, you take "I" to mean something, and then you go search for Awareness — I want to realize what that is. Actually no — what you mean by "I" is wrong, and what you are is Awareness. And if you just sit with that, work with that, whatever, sleep on it — Awareness is another name for you. Why can you be called Awareness? And you just stay with that. It becomes clearer and clearer.

Yeah, I can't be called James because what is James? James has no meaning. It's just a name. But you are always aware. No matter what point you go back to this, you'll say yes, I am aware. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that is the meaning of "I." Awareness — this just makes it like... you take a quality which is so deeply you that it is you: Awareness. That's the meaning of "I." And then if a thought arises of "James has to do this or that" or "I have to do this or that," that's fine, but it's not referring to Awareness, which is the actual I.

QYeah. Yeah. I guess hopefully I'll find out. I missed what you said at the start. I don't know if I'm having a problem with my headphones or something, but it lags a bit when I'm... but at least you can hear me, so that's good. But yeah, I wonder — but I'll find out or not — if this sense I have now of "I" that I guess everyone has, if that is the same sense of "I" afterwards. It's just like... I think like you're saying it's just got a different meaning to it, or you're not attributing it to the wrong "I," let's say, but the sense doesn't change.

NSo the sense again — the sense was pointing at the wrong thing. You used to think the sense of "I" is about this individual, about an appearance and whatever. So yeah, but that sense now does not — again it's not pointing to an individual. It's just the sense of what Nisargadatta says "I am." It's just the sense of being present, being conscious. But then if you look at what is it that's conscious — there's no such thing. There's no particular thing that's conscious, and all that is is just this stream of experience which has no conscious core.

So the sense "I am" does not refer to what it used to either. It just refers to being aware. Of course that is you. So it is still the sense "I am," but not "I" as an individual.

QYeah. Well, that's what I kind of mean. I guess before there's still a... I imagine everyone has that felt sense of "I." I think that was a beautiful line in Perfect Brilliant Stillness where he says like when you refer to the real you or the real "I am," it is the same "I" that I refer to when I say "I am." I might be misphrasing that, but that was really beautiful. And just that sense of whatever we are, for lack of a better word, before you put thought to it and say — and your ego says that's me — that sense of Awareness... does that change or not? It's still this — is that continuous through the whole process and event of realization, and then there's just a different... well yeah if there can't even be meaning attributed to it. But anyway, I'll find out what I'm thinking or not is right or not, I guess.

NYeah. It's what changes is just what is being identified as "I." But the sense "I am" is not constant. It can also flicker, and that can be the thing that breaks the identification. Because when you take the "I" in "I am" to mean "me," and then it's lost — when there's no "I," the sense of "I" is gone and then returns — then the "me" has lost its footing. Then that "me" ceased to exist, and now it's coming back and you are observing it reappear. So how can it be constant? That might happen. But what's changing is only the identifications. The experiences are the same. The sense of "I am" is the same.

QThank you. Thank you.

NIt's Charles.

QHi, Nabeel. Thank you for doing these satsangs. I find it very helpful and encouraging.

NOh, can you hear me?

QYeah. Thank you.

NYeah, I can hear you.

Q[unclear]. I see I got a notification. Following up with that "I" question — I notice in two kinds of meditation, there's sort of a mindfulness meditation. Occasionally this I will find myself. It's sort of like the way people describe lucid dreaming, where I can see myself, my body, the personality, whatever, in a scene, but then there's just the watcher. I'm not engaged. But even in that, it feels like it's two things — the observer and the observed. But that doesn't fit to me quite the way you describe it. So I'm wondering — is there's another step, or there's something deeper? I don't know. Can you... I guess this is maybe just another cobweb which I'm looking for your help clearing.

And something similar came up if I just try to practice as a meditation or reciting to myself that I am just Awareness — and again I get the sense of identification with what I'm calling Awareness and the subject. And so I still think I'm missing the mark. So I'm looking for...

NYeah. So you're not missing the mark. What's going on — I visualize it as a spiral. You spiral around the truth. And at every spiral, you might go deeper, then you might go back in — like you're falling towards the core of what you're seeing. And so when you see an observer, when you're noticing "I the observer am observing," and there's the observed — yeah, it might help to break it up into three actually. So there's the observer, the observed, and the observation. Yeah, the knower, the known, and the knowing.

And then you question: okay, can I now define what is the known? Can the known be defined by taking away the knower or the knowing? It can't. And this is you would do it in that meditative state, and you say let me first focus on the known. That's the most objective thing, the easiest to concentrate on, and you notice. But how do you define the known? What is it? What is the known? And you spiral a bit and you realize — oh, the known cannot be described without the knowing. It is in fact the knowing. Yeah. In the seen there's only the seeing. There's no actual object being seen in your own direct experience. So in that way we do away with the known. There's just the knowing.

And then you do the same to the knower. Well, what I identify as being the one who's knowing — but what exactly is that? Again, there's just a knowing. And then you can question. So then the spiral has gone deeper. Now the next turn will be: so where did this knowing appear? To whom did this knowing arise? No, there's no objects and subjects. There's just a knowing. Where did this knowing appear? And now you're heading towards the core, the end of the spiral, the Absolute. Because where did the knowing appear? It cannot appear to an object. We already have lost that. There's no individual subject to be found. So the knowing can only arise within the absolute Reality. Whatever was there before the Big Bang has remained. There's no time. Time does not apply to that. Neither the space. So that base Reality is where the knowing arises.

And because you have done away with you as an individual, now this is where you arrive at the absolute nonduality — the Advaita: not one, not two, not even one. It is within Reality that this knowing is taking place, and nothing has actually changed, because it is the nature of Reality to be aware. Otherwise this is not possible. None of this is possible. And that same realization answers what you are, because you cannot be a separate thing. You've done away with all separations.

So you're not very far off. It's just hovering around the same and just questioning it a bit deeper — like what do I mean by the object? What is the object? What is the subject?

QOkay. I think I can see yeah conceptually, but I guess I need to practice.

NYes. That they will collapse upon inspection into one — or you say not even one. Yeah, it can be — you can notice in any moment. It's just what is here. It's just the sensing, the knowing. And then so we stay with that for a while. What is here? Only everything resolves into that. It's just the knowing. Where does this knowing appear?

And if we go back to what I started with — at that question I like to go back to the deep sleep part and the waking part, because then it becomes really clear, that transition — that this knowing appears nowhere. It appears... whatever it appears in is what conceptually I used to think of as nothing. Because nothing is a concept. Nobody observes nothing. Then you are the nothing when the knowing appears, and that nothing cannot be nothing. And it cannot be described in terms of objects or an individual subject. It's just real — the Reality.

QThank you. Thank you.

NRazi, can you hear me?

QYes. Hi. Thank you so much for doing this and I hope you continue to do this. As you were saying this, I had two questions. One was Awareness is another word for me. But before I ask that, I was just sitting here as you talked about the different aspects. A bird — I just heard a bird outside my room — and so I was trying to experience what you were speaking of, and I want to point out if I'm closer to what you're pointing to. So my eyes are closed. I heard — right now somebody's mowing the grass now. Let's go be with that.

So there's a sound appeared, a thought — somebody's mowing that. And then there was a knowing. Now, usually it doesn't happen, but now that I'm in a laboratory where I'm more aware and concentrated, I can see it more cleanly, shall we say. And it's easier if I close my eyes to experience this directly. So pardon me if I do that.

So before it was a thought like oh somebody is doing something, but then when the attention is directly on it, then the object vanishes and then it's a knowing directly just like that, and even the sense of "I" is not. And then when the knowing is experienced directly, then there's just silence, so to speak. And all these are words. The object, the knower, the knowing — all of that is not here, but there's something here. And it's just quiet at this moment. And yeah, I don't know what else to say beyond that — that there's just silence. And there's all these words that seem so... knowing, observer, observed — all just seem like overlays at this moment. But yeah, I don't know what to say. I'm just trying to follow what you're pointing to and see if I'm able to or not. You can speak to that.

NYeah. So what you're doing is right. So you start to see where the mind was saying there's an object, there's a person, there's a thing and so on. There's not. Just this seeing, hearing, this sensing, knowing — that's it. This knowing. And then how this culminated for me was the insight, as I captured it in one of the videos — tried to capture it — is: nothing has happened. I was so anxious about life and myself and so on, and realized nothing has happened. Nothing has changed since the Big Bang. Nothing has happened. It is just this knowing that has appeared upon the Absolute. That was how I can try to communicate it. It is just the knowing that has appeared upon the Absolute.

When you're saying silence, you're meaning the Absolute. We start to notice, we start to realize that of course if Reality — like time and space are relative — then Reality is not relative. It's absolute. And so what was there before anything is here now. It's not possible that it was there then and it's not here now. It's not possible that it was only realized in some sage's life but is not here now.

Reality must be present, must be most real. That is the threshold. That is the criteria. And so you are going beyond that conceptual castle of objects and subjects and things and so on. And you see all there is is a knowing — pure knowledge — and it has appeared upon the Absolute. And why can it be said that these are not two? Because there's the knowledge and the Absolute. Why are they not two? Because the knowing is what you realize as the Absolute. The Absolute is just pure Awareness. And whenever you focus on anything — like what was a person mowing a lawn is then just the sound — and what is the sound except for a form taken by Awareness? In the moment that is the form. Awareness takes all these forms. Because the form is the Emptiness.

QCan you speak? Can you say that differently? That Awareness taking the form of sounds, shapes. I guess I'm conceptually... but in reality, you're right. I'm just sitting here. Things are arising in that space, in silence, and they arise and they go away. And I think maybe a mistake I was doing was — and I saw it as you were speaking — in silence, I was thinking I am noticing the silence. There was still two. Like there wasn't just that I am the silence, that I am the Awareness. That still is not my lived experience at this moment.

I don't know if it is there — I'm not conscious of it — but it seems like oh I am, then there's like a dash, and then oh I am silent now. And then but still there's like a sense of there's a me that is silence and then a me that's busy, something like that. But there also is just silence. I don't know how to communicate that. Sorry — you said something I'm going to pick up on.

NRight. Okay. So, who is not conscious of you being aware? Is that you? Are you not conscious of being aware?

QIt's a thought.

NYeah. Who is... it's just — it's not you who doesn't know that you're aware.

QYeah. You know you are aware.

NYes. Who is saying "I'm not conscious"? "That's not my lived experience" and so on — because your lived experience is that all this knowing is appearing. It's quite clear. You are aware.

QYeah.

NSo that voice, or whatever however it appears to you — the thought — it has this... it's assuming an identity. It's saying, "Oh, I am I." And so it's again the wrong meaning of "I." That's not I. That is not I. And so what should change in the mind is the thoughts should submit: "No, we are not conscious."

QYes. That's the thing.

NIt just admitted it. "I'm not conscious of you being aware." The thought has admitted it. It's lowered. Yeah, it's shown its true face. Just a thought. Whatever says "I'm not conscious, I have not realized what Awareness is" and so on — that's not you. That's not me.

QWow.

NAnd you return to the answer which was in the silence — which was a silence which was you. You were the silence, because there was no other. Silence — there was noise of the lawn being mowed or whatever.

QYes. Yes.

NSo the mind thought of as silence because there's the inkling of there is more to the mind, which is based on the assumption that it is being observed. The knowledge is there that it is being observed. And so the mind goes on its own track that I will be the one who realizes what Awareness is. I will realize the Self. However, the Self is the Awareness in which this whole play is being acted out. And so in the play, the mind comes to a conclusion: oh, I can never realize because there's no I. What is I then shifts — that is I. Sounds all contradictory and whatever. Yeah, but that is why that is called I-I, the actual I.

QBeautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much.

NNikesh.

QHi. Hi everyone. So following on from there — what occurred is that I am always thinking that I'm always seeing myself, but what's actually happening — is this correct? — is what actually is happening is that Awareness is always seeing this body-mind. And so just like in the previous comment — there is only Awareness, and then the mind comes in and says I can't see, I can't see the Awareness. And in the same way, if I open my eyes and I see my body, the mind is saying I see my body. It's not saying I see Awareness. Is that the same thing?

NCan you repeat that last part? So when you open the eyes the mind can observe — it says I observe a body. That's what you mean?

QYeah. I'm trying to understand why is it the same body that is seen all the time, because obviously it's all in Awareness. So it must be the mind that's seeing the body.

NThe mind cannot see. Yeah. That's the crux of it. If the mind can see then there are many individual minds, individual selves. And the crux of the realization is there are no separate selves.

So what does happen — see, what is the mind? The mind is a reflection of the body's activity. The body has the tools to collect information about its environment. And with the eyes the body can observe itself. But "observe" is the wrong word here. Because it's again adding that confusion. There's only one principle in Reality that can observe — that is the aware factor. Okay. The body is not that. The mind is not that. However, the body has these organs which feed it information. The brain computes that information. The information is there, and the mind is a reflection of the activity of that information.

So the body has abstractions of looking and feeling and so on, and the mind can talk in that way. But when we question, the whole thing is exposed when you question what is it that is aware. And it's not any of the cells in the body. It's not a collection of the cells which are not aware. It's not that. So again, think of it in terms of synonyms. When the mind says I'm seeing something, actually it's not — there's no seeing involved in that part. You are seeing what is happening in the brain. You are seeing the activity of this body as seeing.

QOkay. So when you say you're seeing the activity of the body, you're saying that Awareness is seeing the activity of the body.

NMhm. Right.

QSo why is Awareness always seeing the activity of this body?

NIt's not. Awareness is wherever there's seeing. The one seeing — the seeing is Awareness, and the Awareness is seeing. Okay, let's try... look, I'm explaining with respect to one body. However we have established that nothing in the body is conscious — if we can, or maybe we need to go there first, I don't know.

QYeah.

NSo that's fine, because none of the cells, the bones, the muscles — nothing is conscious. There's just one last vestige which people still believe in — that the brain is conscious. But why? It's still meat. And the dead brain is the same as a living brain. Like one moment after death, it's the same brain. It's not conscious. So what was conscious was nothing to do with the body. The activity of the body was producing experiences.

Okay. So let's say brain activity produces experiences. That's what we know of. There might be other activities because it's the same Reality. What we know for a fact is that in Reality experience can appear. One type of activity which does that — let's say it's brain activity. Now any brain activity anywhere will produce experience, and nothing in the body is observing that experience. However, the bodies are different. The activity is within a certain boundary — this is how far this organ can receive information from, and this is how much capacity this brain has for computation, whatever. And so each of those experiences will have a boundary. So for each body there's a mind. The mind is the world. Not just in there. All of it. The seeing, the hearing, the feeling — all of it together is what is the world. The world is entirely subjective. That world appears to whom? That is Awareness everywhere. Any world everywhere. It does not appear to anything to do with the body.

QFine. But why am I — why is Awareness — this is where I get stuck. Why is Awareness only seeing this body? Oh, I see. So I'm seeing this body every time I look at it.

NYeah. No, because — what is the reference point? See, the reference point for that statement is the activity of this body. So you say whenever I look at the activity of this body, why do I only observe the activity of this body? Because at the moment of observation, that's what you're looking at. But yes — this might seem conceptual until you look away from the activity. Like we were going down the spiral with Charles. So we arrive at oh there's only the knowing — but now the knowing yes is limited. The knowing is limited. It's about this world. But where did the knowing arise? When you get to that point, then that is Awareness — as Awareness is not with reference to the knowing which is limited in scope, which is momentary — but you're arriving at the constant factor. As long as we try to use the relative to define the Absolute, you will hit these kind of sticky points.

QRight. I think I understand where you're going and I understand what you're saying. I think where I get stuck is that our eventual — well the goal that I think is there is that you have to change your identification from your specific body-mind to Consciousness in general. Your identity should be Consciousness or Awareness — that's what I think it should be, or that's what I think you're pointing to. So, as far as I can see, if I keep seeing this body, even though we say that we are Consciousness, I'm going to be stuck looking at the body and thinking that I'm still here. That's what I'm saying. I don't know if that changes.

NSo it does change. Like what I was saying at the beginning with from dream to waking — the soundscape changed. You notice those things. The soundscape changed. I remained the same. All of this is easily replaceable. It can be swapped. It is being swapped any moment, every moment. The thought has gone, new thought. The sound has gone, new sound. Look at it as it actually is. And it is not — you're not looking at the body. You're looking at the stream of experiences flowing by. And you're looking back to what am I? And it's very clear. You are not changing, and you're not defined by what the experience is. The experience does not define you — is what I said in the beginning. It does not sustain you. You sustain the experience. You just see that role that you play in all this, and that problem goes away of having to identify with Consciousness. No — even Consciousness is not your identity. When the knowing appears, that's Consciousness. But it appears and it disappears. And whenever it appears it appears with respect to some particular process taking place, and that process is local and limited.

QOkay. Thank you. Thank you.

NAnd you will notice that as you observe the knowing — most of it you don't identify with anyway. As long as there's a you — you see something and something which seems external, you don't identify with it. So you also have to focus in on what do you identify with? What is that which is left now? Actually you keep chipping away and you'll say actually I don't identify with anything here except the fact of being aware. And the mind is mistakenly still taking possession of that when it says, well I am only aware of this body — that's actually the mind saying, because it only has information about this body. But if you are what is aware, and you think of someone you love — yeah, this body has no knowledge of that body. However, what is aware of that body — how can you distinguish? How can you split Awareness only with reference to what is being known?

So again we're taking the relative as how we're describing Reality — in the mind is defining Reality. Instead we take Reality as it is — Absolute first, then the relative.

QSo in the Consciousness in the Absolute video, the recent one — seems to talk about these levels which obviously he doesn't believe... would it? It seems like he's describing stages, and he says Consciousness must meditate on itself. He talks about often you get to the space and that's where it stops — like Consciousness realizes it is like space, it's not contained in any of these bodies, it is like space — but then very rarely it goes further and realizes the Absolute.

NBecause it is hard for the mind. All the mind wants is experience, and all it's afraid of is experience or the absence of experience. It's funny — the mind does not experience, but all its desires are about experience and all its fears are about experience or the absence of it, and it'll keep going around and around that because the mind is experience. So obviously the mind's identity is entirely tied to experience. And if the appearance is absent, that mind has ceased to be. And so if we operate from that and we inquire with that, we hit the obstacles — how to go beyond it. Well anyway — it's to see you are not tied to these experiences. Be fearless. When I don't depend on something, it does not bother at all.

The mind is sustained by experience. But are you? And that is why I like to observe these kind of transitions — the deep sleep, the waking, the deep meditation to coming out of it. And you see: oh, I did not cease to be. Experience ceased to be. Everything I thought ceased to be, and everything I thought of myself. However, what is truly I remains — is what is aware.

And now I am freed of this dependence on experiences. I do not fear the absence. And then you see clearly — the blinders off — the nothing that was so fearful, which was so alien, is now contained within the meaning of "I." The nothing, all of everything, all-encompassing — that is then the meaning of "I."

So in the video I tried to describe it in a way it could make sense to the mind — you see, still cater to the mind — because it is such a powerful fact in all this. It can block the most obvious realization. It's the most obvious realization anyway. So how I described it is this question of all these bodies and all these...

So you start with first you establish the base Reality. Where can space and time appear in your direct experience? Space and time appear with Consciousness. You've never observed them without Consciousness. They appear with Consciousness. So when we're talking of space and time, they're relative. They're not the absolute Reality.

They are appearing as bubbles, bubble worlds, dream worlds. What is a dream? It is space and time with everything going on in it. So when this universe began, you already know of one factor in Reality where space and time can appear. Do you need to find another factor? No, that is the factor in which the universe begins. It is — another stream is the main stream of Consciousness in which the universe exists. In the universe, new processes take place and they create their own bubbles, and that is each of these lives. So this is the dream. This life is a dream within a dream.

And then the only question is where do the dreams appear? That is the ultimate Reality which for many of you you will not want to call it Awareness, because it includes what to the mind is being not aware, being unconscious. It's not just everything. It's nothing — but it's not nothing, because when you observe Consciousness appear you are that, and you cannot move from being that.

All right. Any last questions or comments? Yes, B.

QOkay. Nabeel — you say two times the word "I." Sorry, it's not maybe... it's a screen question, but I don't understand very much why you say I-I, you know.

NYeah, it's borrowed from Sri Ramana Maharshi's dialogues. He would refer to the Self as I-I, and I use it because it did work for me. Because okay, there's a distinction between what was taken to be "I" and what is actually I, the true I. So to make that distinction we could say I-I, the actual I. But in Ramana Maharshi's language I think the "am" is just implicit. So what he's saying is "I am I." I am I.

QPerfect. Yes. Perfect. And there is some kind of utility — the ego has some kind of utility. Is there some moment that we can use ego in a not a bad way, or no?

NYeah. So there is no actual thing that is the ego. Can you imagine? What is an ego? There's no ego. It's just thinking — these webs of thinking. And thinking is of course a tool. To be without thinking — nobody realizes the Self without thinking at some point. The thinking is a tool to be used. Fine.

QYeah. Perfect. And it's like I can maybe see that the ego is a kind of creation of our minds, and that's why humans not always can deal with it. So it's kind of — the ego is something I constructed. So the more I deconstruct, the better.

NMhm. Yeah. So now once — now I don't think in terms of ego. Because even when we are trying to follow the path of wisdom there's the idea there's an ego and either it's a block or it's a hindrance or and so forth. But what is ego is only the idea of being a separate self. It's just an idea. It's not an actual thing that can take actions.

QYeah. Yeah. And just last one — I know we have five minutes, very fast. Nabeel — I can say in some way that Awareness, like the Absolute, the absolute Awareness is... because let me explain to you. I have a kind of relation with the subject death that it's not like most of people have — oh I am afraid of death. I don't have this. I remember that there is one video of your channel — the name is It's Not a Snake, It's a Rope. I remember very nice video. And do you think that maybe we can consider — like I saw Deepak Chopra answer someone, he was talking about death and he said no but you are already living a kind of death. So I'm just asking you if do you think it's good for us, it's useful for us, if we kind of consider that we are already in this state — I don't mean after death — but you know for me that I don't have this kind of belief that death is something bad, whatever. It seems like for me sometimes that whatever the day we are going to die, that kind of absolute peace that people always are looking for but it just appears in the day of death — is every time available for us. I don't know if you already thought about it. Sorry I talked too much.

NYeah. I mean that is based on the idea that there are individual selves. So the actual — that is the death of that idea. Oh, so this is life after death. If you can live without the idea of being a separate self, then this is life after death. Because life is anyway not constant. There's the sleep cycles and so on and so forth. The experience arises, goes, arises, goes. And if you can see that there's not a single thing to which it is arising but the actual absolute Awareness, then all lives are appearing within Awareness. There's no actual death. And what is there then when there's no experience is what is called by the sages bliss. The actual bliss is the resting in peace. What everybody wants when they are sleep-deprived — then that becomes your most urgent need.

QYeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's ironic but it's useful. Can I ask just one more? It's very fast.

NSure.

QPerfect. Is there some kind of subject yet that you, Nabeel — like as I know we are not a person — but there is some kind of mind trap that you still fall in, or not anymore? And if there is something, can you tell us that — you say oh I am with this thing?

NIf you ask my wife, I haven't changed much. It depends on what perspective you're looking at. But there's still things which will tick me off. So okay — from the persona point of view, the persona was built over many years. It's fixed now. It can change little by little. Little things change. But the persona is part of the body-mind collection. The realization does not completely rewire the brain. But as then the behaviors are happening, there's still self-awareness that this is — oh, this is just that same rutted track, you know, the same track we've been down. And the realization can then change what happens next bit by bit.

Yeah. But when there's still the distinction between "I" and I-I — which is what your first question was — the I-I remains constant. It is known that is I-I. And then whatever however Nabeel acts out or even throws a tantrum, that's fine. That's just in the area of the body-mind and how it has been shaped by its environment and its genes and whatever.

QNice. Thank you so much, Nabeel. Thank you. So, thank you so much. Thank you.

NAll right. Thank you all. Let's end there. Thank you all for joining.

QThank you, Nabeel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.