Why You Can Never Find Yourself | A Guided Contemplation

If you try to observe the observer, all you find is the observed. You're not doing anything wrong. This is a feature, not a bug. But the key insight here might be missed.

Let this contemplation guide you so that this paradox may resolve into a source of peace.

You may begin by closing the eyes. Whatever the eyes show you can only be the observed, not you, the observer.

For now, consider it simply straightforwardly. Whatever is seen is an observation, not you, the observer.

To yourself, you are invisible.

In the same way you cannot expect to hear the observer, or smell or taste yourself who are the observer. Any sensation passing through the body or some feeling of being located in the body, or in the head, can only be an observation. It cannot truly be a complete and accurate observation of you who are observing.

So we can surmise that none of the five senses can be used to observe you the observer.

Now notice this: Whatever is called a person, what consensus wisdom considers an observer is only identified using such observable characteristics. A face, a body, a name – the sense objects. And the thoughts, the memories – the mental objects.

All of these are observable. Thus, what is usually considered the observer, even in the first person is, in fact, the observed.

The first person is not the observer but the observed.

In trying to look for the one looking, in trying to observe the observer, you only ever find the observed. Not an individual person. Not a separate self.

Yet here you are – unable to negate yourself.

You know you are here.

This knowledge of you-the-observer being here is not based on any of the five senses. Nor is it the kind of knowledge that requires logic and reasoning.

You know you are.

You do not need a thought to repeat, "I am. I am. I am." You know you are here directly – through the very act of observing. By being critical to the fact of this observation.

So now observe the Observer.

You have found the one quality that belongs only to the Observer. This quality of being present not as an observable object, nor as a subjective perception, but the quality of being Present as an undeniable direct self-evident fact.

Turn your gaze away from the sense objects and rest here in the fact of your own undeniableness. Neither an object, nor a specific subject, but undeniably real. Present not in a relative sense, but in a most fundamental sense. As a matter of fact.

Notice this quality.

Now You are beginning to observe the Observer. Beginning to know Yourself as You are.

This is no longer about struggling with some paradox, but a return to Source.

Remain in this calm. Rest here and observe.

You are present – not as an observable phenomena, but as the basis of all these phenomena.

Clearly, it is you that are aware.

Even further, it is in your nature to be aware. To be the Observer means to have the power to observe. Independent of which sense organs may be functioning and which sense objects may be appearing in the moment.

It is not the senses but this Inner Eye; This Intrinsic Awareness, that even allows for this inward turn; this introspection that you are currently engaged in.

Observe Yourself. Observe the Observer.

Notice these qualities which are truly yours.

You are Present. You are Aware. You are This.

Presence... Aware...ness.

Resting here in this calm, observe what is most natural, most You.

Now, from here, consider the observed.

Is it that what is being observed is standing completely apart from You-the-Observer? Are there two completely separate categories, the observer and the observed? Or is it that whatever is being observed, in the act of observation, it is an expression of your very nature, the very nature of You, The Observer.

Again, once more.

Now with this Inner Eye, observe the Observer.

When you do that all you find is the observed and no separate observer. And what you observe is what you are aware of. And what you're aware of can never be anything other than an expression of awareness.

And what you are is this Aware...ness.

It is as if the Observer appears; becomes observable by taking the shape of the observed. The distinction itself dissolves.

The observer is the observed.

The observed is the observation.

And the observation is the nature of You-the-Observer being expressed. Not an individual, local you at a relative point in spacetime. But as You are in absolute terms.

An inseparable from reality You.

The nondual You.

You the Observed.

You the Observer.

You the Unobservable.