Direct Experience

In all Reality, in all the universe, in all heaven and earth, there is nothing greater than awareness, yet nothing that is so pathetically taken for granted. Awareness is God, Truth, Spirit, Christ, Your Real Self, Your True Identity, Holiness, Heaven, Love, Joy, Purity, Perfection and the totality of all Reality.

The problem is that you can’t do anything that is beyond the limitations of your sense of identity.

You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. (W.PI.67.5.2)

T-14.II.6.2 …begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that Truth is true. 3 For what is builded there <is> true, and built on Truth. 4 The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.

Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. (T.31.V.17.4)

The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. (T.31.VII.7.1)

W-pI.95.10. Let all. . .errors go by recognizing them for what they are. 2 They are attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. 3 This is the truth, and nothing else is true. 4 Today we will affirm this truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true.

W-pI.136.15I will accept the Truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.

You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this Self, the holy truth in you. (W.PI.95.13.5)

Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the. . . . Self, where light and strength are one. (W.PI.92.10.4)

Understanding is light, and light leads to knowledge. (T.5.III.7.5)

(T.9.V.6.5)Nothing will change unless it is understood, since light is understanding.

The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its own delusional system, because otherwise the light of your understanding would dispel it. (T.7.VI.8.5)

To start off, let’s take a few moments to see what we can notice about awareness by simply considering what it actually is. At this point, this is going to stir up more questions than it will provide answers. But that’s to arouse your curiosity.

First of all, how is it that you are aware? How is that happening? Did you manufacture or create your awareness? What, exactly, is it anyway? What is it made of? Of what does it consist? Does it really make any sense that signals running around in our brains can cause awareness?

Notice that our awareness has no shape, no size, no extension. It doesn’t really seem to be a pinpoint. And yet it doesn't’ seem to have any size beyond that either. It seems to extend to whatever it is that we’re aware of.

Notice that it really doesn’t seem to be a substance of any kind. It doesn’t seem to be made of anything. And yet it is more real than substance because without it we would never be aware of substance.

So it confounds the entire idea of materiality. Matter is so prominently substantial, and yet without insubstantial awareness all the substance of matter would be pointless.

Notice how absolutely gentle awareness is. Unless what it is aware of has something to do with force, awareness itself is absolutely gentle. T-14.IX.3.2 The Atonement is so gentle you need but whisper to it, and all its power will rush to your assistance and support.

Notice how everyone’s awareness, when considered without regard to anything one might happen to be aware of, is exactly the same for everyone. Though we might think that what we’re aware of might be special, awareness itself is never special.

Now notice how our very existence would actually have no meaning at all were it not for the fact that we’re aware of existing. Notice how we can’t even be aware of anything existing without awareness because we can’t be aware of anything existing without awareness without being aware of just that.

And now, notice that it actually in fact is the greatest thing we could ever know, because without it we wouldn’t be able to know anything. Notice that it actually in fact is greater than any other experience we could possibly have because without it we wouldn’t be able to be aware of any experience.

Of all the magnificent phenomena in the entire universe. Of all the astounding miracles you could ever imagine. None is more magnificent or astounding as our own, living awareness. Just consider for a moment how much of an astounding miracle it actually is that we are aware

And now consider this: Awareness is greater than anything else we could possibly know about God, because without it God wouldn’t be aware of anything, which would nullify everything else about God that is grand and magnificent. Try to imagine God not being aware of His own existence. Without awareness, God would be nothing. Just think about that for a moment.

So the greatest thing we can know about God is that God is awareness, because God would be nothing without awareness, just as we would. So, awareness is the one thing that is clearly essential both to us, and to God.

Notice that if we weren’t awareness in the first place, we couldn’t imagine ourselves to be something other than awareness. We have to BE awareness before we can think we’re something else. That being the case, what’s the point in thinking we’re something else?

And now consider this, can there possibly be anything more true than awareness. Just try to imagine something that is more true than awareness. Everything we can possibly know about Truth could not be known unless there was awareness in the first place to be aware of it.

W-152.3. Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true, and nothing else is true. = all = entire, total, complete, etc

Now I want to take a quick peek at what the Course in Miracles says about our True Identity. These are from Workbook lessons, so you say this to yourself:

W-224.1. My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give itself light. 2 It lights the world as well. 3 It is the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world. 4 There is no gift but this that can be either given or received. 5 This is reality, and only this. 6 This is illusion's end. 7 It is the truth.

W-252.1. My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. 2 Its shimmering and perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked upon. 3 Its love is limitless, with an intensity that holds all things within it, in the calm of quiet certainty. 4 Its strength comes not from burning impulses

which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself. 5 How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!

W-287.1. 4 What treasure would I seek and find and keep that can compare with my Identity?

C-3.8. How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the Truth about yourself reflected there.

The pure Self is the only Reality, the only Being. There is no existence apart from this Selfhood.

Where shall we look to see the Perfect only? We shall look into Pure Awareness. Pure Awareness is Heaven. We shall see the Real by the Real, and know the Divine by the Divine.

Ok, let’s take a moment to remember what we discovered about the nature of awareness:

Remember that amidst everything else you may believe about yourself, the one thing that is most certainly real about you is that you are aware. No matter how much what you’re aware of may be fantasy, your awareness itself always remains a reality. This awareness of yours, unlike the fantasy about being a separate self, is nothing that you could have thought up or imagined. It makes thinking and imagination possible, but it itself cannot be thought up or imagined. This Real Self of yours, your awareness, unlike your fantasy self that seemed separate from God, exists not on its own but as Truth itself – your awareness is the Presence of Truth, the Presence of God.

M1 And now tell yourself, slowly and thoughtfully, allowing the meaning of the words to sink into your mind: “I experience the Awareness that I am, to be Presence of God.” Feel what this feels like.

OK, now we’re going to proceed to shift our sense of identity from the ego to our Real Self through a short contemplative meditation. The meditation is in the first person. Close your eyes and say to yourself:

M2 My Divine Self is my awareness. There is no doubt that I am aware and that I am being, and this incontrovertible reality of my awareness owes none of its reality to any beliefs. I am clearly awareness regardless of whether I have any beliefs about awareness or not. And whereas I’ve assembled the beliefs that make up my ego, I have had no hand in creating or giving rise to my awareness, the creation of which is clearly the exclusive handiwork of God. And since all that God creates is fully invested with the Totality of God’s Nature, then my awareness actually exists as the Presence of God Expressing the Totality of God’s Nature. And since God is All there Is, I am in perfect harmony with All there Is and hence am perfectly happy. All the problems I used to have were all due to identifying with the fraudulent sense of self that constituted the ego. But now that it is clear that my Divine Self as awareness, is the only real self I have, I no longer believe the ego is who I am, thereby dissolving my commitment and allegiance to the ego, which is, as a result, gradually evaporating.

Now we’re ready to do a meditation that is designed to lead you into the actual experience of being Truth itself far more vividly than the previous meditation.

M3 Say to yourself, I AM. That’s a meaningful sentence, is it not. And you are certain of it. You have no doubt about it. But now ask yourself, Who do you believe the I is that is saying I AM? Notice the sense of self that believes it is the I. Be aware of that sense of self. Notice that you are aware of that sense of self. Now notice that it is awareness that is aware of that sense of self. Now notice that awareness is the knower and that sense of self is what is being known. Now notice that you have to be awareness itself as the knower in the first place before you can be aware of seeming to be that sense of self that is known. So notice now that what you really are is awareness and not the sense of self that you thought you were. So now identify yourself as awareness itself instead of that sense of self that you thought you were. Now feel what it feels like to be awareness itself. Make awareness itself now your sense of self, knowing yourself as awareness. Awareness aware of itself. Awareness being aware of awareness itself as awareness. Awareness aware of awareness is what the pure “I” is. Awareness aware that what it is is that it is is I AM THAT I AM. Say to yourself, I am that I am. Keep saying to yourself I am that I am letting its meaning sink in deeper and deeper. Now as you keep saying to yourself I am that I am begin to deepen your experience of what those words mean, that what you are is that you are. Now as you keep deepening your experience of the words I am that I am, let the words gradually begin to fade away until you are no longer saying I am that I am but are only experiencing the awareness of what those words mean. Now rest silently in that awareness for a few moments. Notice what purity and stillness there is in this center of yourself. Notice how clear it is that this is indeed what you truly are. Notice how easy and natural and effortless it is for you to identify as this awareness that you truly are. Notice how easy it will be to shift to awareness as your sense of identity any time you choose to do so. OK, now for a few moments, contemplate the fact that when Moses asked God who He was, God answered, I am that I am. Your awareness that I am that I am is the very substance of your divinity.

OK, now open your eyes and just relax for a few moments. Don’t do anything, please don’t type anything on the message board, don’t think anything, just rest for a bit in stillness and peace.

OK, at this point we have begun to experience our Real Self. But we’ve only begun to do so. Let’s proceed now with a further meditation to deepen that experience. The more fully we experience our Real Self, the more effectively its radiance will dissolve the false self of ego.

M4 I am awareness. I am not what fills my awareness, I am not the content of my awareness, I am awareness itself, the ability to be aware of anything. I am not a body, I am the awareness that is able to be aware of a body. I am not a human, I am the awareness that is able to be aware of human identity. And now I leave behind all my concerns as a human being and I allow myself to dissolve into this pure awareness that I am. I just allow myself to slip into it like slipping into a crystal clear pool. I am not the human role I was playing in the fantasy dream of duality, I am this pure crystalline awareness, this utterly miraculous ability to know. This awareness is the very substance of God, and here it is the very substance of the I that I am. I am not human. I am not a personality. I am I. And this I that I am is God. At first I see it only as a glimmer. I feel myself still holding on to my human sense of self and my personality, but gradually, gently, I start letting go of that grip, and as I do I feel myself melting into this I of me, this absolute center of my being, this substance of beingness itself, this unfathomable miracle of awareness. I do not resist my human sense of self, I do not judge it as good or bad; it is nothing and my response to it is nothing.

It’s now clear to me that the ONE thing that is true about me AND God is that both God and I are awareness, and since God is all there is, this awareness that I am cannot be anything other than God. But that only reports what is True and where that Truth is. Now I am looking where that Truth is. And where is that? It is at the absolute center of my being. It is the most essential part of me. It is that without which I would not know that I exist. It is my own awareness itself. And as I immerse myself into awareness and let go of my attachments to anything else, I find a peace, a stillness, an absolutely tranquil delight that has no parallel to anything I feel as a human being. It is as if I have entered another world, a world of infinite, pure, crystalline, fresh, clean, radiant, formless, dimensionless, space. It’s a world more real than my dream because it is a world consisting only of pure awareness, and awareness is the only thing that ever bestowed any apparent reality to the dream in the first place. If I am not aware of the dream, it vanishes, because it never was anything in the first place. It was always only my awareness that was existing, nothing in the dream. My awareness itself, my awareness itself being only aware of its own self as awareness, is the only Reality. The dream world does not exist. It is an illusion. It has no reality.

Now, however, I am forgetting about the dream for the moment and immersing myself into reality itself, the only reality, my own unfathomably miraculous awareness. I have come before the throne of God, the holy of holies, and it is the one thing about myself that I can be certain is true about me -- that I am. I am on holy ground. The One God of all reality, absolute and infinite, is here, present, as the very core of my own being, the center of myself I refer to with the word “I”.

And in silence, in absolute stillness, I feel what it feels like for my awareness to be absolute, infinite Divinity. How much do I feel it? Just as much as I let go of my feelings of wanting to control the dream of assumed and projected ego, just as much as I let go of resisting the dream, of holding on to the dream. Just as much as I let go of my feelings of attraction or aversion to the dream. Just that much I melt into reality as the I that I am and feel what it feels like for the I that I am to be the one and only absolute and infinite God. It electrifies me. It galvanizes me. It relaxes me. It enlivens me. It overwhelms me. It enraptures me.

Now you haven’t just known what is real about you, now you have experienced it and that experience will be accessible to you at any time. Identified as awareness, you can easily dissolve ego and any of it’s erroneous projections. And all you’re doing is simply being what you are. This is why as the Course says, you need do nothing.

You will from now on have an awareness and appreciation of the awesome, Divine, wondrous, magnificent, vivid, immediate, intimate, profound, and miraculous nature of your awareness that you’ll never forget and that will never leave you and will enable you at any time to easily and naturally shift from any ego sense of identity to your True Identity as the magnificent and divine awareness that you Truly are, and from that Real Self truly be the Presence of God in far more fullness of expression that you ever have before. The really wonderful thing is that absolutely EVERYTHING that you do from an identification with your True or Real Self will work our far, far more beautifully, gracefully, successfully, wonderfully, and beneficially than it would from an a lesser sense of identity.

C-3.8. How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the Truth about yourself reflected there.

Let there be awareness and awareness alone. And there is Awareness and awareness alone.