"The Observer Is the Observed."
--Jiddu Krishnamurti
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"Awareness is a capacity of the human mind."
--Diana Winston
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"The brain is trying to use what it has labeled awareness to explore awareness.
There is no such thing as awareness."
--Michael Markham
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"The point of view from which you are consciously reading these words may not be the ONLY conscious point of view to be found in your brain. It is one thing to say you are unaware of a vast amount of activity in your brain. It is quite another to say that some of this activity is aware of itself and is watching your every move."
--Sam Harris
This is how I see it. Is it Truth? Who knows. I just have a point of view like you do, (albeit in this case, most likely controversial and not the same as yours.)
Lots of teachers talk about “being The Witness.” Being aware of your self, your thoughts, your feelings. Watching as if you’re not you, as if you’re something other than you.
And then, being aware of this awareness.
Most mediations and spiritual inquiries are built on this. Some folks, many folks, even define enlightenment as becoming aware of this Witness, this Awareness.
Which of course is fine. I get it. It’s great to watch thoughts and feelings and see that they aren’t you. That distance from the person feels way better than the belief that the person is what you are.
Since being a person comes with lots and lots of doesn’t-feel-great.
So noticing awareness can be a very worthy exercise.
Like hamstring curls, or crunches.
From where I sit though, it’s a trap. A whole lot of people get stuck there, in confusion and misunderstanding.
The idea that awareness is something that needs to be “connected to,” something you need to do, generates a sense of levels- a sense of not-there-and-needing-to-get-there. Of course there’s always another level to attain and witness.
Being aware of awareness subtly perpetuates a sense of solidity, control, and doingness, enabling and confirming the sense of self, as opposed to seeing through it.
Nothing wrong with this and again, it can, and often does, feel better. It just may perhaps be the opposite of what is being sought by all that noticing in the first place.
Meanwhile, when Rupert Spira says, “Few people are aware that they are aware. Most people’s lives consist of a flow of thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, sensations, sights, sounds, and so on. Very few people ask, 'What is it that knows this flow of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions? With what am I aware of my experience?”…
I notice he doesn’t ask, “With what am I aware of awareness?”
Because after all, what is it that does that? Is it some outside, all-powerful, intangible?
Science has shown that awareness is a neural processing option, and brain-dependent.
Which means that to be aware, we use the same brain and mind as the everyday brain and mind.
Maybe it involves a different part or location in the brain.
But still, brain.
And really, what else can it be? It’s not possible for alive humans to step outside of that. Everything perceived is filtered through that brain-sieve.
So “shifting attention,” is still you, trying to be connected to you, by processing differently for a while.
That what is called, “The Witness.”
The brain, shifting focus.
This means- witness, watch, observe, notice- it’s still you doing that.
Pretending to be a witness to a non-existent self’s doings.
Pretending, as so many supposedly enlightened folk do, that it’s possible to be what is watched and also, somehow, what is watching.
But consciousness is not a watcher.
Consciousness is an experiencer. Or more accurately, experience.
Which means, so are you.
Because what is not consciousness?
So you are experience.
Every thought, every feeling, every sound, every sight, every sensation.
All you.
Shifting constantly, moving, in milliseconds, to BE this sound and that color and that thought.
BEING that.
As opposed to some witness of all that rich experience.
As opposed to a solid, observable-by-what, unchanging, small object with properties of its own.
Being no thing. Being every thing. Being all things.
Inexplicably vast, infinitely changeable, fluid, spacious.
You.
Being.
This is the end of you as you know it.
Witness that.
For a change.
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