How do you know?

You mention often the difference between thought and awareness; how does it relate to the ‘human being’ experience of yours?

When we hear words like “thought and awareness” we look upon them as the concepts we’ve had about them. In other words, we do not really see the words but what we think about them. Initially all we see are thoughts. For instance, many times when I mention the word ‘awareness’ (referring to pure awareness) there’s the immediate belief that it is ‘something’—a state or condition. Let’s make one thing clear, pure awareness is NOT being aware of something. It is simply pure awareness. Awareness ‘just IS’ and it does not refer to anything objective. Awareness is space itself or nothingness often referred to as spirit or Being. The question is, “why call it awareness then?” – simply because what we see as nothingness or invisible space is cosmic awareness. The very nature of spirit is consciousness and when a fetus (memory DNA) becomes a living breathing human being then it has taken on an expression of awareness from the cosmic soup. This particular expression based on that particular memory is then called a soul. Now this human starts to believe that the environment, parents, training and his/her body is the sole reality forgetting temporarily about the Being which made it possible to be aware. Awareness and Being are one and the same thing. However, the moment one becomes aware of something, then that something turns pure awareness into a thought. When this thought is believed to be real then it becomes not only a reality through creating a thinker (ego) but it also creates a motion of energy in the body known as emotion.

When the contact with Being (pure awareness) is ignored then the emotions become such strong feelings that pseudo-reality (individual reality) has taken over.

This is what happened to me eight years ago (year 2000). I was teaching ‘A Course in Miracles’ at the time and loved it because it was the same teaching as Bhagavan’s basic teaching of Advaita. However, even though my life changed from the former life due to Bhagavan’s influence, yet there was no direct experience of pure awareness. One afternoon I was reading the Course text when suddenly unpremeditated a feeling arose where I was not located anywhere. Yet, even in this non-locality I was aware of a body and it felt both familiar yet foreign. At that moment there was no Burt but a knowing that I was playing the role of Burt.

I was the Light of pure awareness. I knew that future and past were all now. The NOW was the result of the Oneness, and the Oneness was the result of the absence of barriers. In this Oneness I knew that I was pure, finally clean and free because the Oneness does not judge, condemn or limit. I was also aware of everything, because I became everything.

There was no separateness at all. The peace that I felt was indescribable, it was something I had never known before.

This knowing that I am a human being left me with a permanent knowing that everything in the universe is ultimately connected together through divine love. As Emerson wrote: “We live in secession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise Silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.”

This Being playing the role of human made everything crystal clear. It was a ‘feeling-knowing’ which couldn’t be disputed or doubted. It was simply the way it really IS! I learned more in that half-hour or so than if I had lived several lifetimes.

This ‘feeling-knowing’ can come alive in you when you shift from human to Being in three steps…

First, grasp fully what is the difference between thought and awareness. The human is thought and the Being is awareness.

Second, start listening to the witness inside you (I call Holy Spirit) until thoughts and emotions become just thoughts and emotions and not reality to you.

Third, allow the silent mind to enter emptiness. When you come to the point of trusting this emptiness without fear, then another Force will enter you – the Infinite Intelligence!