What Directs Awareness?

05. Satsang Cafe - General Discussions on AYP
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I have been performing AYP meditation pretty seriously for the last 3 years. Recently, I have started to access some feelings that seem a lot like the witness state described in the AYP texts. Lately I have found an increasing ability to become “aware or awareness itself”. Wherein, for a few moments, I am able to turn awareness onto itself, and notice the actual act of being aware. Doing so has made it gradually easier to integrate a (subtle) witness state.

I feel I am beginning to taste the beginnings of what AYP and many spiritual texts describe when they say that thoughts/feelings/perceptions are just objects that arise within the field of awareness. I can start to see the seperation between the objects of awareness, and the awareness itself.

If you look at many spiritual teachings, including AYP, these view teachings offer the idea that one’s “awareness” is one’s true identity. That is to say, you are not your thoughts/feelings/perceptions. But rather you are the screen of awareness that these objects are projected onto. All objects that arise within awareness are subject to change. Awareness is the one thing that is all pervasive and unchanging within our experience. In AYP we more commonly use “the witness” to describe this, but the idea is the same.

What has been perplexing me lately is this:

If my awareness is the true me, than what is directing the awareness?

One can clearly observe that its possible to direct your awareness from object to object. As an example, this is what we are doing in meditation. We direct our awareness away from our thoughts, and onto the mantra.

However, if awareness is the “true” me. If awareness is the screen on which all reality if projected. If awareness is the one constant that never changes, and in a sense all there is, than what is directing the awareness itself?

In one manner of looking at it, it almost feels like thoughts are directing awareness. For example I have a thought that I’m off the mantra, so I think to myself to bring my awareness back to the mantra. But how could this be? How could it be the case that a thought, an object which arises within awareness, is able to direct the awareness itself? It feels intuitively wrong that thoughts direct awareness.

The only other thing that would seem to make sense is that awareness has the ability to direct itself. However, this also feels a bit confusing. If awareness is the screen onto which all reality if projected, how is the screen able to focus itself on different objects being projected onto the screen?

If awareness is the one thing that does not change from moment to moment, why does it seem to have the quality of “change” as its directed onto different sense objects?

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Hi Elderberry,

You could ask the question: “When it rains, what causes the water to fall from the sky?”. The water is just water, it does not direct itself. But if there is enough water in the cloud, and the cloud rises to a cooler part of the atmosphere, then it will fall as rain. Or you could ask the question: “What makes the river run down one side of the valley and not the other?”. Again, the water is just water and does not direct itself. It is the shapes of the rocks and the terrain and the vegetation that determines which side of the valley the water flows down.

It is the same with awareness. It does not direct itself. It will flow to certain objects depending on the nature of the mind. Specifically it depends on the qualities of the mind (the gunas) and on accumulated past karmas (actions and reactions). So, in any given moment there is a complex of structures in the mind that determine where awareness is placed.

Usually awareness moves towards things that are not always helpful. But, the good news is that the mind can change itself. Through daily spiritual practice, the gunas change, old unhelpful karmas are dissolved, and new helpful karmas are created. Eventually the qualieis of the mind, the gunas, are no longer binding on awareness, and all karmas are transcended.

And it is true that awareness does not change. It may appear to have the quality of change as it is directed to different sense objects, but that is only an appearance caused by the qualities of the mind (gunas), and past karmas. In reality, there are no objects of the senses. See lesson 350 for more on this:

As this shift occurs over time, it can be said that we are moving beyond the witness , because we are no longer observing objects as being outside ourselves. Even as everything is still moving, we do not see it moving, and this is the condition of no objects - subject only. What we see is stillness moving , only One , a paradox for sure, a different experience than the two of observer and observed, though the mechanics of perception are still operating as before within this rising unified non-dual experience. [Yogani] (Bold added)

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Thank you for this thoughtful reply Tristan.

Your explanation is satisfying and intuitively feels completely correct to me. I suppose the only final hurdle I am dealing with is, while this explanation feels intuitively accurate, it also presents a feeling that free will is a bit of an illusion. This realization is simultaneously peaceful and unsettling, depending on how I look at it.

It’s easy enough to accept that awareness flows naturally, primarily shaped by the presence (or lack thereof) of the gunas and karmas of the mind.

It also makes sense that, through daily spiritual practice, the gunas and karmas can change, thereby changing the flow of awareness.

However if we dig into that a little deeper…what brings us to make the decision to perform daily spiritual practice in the first place? Well, at some point we had the thought or perception that it would be wise to meditate, the gunas and karmas of the mind allowed our awareness to focus on that thought, and then boom, we make the commitment to meditate.

So in a weird way, the only mechanism for reshaping the gunas and karmas of the mind (daily spiritual practice) is also dictated by the gunas and karmas of the mind at the end of the day. Because it is these gunas and karmas which determine if you decide to perform spiritual practice in the first place.

The best way I can put it is, through meditation I’ve started to see that I’m not nearly as in control of my thoughts as I’ve given myself credit for. I’ve started to see the first glimpses that they just arise and fall within the field of awareness. But, even with this realization, I was still left with a sense of “well, at least I still choose what I direct my awareness onto”. But the more I dig into that, that appears to be a bit of an illusion as well. Every sense of free will, or sense of self, seems to slip through my grasp.

Is there any sense of free will or unique identity I can actually point to?

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No. Ideas such as free will and determinism are ideas in the mind. They come and go and are not real. Ideas such as “an individual person with a unique identity” are also ideas in the mind. They also come and go and are not real.

What I have found is, that the more we practice yoga, the less these things matter. In the early stages of the path, there can be the tendency to attach a great deal of importance to temporary mental constructs. But, this tendency will usually decline over the years, until there is only a faint casual interest in these things. We become more like an onlooker. Eventually we reach the stage where someone will ask us about something like free will, or determinism, or individuation, and we have to try to remember what that was, in order to understand what they are asking. These things are not there in reality, so they have to be rememberd from the past.

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Welcome to the rabbit hole. :upside_down_face:

Sey

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Funny. Someone was asking me if I believe in manifesting last weekend and it took me a while to articulate a sufficiently intelligent answer.

Sey

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Hi elderberry

You are already received very good replies

Yep , there becomes a total disinterest in having answers on any topic and a continuous erosion of the so called important self

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Hi Christi,

Would you agree that the gunas and karma are also just concepts of the mind, like free will or determinism? But maybe you think gunas and karma are more useful ideas than e.g. free will and determism? Some concepts and ideas about how the universe and consciousness supposedly work and how they are related seem to be useful for the yoga practitioner. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are full of these concepts, so I guess they must be useful to yoga practitioners at some point. And of course AYP has its fair share of ideas and concepts that are related to novel experiences created by practices (e.g. witness, ecstatic conductivity, etc.), so that those concepts and ideas help on the path.

Hi maheswari,

Yogani writes on the first pages of the Spinal Breathing Pranayama book:

“What is all this for? Why am I here? Is there something more?” We have an instinct to be asking these questions. Like breath itself, the questions are spurred through the impulse of life stirring deep within us. Indeed, the questions are an essential constituent of our life force, as essential as breathing itself.

A total disinterest in answers on any topic doesn’t sound like a desirable feature to me at the present time. How could one genuinely inquire if one doesn’t care about the answer? I understand that letting go of the desire for an answer is a natural consequence of prolonged Samyama practice. Releasing the question into stillness is also releasing the desire to know its answer. But there must still be spurs of the desire for an answer, or not? What else would spur the question in the first place if not desire for an answer? If the question is just asked out of habit without genuine desire to know the answer, the question has turned into a meaningless mantra.

Hi elderberry,

I like reading and pondering your questions :nerd_face:

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Yes, ideas such as the gunas and karma are simply ideas in the mind just like ideas about free will and determinism. They are useful ideas but I would not say they are more useful than ideas about free will for example. It is actually useful to believe that we have free will at a certain stage on the path. If we don’t believe that we have free will then we may never take up a spiritual practice in the first place.

And yes, the AYP writings contain many ideas that are useful at a certain stage on the path but are seen to be simply non-existent at later stages. And Patanjali does this in his Sutras. He talks quite a bit about Prakriti for example before saying that Prakriti disappears. It does not really disappear. It is really that it is seen to be simply an idea in the mind.

So, the spiritual path is quite a tricky business. We need to believe that certain things are real and important at the right time. And then see, again at the right time, that they are not real or important and never were. But if we get things in the wrong order, the whole spiritual journey does not work. This is why it is so dangerous having neo-advaita teachers out there saying there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. It may be helpful for one in ten thousand people. But for the rest, it is an unhelpful thing to be saying and could leave many in a state of suffering where they feel there is no way out. Even saying there is nothing to do and nowhere to go is not actually true as it implies there is someone who could do nothing and go nowhere. So, all spiritual teachings are actually just ideas in the mind.

Good spiritual teachings are like dreams, but they are like special kinds of dreams. They are like dreams that can awaken the dreamer.

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Hello

Usually it is the mind who asks questions

And answers are what suit the mind

Once the mind is not given much importance anymore, no more questions arise

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Gunas are simply attributes, Satva being purity, Rajas desire and Tamas intertia. We see these in ourselves and by contemplative consciousness correction, we can have a higher proportion of the Satva Guna, which is conducive towards spiritual growth.

About free will, here is a short yet great video by Eckhart Tolle ~ https://youtu.be/MEatCKgB6Qc

Enjoy!

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