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The Light of Primordial Awareness

Introduction

This is a book about feeling something or perhaps it is better to say it is about being.  True, there will be a lot of words and concepts but they are designed to lead the reader into a place of immense light, love and joy far beyond the realm of words. 

This is a book about primordial awareness which is neither a verb nor a noun nor is it a form or a substance.Light of Primordial Awareness  It is not energy.  It is unlike anything else.  It can only be understood by being it. 

It is the Clear Light to Tibetan Buddhists, the I AM in the Bible, the Einsoph to Jewish Kabbalists, Brahman in the Vedas and the Self to those who practice non-duality or advaita.

It is the mind that feels.  It is awareness that provides the aliveness to feel while awareness itself doesn’t feeling anything.  In the same way, a flashlight may shine on the page of a book which allows the reading of the page but the light does not read anything.  Yet without the light of the flashlight, reading could not take place.  Without the light of primordial awareness, existence would not occur.

There would be no universe, no people, no mind – nothing.  This should be self-evident.  Awareness is the fundamental substratum and without it, nothing can exist.

As the ego recedes there is the appearance that awareness is increasing.  In reality it is the mind that is diminishing like draining a pond with a boulder that was once submerged in the middle of it (the boulder of awareness).  As the pond drains the boulder begins to show.  As more of the mind drains away, more of the boulder, which is really a shining, radiant diamond, appears.  So we say our awareness is increasing because that’s how it seems, but it is more so that our mind and ego are decreasing.

With this increasing light of awareness, we will begin to see and experience things heretofore unavailable to us.  These can be subtle machinations of the universe but the most important revelations are those regarding our own inner world.  We begin to feel the light and love that radiates from the core of our being.  And we also begin to see the dirt and soot in our subconscious minds.  We will begin to take up the task of cleaning and this is not always pleasant. 

There are those that say not to bother with purifying the mind and that we should, instead, just transcend it.  This will never work because an impure mind will never allow itself to be transcended.  Another way of saying this is that an impure mind will never allow itself to be diminished. 

The mind is diminished when it is concentrated.  This is simply common sense.  When the mind is held to one thing, it nearly ceases to exist. In the context of this book, we are primarily concerned with concentrating the mind on awareness.  As this occurs, awareness emerges as one’s own Self.  Like peeling a banana, when the peeling of the mind is removed, the fruit of awareness remains.

It will be seen that there is actually a hole in the mind that we step through.  The dichotomy is this:  we are concentrating on awareness, contemplating it, trying to feel it, trying to be it and so on, and all the while we are that very awareness we are trying to see.   Be that as it may, the reader is encouraged to persist with these tools because all of these endeavors will open the hole in the mind and we will soon experience that we are awareness and that everything is existing within us.

We are not really aware that we are not aware.  Most of us think we are aware but we have very little awareness.  This is due to the obscuring power of the mind and its egoistic notions.  The mind and ego block awareness in the same way that clouds block the sun.  Awareness is infinitely expansive while the mind and ego are hopelessly and pathologically constricted.

Because our awareness is currently such a faint spark at best, we succumb to all manner of phantasms and illusions that parade like ghosts through the caverns of our minds.  We will believe anything because we do not have the light of awareness to provide any discrimination.   There is no illumination.  Thus, we are lured into dark alleys and back streets of suffering and despair.  We are unable to tell the difference between the real and the unreal.  Amma comments:

"Son, you may say that you are wide awake, because you are walking, eating, breathing and seeing. Yes, you may be doing all these things, but, son, how many times a day are you really aware of your hands and legs, your tongue, your mouth or your breathing? Even when you eat, you are not aware of your hand that is feeding you, or the tongue in your mouth; when you walk, you are not at all conscious of your own legs - and are you breathing consciously? As you look around and observe, with your eyes, all the beauty and ugliness before you, are you aware of your own eyes? Even when your eyes are wide open, are you conscious of them? No, not at all. You are doing everything, but you are doing it unconsciously. You are leading an unconscious life. And yet you are eager to claim that you are conscious, that you are leading a conscious life. Therefore, wake up and be conscious."  Mata Amritanandamayi, Awaken Children

 

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