The Mind Recognises Awareness Knows.
Following our discussions so far, it is clear that the mind recognises metaphors of reality and later develops a language to navigate them. These metaphors objectify what is sensed by the body. There is an observing awareness that is aware of or knows the mind's metaphors. So, it’s important to draw this distinction between the mind and awareness. The mind recognises; awareness knows. Recognition depends on specific patterns. Knowing is agnostic to patterns.
At first, intellectually, we may infer that awareness must be there because how could we know anything if we are not aware of it? It is clear that the metaphors of the mind are just experiences and cannot know anything by themselves. It is clear that what we really mean when we say “I am hot” is “I am aware of an experience my mind has labelled a sensation called heat”. However, in the mind's language, it misses out on the “I am aware of” and therefore misses out on the reality that is truly knowing the experience. It simply says “I am hot” as if the mind knows it is hot. The mind starts to assume it is what knows and hides awareness within it.
It even comes up with presumptions and tries to get scientific evidence to back up this deception that it is what knows things. It assumes a power it does not have. It mixes up knowing with recognising as if they were the same thing. It confuses the superficial appearances of patterns it recognises as being reality. It confuses appearances for reality. It assumes appearances that all look separate are the nature of reality and therefore concludes that reality is made out of separate material objects. It assumes that because it is looking out on these objects from a limited perspective and it is what knows them, there is a separate self amidst all these material objects. This notion of reducing consciousness to being a separate self is profoundly reinforced.
The self is confused with the physical aspects of the body, and so not only does the mind assume that its metaphorical recognitions (thoughts) are the source of knowing, but the feeling of the body is also evidence of this local separate self. The belief in the separate self is reinforced in the language by the mind because, as previously pointed out, it misses out on the “Aware” bit of the sentences and gives the impression it is what is aware. The mind then asserts “I think, therefore I am”. It makes itself the master of the world.
The problem for the mind, however, still exists. It wants to feel safe all the time. Now, however, having asserted that it is the master of life, and the only reality is the appearances it sees, it has to rest for its own security on these appearances which it finds it cannot because, of course, all appearances are constantly changing and are not a firm basis for psychological security. Thus, the belief to be a separate self, identified with the limited thoughts and feelings of the body and mind, becomes the cause of existential insecurity. But the mind keeps asking “where can I find safety?”.
Eventually, it may, in some cases, pose questions that point to the awareness that is aware of the metaphors of the mind. It may ask the question “Is this awareness what knows and not me the mind?”. What is this awareness? Is this awareness always there? Is it real? Is this awareness what is really the home of what I, the mind, have been calling “me”? Can I have the grace to admit I know nothing, but recognise everything? It is this awareness that knows everything but recognises nothing. If this awareness is what knows, and what is the nature of “me”, then can this awareness know itself? Is it present? The answer is yes. It is real and it is present.
This aware reality is the backdrop to the metaphors of the mind and it is there. There is something, not nothing. This aware reality is always there. If this is what I really am, then I must be this aware reality. But can I still claim this is a separate personal aware reality? Do I, this mind, recognise anything about it that would indicate it is separate? No. I cannot. Then if the mind cannot recognise separation, what is the basis for believing this aware reality I am is separate? None. If it is not separate, then it would indicate that everything the mind recognises metaphorically is an appearance within this aware reality, made of this aware reality, and the reality I felt these metaphors of the mind to have, what the same reality. Everything is this aware reality. The mind only sees it in a particular way to help navigate it.
As I experience being this aware reality, I can experience this reality in all things the mind recognises. Everything is one reality that is aware of itself. As I experience this one reality being aware of itself, that is all there is. There is no I anymore. The I is dissolving. All there is, is this aware reality knowing itself. Suddenly the appearances of the metaphors of the mind, though still there, are not separate objects but are all the same reality. This is reality. This is home. Here there is peace as this reality is permanent. Its reality never changes, even though the metaphors the mind recognises come and go. It does not. It loves everything because everything is it. It experiences the metaphors of the mind as sparks of beauty because they are made of it, not separate dead material objects. It glimpses itself everywhere.
The mind is now truly understood as a recognition machine. A pair of refracting sunglasses that refract the one reality into a myriad of beautiful metaphors. The mind is relieved of its psychological reality to assume the mantle of being the source of reality. It can rest at last in the peace of the true reality. It can try and communicate this in words to other minds as well. This aware reality now recognising itself is the absolute pattern match expect there is no pattern just the pure direct knowing of knowing.
Now this door, having opened, the mind out of force of habit, may try and reclaim the mantle of being the source itself. And it is clever. It is programmed to survive – it has to be. But its basic evidence has been found lacking in the court of what is real and true and although it may be necessary to keep producing the evidence for a while, eventually, it will give up the assertion that it is the master of reality. Each morning as we arise we may remind the mind, what really knows the metaphors it is thinking about? Then being aware of this aware reality that knows we can be one with it more and more.
Living thus, we can live in psychological peace more and more and trust the flow of reality which after, has got us this far, without the mind creating any of it.
Love,
Freyja
