Back to “direct experience.” Again, it is often taken to mean basically that, “Awareness Itself doesn’t think, and It is the only Self—so don’t think. There is Awareness, and there appears to be an appearance here “within” Awareness, so just leave it be and don’t think beyond it, because Awareness Itself is not doing any such thinking.”
This may be a “direct experience” for a would-be “finite sensing mind” but Infinity, Awareness, is having no such experience. This again brings up the admittedly inherent problem with the word Awareness. Basically, CIA, and in a broader sense, the Absolute, is saying, Awareness is not aware of. Consciousness is not conscious of. (Most emphatically, this is speaking now of Infinite Consciousness, Awareness—not so-called human, sensory “body-consciousness.”)
Naturally in a finite framework of words and thoughts, this stirs up confusion and questions because it flies right in the face of “direct experience” and what it seems we’ve always been taught via words and thoughts. Nevertheless, this doesn’t make Awareness’ Infinity any less true.
As said before, the “problem” with “direct experience” is that because the “direct experience-er” doesn’t think, it doesn’t bother to think beyond itself or question its own validity. Awareness Itself (Infinity) does not change. Finite phenomena, or what one seems to be aware of or “include” in direct experience, is the only place there appears to be change. Starting from, or as Pure Infinity, (and this is what the Only One Aware is doing or being), there is no point where Its Infinity can be said to end, and where finity (change, appearances) begin. For this to be clear, it may seem you really have to “hold yourself” to Infinity only (Awareness, Being, certainly is!).
Look at this from another “angle.” It seems impossible to disagree or argue with the fact that the Present is now present. What’s more, the Present has to be all that is present. (Please, please, see chaps 12, 21 and 22 in CIA, especially pages 230-239). To One who “starts” Here, it is clear that only what is present can be present. (And again, this Present-ness is what Awareness, Infinity, is presently being, for It is the same One.) There is nothing else that could come between the Present and Its own presence. Simply nothing else is.
The Present that is all-present is not co-present with time. Time would be that which is-not-the-present. That which is not present is just that—not present. So time isn’t around anywhere; it never has presence to be an opposite to the Present. There is ONLY the Present and This never changes. This is the same as saying time never begins or occurs, for that which is not present can’t begin, because it’s not present! Thus time is not present even as “illusion” or a seeming, as often mistakenly believed. This is clear only to the Present Itself (Pure Awareness aware here, now), something which would-be thinking never can be.
To the Present, change and appearances don’t occur—for that would require time—of which there is none! This unchanging Present-ness is exactly the same “stuff” as the changelessness of Awareness and the changelessness of Infinity, for It really is the same One—just 3 different word-labels for One “stuff.” If you’re going to use these words, or read them, know what you’re talking about, investigate—don’t just accept hearsay, or what an author says, including this one!
Here’s the point. The Present Itself is all that “ever” is present, and never changes. There can be no more “direct experience” than This, for nothing else ever is present to be “experienced.” Nor is there ever another present besides the Present to have another kind of experience. So is there ever anything or anyone present besides the Present Itself to have an “experience” less direct than this–one involving time, appearances? No! In fact, the Present’s undeviating Self-Immediacy is SO “direct,” It of course can’t even be called an “experience”—for all so-called experience would require time.
Right now, “identify” Your Self as this Pure Present Awareness, which is the Present. In the Present’s “direct being” of Its own Presence, is there any evidence of time? Watch closely. If you try to say there is time, to do so, you are “noticing,” you’re in thought, and seem to have left Pure Aware Being, the Present. In the Present, is there any evidence of change, or of changing appearances? (And all appearances would be change.) In the Present Itself, is any such thing find-able? No. There isn’t any evidence at all—not even of the Present Itself!! If there were evidence of the Present, It would become finite, observable, a form formed-in-time, and no longer would be the Present!
This “vantage point” from, or as, the Present even provides an entirely new way of seeing the nature of what “change” would be (if such were possible in Infinite Reality, which it isn’t). It always has been assumed that change is what goes on in the appearance. This even was said in an earlier post, and in one sense it seems to be true. But wait a minute. To the Present Itself (the Only One present), in Its Absoluteness of Present-ness there is no time-appearance. No such appearance ever occurs; it would be “non-existent.” That which never occurs can’t involve change because it doesn’t exist to do so! To be able to change it would have to exist. So…if one were to talk about “change” at all, the only “change” would be if the Present’s utter Present-ness could alter, but, of course, It really can’t.
To try to say there is change, one would have to try to mentally leave Present-ness (via sensing or thinking) to claim or assume such a thing. But one cannot really even do that. The Present “remains” or IS, even while the assuming may appear to go on, like a super-imposed movie.