This post is in response to Sofia’s comments and questions from the earlier post, “Words, words, words.” The questions are repeated here for convenience.
Dear Peter– Thank you for taking the time with my questions. I quite understand that Pure Awareness is absolute, and that time/space/everything is nothing more than conscious thought.
But is there a reason for this awareness? Is there some purpose for the whole exercise? I know that such answers will fall outside the realm of Pure Awareness, but why isn’t Awareness aware of why it is aware?
And also, is this a solipsistic deal, or is Awareness multi-faceted, being aware through all conscious manifestations? I thank you again. Sincerely, Sofia
These are rather involved questions…for the “full picture” I would suggest one read the book (and I’m not trying to sell books!)
For now: First of all, Awareness as It is used here, is not the same as It is used in much of nonduality. Here, Awareness means Infinity only–Pure Being or Spirit. It is Timeless, yes, but not a Timelessness that co-exists with time, or even a thought-state of time–even though they are talked about a lot here for clarity.
Awareness is “primary” in the sense that It alone IS, as you indicated. Awareness alone is present, changeless, all that really is–or all that is real, which is why It is called Reality.
All so-called time-phenomena, including all mind-activity and thinking, never are present. They seem to constantly move, change, come and go, and never truly are BEING. From the standpoint of Awareness, Being, thinking and mind-activity that seems to occur in time would be non-presence, non-being.
Awareness does not depend on thinking to be what It is. It exists or IS on Its own–and Its “Realm” is nothing like that of the would-be thinking mind. Awareness does not need thinking.
But it’s not the other way around–if not for Awareness being present, thinking wouldn’t even seem to be. Again, thinking has no genuine present-ness or reality of its own; no true, unchanging presence, which is why it’s referred to as “would-be”…it would be what it seems IF it really had presence, but it doesn’t.
What then seems to happen (but only on the level of thinking–and not to Awareness) is that thinking tries to apply the standards of its “would-be” realm of non-presence to Awareness.
Thinking, which seems to deal in time, cause and effect, a reason why, or purpose, etc., then tries to ask “why” of Awareness, such as: Why is Awareness aware? Why is It here, and what is the purpose of all this? Why does It seem to become more aware of Itself? etc.
BUT, all of that mistakenly implies there is time in Absolute Being, Self’s Infinity, Awareness, and there isn’t. None of thinking’s would-be standards can be applied to Awareness–Its Timelessness is an entirely different “Realm” than what so-called “thinking” seems to be accustomed to.
When asking “what is the purpose”–be very specific about what is being referred to. If it’s Awareness–Awareness has no purpose. It is Changeless Perfection. Again, “purpose” is a notion wholly cooked up solely by human time-thinking. It’s trying to come up with a reason for itself being there to supposedly think–but thinking doesn’t know it has no real Being. It is trying to explain to itself some grand purpose for itself–but it’s simply the cat of human imagination chasing its own tail.
Don’t try to answer the questions that thinking comes up with on their terms! Rather, stand as Pure Unthinking Now-Awareness, Absolute Present-ness, and question the legitimacy of thinking. From All-Present Awareness, thinking would be non-presence–and so it never really is genuinely present to ask questions about its non-presence, and then demand answers to them! Thinking never questions its own validity to be there and doing all that thinking.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking–it’s just that it and all it tries to do and account for, explain, or demand answers about, is NOT REAL. In chapter 5, (free on the website) it says, “The only one that thinks thinking is so special is that very same thinking.” Thinking doesn’t know that, from standpoint of Pure Being (all that Is Real, or Really Is), thinking doesn’t even occur.
And then if there’s a thought, “Well, what is the purpose of this whole exercise of seemingly becoming more aware?” Again, in its ignorance (ignore-ance of the fact that only Awareness IS), thinking mistakenly assumes there has been a long background, a past history, of slowly becoming more aware. Yet there is no such thing!
Awareness Itself is not becoming more aware. It IS Itself. And even the notion that there was a past in which some clarity or greater awareness has been gained–is NOT TRUE from the standpoint of Timeless All-Present Awareness which precludes a past.
Not even Awareness Itself has existed for so much as a nanosecond–because the false notion that It has, would be just a thought trying to arise now for the first time ever. So there certainly hasn’t been any history or background of someone having become more aware.
This also throws all notions of solipsism out the window. Who or what created the very notion of solipsism? Thinking! Solipsism is generally defined as the theory, or view that there is only the self. First of all, that’s usually taken to mean referring to a personal self, or the subjective. To Infinite Present Awareness, there is neither.
Far more importantly–to Present Awareness who Itself hasn’t even existed before–there has been no past, no previous time in which there has been so much as a single thought about Awareness, Self.
There has been no prior time in which any theories or philosophizing went on. There has been nothing subjective, no previous time in which PRESENT AWARENESS had a prior way of thinking about Itself and calling Itself solipsistic or subjective–or even the Only Self! Awareness has not, and does not, call Itself anything–not even Awareness.
Awareness, Pure Alive Being-Now, does not wonder if Itself is multi-faceted, etc. because It has no time for such thoughts or wonderings to arise. As the saying goes, to wonder is to wander (outside of IS). All such wondering would be merely a past-less “first-time” thought, not Awareness.
Hope that answers it!