Who Is Aware?

Generally we think, unconsciously, that 'I am aware,' that I am the one that is awareness, that awareness is something that belongs to me. We presume there is some entity called 'me' who is aware. Yet when we start to investigate this meditatively, quietly, simply, we start to see that while there is awareness, we can't actually find the 'I' or the 'me' who is aware. We start to see that this is an assumption that the mind has been taught to make, that 'I' am the one who is aware. When you turn inside and look for who's aware, what is aware, you can't find an 'it.' There's just more awareness. There isn't a 'me' or an 'I' who is aware.

In this way we are still subtracting our identity through this deep investigation. Through looking at what we are not, we are actually pulling our identity out of thought, feeling, persona, ego, body, mind. We are pulling our identity back out of the exterior elements of our experience into its essential nature. No sooner do we get back to awareness itself than we encounter the primary assumption that 'I am the one who is aware.' So we investigate that assumption. As we investigate it, through our experience, we discover time and time again that we cannot find out who it is that is aware. Where is this 'I' that is aware? It is at this precise moment-the moment when we realize that we cannot find an entity called 'me' who owns or possesses awareness-that it starts to dawn on us that maybe we ourselves are awareness itself. Awareness isn't something we own; awareness isn't something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.

Now for some people-for most people-this will sound radical. This is because we are so used to identifying ourselves with our thoughts, with our feelings, with our beliefs, with our egos, with our bodies, and with our minds. We are actually taught to identify with these things. Yet through our investigation we start to see that something stands before thought, before personality, before beliefs-something that we are calling awareness itself. It can flash upon us through this investigation that we are awareness itself.

This does not mean that there are not thoughts. It doesn't mean that there's not a body. We're not in denial of ego or personality or belief or anything else. This is not a denial of all these exterior elements of our human self. We're simply discovering our essential nature. Bodies and minds and beliefs and feelings are like clothing that awareness puts on, and we are finding out what is underneath this clothing. It can be quite transformative to realize that you are not what you thought you were, that you are not your beliefs, that you are not your personality, that you are not your ego. You are something other than that, something that resides on the inside, at the innermost core of your being. For the moment we are calling that something 'awareness' itself. The radical nature of this insight is not that awareness is something you possess, or that you need discipline or need to learn how to do. Awareness is actually what you are; it's the essence of your being. And not only is awareness what you are, it is also what everyone else is, too.