We know things as they appear in our awareness. All objects of perception require a background on which they appear. Their existence is dependent on this background. What is that? What is awareness?
Awareness cannot be an object of observation. Awareness is the observation itself, that which observes from moment to moment.
Being aware of the awareness would mean that there are two kinds of awareness, one that would be aware of the second one. Awareness is not two. Awareness is one. Awareness can never be an object. Awareness is the subject itself.
When we say ‘I am aware of’, we speak from the point of view of the awareness itself. We may think we are speaking from the point of view of our body-mind. But who is the knower of the body-mind? The knower of the body-mind cannot belong to the body-mind.
In order to relate at a deeper level, the psychiatrist has to give up the idea of being a psychiatrist. This very idea is a hindrance to real communication. Because of this idea, our speech and action come only from the memory. We just repeat what we hear. There is no creativity. Creativity is when I am not. It entails the absence of identification to any person, including the psychiatrist and his/her knowledge. The knowledge of the awareness is not something that we can learn from others. It comes when the space is free from any content, when the mind is available to that which is beyond the mind.
That which is beyond the mind cannot be put into form. The formless does not belong to the form, although the form depends on it.
The source of suffering is in our own mind. The idea of being something comes from fear, the fear of being nothing. This primary fear arises at the same time that the ego is born. The ego is merely the I-thought. It comes with the thought and disappears with it. In the intervals between thoughts or in the dreamless sleep, there is only being, without thinking.
Release from suffering means release from the I-concept. The I-concept has a functional use but is easily confused with the reality that we are. Impermanence cannot be considered as reality. Mistaking impermanence (unreality) for reality is the source of suffering. The awareness in which impermanence occurs is reality, but a reality that cannot be grasped. It grasps you when you are ready for that, when you have completely surrendered, when your mind is free from any content.
Availability is not the result of effort, but of a complete letting-go of the content of awareness. Wondering is a good example of this absence of content. Wondering does not relate to content but to wondering itself.
To the question ‘shouldn't we be something before being nothing?’ we could answer that the inquiry toward the true nature of the Self requires maturity. The models of identification change during the process of maturation. In the fullness of time, heroes and sages replace male and female parental images. The process of identification should not be disturbed, nor does it need to be stimulated. It occurs as a need. It disappears together with this need. When there is no more need to identify with something, the ‘I am’ is the only residue. Although this residue does not need to say ‘I am’ in order to affirm itself, the ‘I am’ is its nearest expression, as the ray is the nearest expression of the sun. Before the ‘I am’ is the ‘I’, before the ‘I’ is the thoughtless awareness.
The nature of awareness is silence. Silence does not need to be silent. Silence is, with or without noise. The noise is only known by silence.
In summary, the way to freedom from suffering is a no-way, for the distance between I and I is zero. The quest for truth and reality is the sign of division. Division is the sign of the existence of a subject and an object. Both subject and object belong to awareness. Yet awareness is neither subject nor object, while being both.
From such a perspective, the relationship between a psychiatrist and his/her patient can only be a friendly sharing of perspective. The quest for truth is also present behind the mask of a ‘neurosis’ or ‘psychosis’. The psychiatrist and his/her patient are united in this same quest for reality. The reality looks for itself under the appearance of a psychiatrist and a patient. For reality itself, there is no psychiatrist and no patient. This division might have a functional use. But function is only function. The ego, which is attached to this functional identity, maintains a feeling of separation. The oneness of awareness looks for itself under the appearance of crisis. Crisis is a letting-go. From his/her own experience, the skilful therapist should be aware of that, knowing the light is waiting for the dissolution of darkness. Darkness is no more than a concept. For the light, there is only light. By remaining true to the light as essential reality, the therapist is no longer trapped by his/her mind. He/she is light before being a therapist in the same way as his/her patient. Both are only light, pure awareness.
Homage to the one reality that lies beyond multiplicity.
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