In accessing understanding of this get aways car, when do you... I guess, awareness, come into complete awareness. In fact who is the one doing the awareness before complete awareness?
Awareness is *always* complete awareness. It's only when we get caught up in (enmeshed with, hypnotized by) various objects *of* awareness (ie the body, emotions, thoughts, the various goings-on of the world, etc.) that it *seems* as if awareness is gone. Or, more precisely, it seems as if awareness is focused ON stuff rather than being pure awareness. Awareness, beyond any seeming objects OF awareness, is the real You. That Awareness ... that You doesn't "do" anything. It's a bit paradoxical, but these lines from the Course, that were perhaps among Ken Wapnick's most treasured, sum Awareness up perfectly. "Forgiveness [Awareness] is still and quietly does nothing ... it merely looks, and waits, and judges not." This is the realm of what the Course calls the right mind or spirit ... it is a reflection of Heaven or Oneness ... a state of bliss and peace and love.
The sense of identity (the feeling of "me") comes about when Awareness (the real You) chooses to leave (deny) this realm and instead direct pure awareness onto objects OF awareness. In truth this never happened. "In his forgetting [of heaven] did the thought [of objects of awareness] become a serious idea. We can laugh [such a tiny, mad idea] away, and understand that [nothing] can intrude upon eternity."
Of course, our experience is most definitely that there ARE objects OF awareness, particularly a me with billions of other you's, not to mention trillions of other stuff. And so the Course is helping us shift our attention from all the objects OF awareness back onto the essence or presence that is aware. So by deeply contemplating questions like "Who is it that knows I'm a me?" or "Who is it that knows I'm upset?" can lead us back into that essence or presence of awareness.
In accessing understanding of this get aways car, when do you... I guess, awareness, come into complete awareness. In fact who is the one doing the awareness before complete awareness?
Awareness is *always* complete awareness. It's only when we get caught up in (enmeshed with, hypnotized by) various objects *of* awareness (ie the body, emotions, thoughts, the various goings-on of the world, etc.) that it *seems* as if awareness is gone. Or, more precisely, it seems as if awareness is focused ON stuff rather than being pure awareness. Awareness, beyond any seeming objects OF awareness, is the real You. That Awareness ... that You doesn't "do" anything. It's a bit paradoxical, but these lines from the Course, that were perhaps among Ken Wapnick's most treasured, sum Awareness up perfectly. "Forgiveness [Awareness] is still and quietly does nothing ... it merely looks, and waits, and judges not." This is the realm of what the Course calls the right mind or spirit ... it is a reflection of Heaven or Oneness ... a state of bliss and peace and love.
The sense of identity (the feeling of "me") comes about when Awareness (the real You) chooses to leave (deny) this realm and instead direct pure awareness onto objects OF awareness. In truth this never happened. "In his forgetting [of heaven] did the thought [of objects of awareness] become a serious idea. We can laugh [such a tiny, mad idea] away, and understand that [nothing] can intrude upon eternity."
Of course, our experience is most definitely that there ARE objects OF awareness, particularly a me with billions of other you's, not to mention trillions of other stuff. And so the Course is helping us shift our attention from all the objects OF awareness back onto the essence or presence that is aware. So by deeply contemplating questions like "Who is it that knows I'm a me?" or "Who is it that knows I'm upset?" can lead us back into that essence or presence of awareness.