Vedanta Meditation On Attention & Awareness - Clear Knowing

Welcome to a transformative meditation experience that delves into the realms of Attention and Awareness, guiding you toward a state of clear Knowing Open Awareness. In this guided meditation, you will explore the profound practice of cultivating heightened awareness and attaining a deeper understanding of your true self and your life. Exploring the Nature of Attention and Awareness is the highest form of gyan - meditation as per the Upanishads (Vedanta), and indeed in all the great religious and philosophical traditions.
Music by Niladri and photo by William Farlow

Transcript

Allow a gentle smile on your face, Allow the muscle of your face, All the muscles in your face, Lips, Mouth, Cheeks to soften as you smile. Also allow the muscles in and around your eyes, Eyebrows, Forehead to soften. As you continue to smile, As you continue to soften the muscles in and around your face, Feel more at ease and let go of any strain in any part of the body that is not necessary. So let go of the weight, Let go of any strain, Any excess pressure in any part of the body. Continue to smile and relax and allow this relaxation to descend from your neck, Allow the relaxation to percolate to your shoulders. Let go of any excess weight you may be carrying today on your shoulders. Continue to remain relaxed, Upright and very light. Breathe in and breathe out, More deep breathe in, One last deep breathe in and slow exhalation. As you sit here, See how something in you is already responding to this opportunity. Know that without any effort, Without any doing, You can be in touch with your being, With yourself. Just like this very effortlessly be in touch with your true self, The self that is watching all your thoughts and sensations. Continue to remain as this self, Unperturbed by the sounds, The sensations, Thoughts. Continue to observe the sensations in your body Continue to observe the tingling sensation in your palms and then let go of the sensation. See if you can feel the sensation in and around your knees, Go that sensation, Stretch your awareness towards the soles of your feet and feel the sensations in this part of your body. Now pay attention to your heartbeats, Pay attention to the sensation of your breathing. So see how you are using your attention to illuminate objects, To illuminate sensation in your body. You can also use this attention to now, For example, Pay attention to the sounds, Sounds coming from your computer, Sounds coming from within your room. See how attention is stretching towards all these sounds. So as you sit here as awareness you can see how your attention, One object or other object, Is illuminating the object, Is knowing that object. That's the function of your attention. But you can also withdraw the attention from these objects. So rather than stretching your awareness towards that object, You can also let go of that attention and allow the attention to sink into the source of itself, Like a torch that you use to illuminate objects in dark. You use attention to know objects in your awareness. But you can also let go of that attention, The stretching of your awareness towards an object and let it fall back, Fall back into the source of itself and let go of any focusing. Just like a camera's viewfinder can focus and can defocus. As it focuses the view becomes more and more clear, More information is known. But it can also defocus and as it defocuses information is lost and you see this abstract background of. In the same manner defocus and sink into the source of your awareness where everything is known but known in an abstract manner. We are not hooking into any knowing. So we are allowing all the sensations to be known. We are allowing all the thoughts to come and go, All the emotions coming in. But your awareness is remaining as itself, In itself, Unperturbed, Unfocused or focused on itself only but not on objects. So such awareness, Such quality of your awareness which is happy to abide in itself as itself has been given a lot of names in a lot of traditions. Some call it pure mind, Some call it open awareness. But we are not really interested in knowing the concept. We are interested in experiencing what it is meant to be aware or rather what it is meant to be aware of being aware. So see how it feels experientially to be aware of being aware. Whenever you find yourself is instead of being aware of being aware is aware of objects arising in the awareness which can happen very very easily. Ask yourself a question am I aware? And it will draw, The answer will draw you to this familiar territory of your awareness. So instead of answering the question am I aware? Become the answer, Become the awareness. Whenever you find yourself lost, Ask yourself am I aware? As you become the answer, Know that this is what it means to be. And as you successfully remain aware of being aware, Sometimes your mind wants to know what does it exactly mean, How does it look, How does it feel to be aware of being aware. Our mind wants to know the awareness in an objective manner like it knows all other objects and it's completely natural. However, Just in the same way your eyes can't see itself, You can't stand up and take a step towards yourself. Awareness cannot see itself in an objective subject-object manner but it knows itself by itself. So do not attribute any shape or any state or any color to it. In fact whenever your mind tries to assign a shape or color or attribute to your awareness, Know that it is another thought, Another concept which is seen and known in your awareness. And try to separate yourself from that object to your awareness and trust the answer as you ask yourself am I aware? Trust the answer that you very intuitively know. In fact being aware of being aware is one of the most intimate knowledge you have. So intimate that we have taken it for granted, That we have forgotten it or ignored it. Like zero, We don't count from zero, One, Two, Three. We always count from one, Two, Three because we take zero for granted. Zero is seen as nothing. So this time is to be that zero. Be nothing. By nothing I mean no thing is not a thing. Continue to be that no thing, Awareness that knows, Feels, That is now choosing to be just aware of itself. And the domain of its knowing is not, It's not limited to the body. It's not limited to your thoughts, To your emotions, The breath. All of it is known in the awareness. But it is also aware of all the sounds around you. It's also aware of all the air around you. It's also aware of the space around you. So if you had any notion of awareness limited to the body, Let go of that too. As you continue to remain awareness, As you continue being aware of being aware, Let go of the boundary and become wide, Remain wide, Open, Empty, Sky-like awareness. And trust this intuitive knowing of yourself, Awareness. And be this knowingly, Confidently. Allow all the chatters, Doubts to come. But know them as thoughts, Shapes, Colors, Patterns arising in your wide, Open awareness. There is nothing more to them. Allow all the objects to arise. But your priority is this open, Vast, Spacious awareness, Which is aware of itself without needing to see itself, Without needing to prove it to itself. It knows itself by itself. It's your intuitive first knowledge. So trust this knowledge and be this. And see how easy it is to you. There is no effort whatsoever needed. How would we need any effort to be what we already are? So any effort to get it right, Get it perfect, Is only an effort. It's only a pattern or shape appearing in your awareness. So recognize how futile that effort is and rise above and beyond it and come back to being this wide open awareness. Any sense of boredom is again a pattern, A shape, Seen and felt here in a preference of being this wide open awareness. Whenever you find yourself lost or overly engaged with an object, Which can happen very very easily, Ask yourself a question, Am I aware? And become the answer. And then remain the answer. Until next time you have to ask that question again to come back to this familiar territory of your own self. Continue to remain inclusive. Continue to allow all the sensations to come. Continue to remain watchful and at the same time not interested. Not interested in what is watched or what is appearing in you. Only interested or only prioritizing the sense of knowing and being. Again also we remain vigilant of that object seeking mind and the tendency of finding the awareness or trying to look for it. As Rumi said, What you are looking for is looking. Recognize how futile it is to look for what you're looking. And come back to being this awareness with the confidence, With the familiarity, With the wonder, With the gratitude, With that openness. Knowing that this awareness is always perfect, Never fragmented. It can be divided into parts. Essentially it's whole. Nothing that you can think is going to aggrandize it. Nothing that comes in it, A sensation or dark clouds of emotion, Is going to harm this or take anything away from it. All of those events will come in our life time to time, Will be known, Felt, But they essentially does not aggrandize your awareness or take anything away from your awareness. Continue to remain here as whole, Perfect, Open awareness. In our meditation we close our eyes because then you don't have to worry about one sensory experience called vision. It is very hard for mind to shut off. Recognize your true nature of awareness. So closing eyes in the beginnings help us to identify our nature of awareness. But you will find time to time you're recognizing this awareness even when your eyes are open. Because again the vision is nothing but another shape, Color, That is appearing in your awareness while your eyes are open. So as your practice deepens you'll find yourself being aware of being aware and your eyes are open. Many of you have been coming to these sessions for a few weeks now. You may have already observed that and knowing formal practice like this would help to deepen the knowing of this awareness being as this awareness. Continue to remain here for a few more seconds. Ask yourself again, Am I aware? Then answer and know that as we draw this to an end, Rise. See if that awareness is still there. It never goes away as such. Thanks for your company. We hope to see you next week again in the same space.

Reviews

So deep. I will return to this meditation

Returned to this meditation after 7 months and once again had a very deep experience