Thought Yoga: Putting The Mind To Rest In Itself

Awareness is the ever-present continuity amongst all changing experiences. When we recognise that and abide there, we sit on the couch in the heart of meditation's living room. In this Thought Yoga experience, Saja takes you through the exploration of how awareness - the I Am presence - is the source of knowledge, and how we can abide in that I Am presence of pure knowing.

Depth rating 2/5.

Transcript

Today we're at the beach.

So you can hear maybe some wind,

Maybe some cars,

Maybe some birds.

You know I never actually hear birds at this beach,

Surprisingly.

And you'll be hearing the waves.

First let's just invite everything to come to us.

Just hold that as your intention to invite every sense,

Perception or thought to enter our field of awareness.

Listen to the sound.

Just have a consistent sound,

Or the most consistent sound that you can hear.

Notice that if there wasn't any sound,

Or notice that if there wasn't any silence,

There'd be no sound.

Just hope temporarily,

Open your eyes and just notice that if all seeming things didn't exist in pure emptiness,

There could be no seeming things.

In fact,

Even when space seems to be filled,

It's still empty.

Because if the space was truly filled,

It wouldn't be able to fit an object inside.

It's because the space is still empty space that an object can even fit inside it.

It's because sound is still silent that there can even be contrast or a seemingly,

For there to be a sound that exists.

Notice the sensations of the body.

If there wasn't the presence of the lack of body.

In other words,

If there was no,

If what we were was inside a body,

There would be no ability to feel what seems to be outside the body,

Or feel what seems to be inside the body.

Notice that likewise,

If there was no empty,

Infinite space of awareness,

There could be no experience.

If awareness wasn't inherently empty and spacious,

There could be no sound of experience.

Bring your attention to the silence of experience.

First notice the inherent silence amongst the noise.

Then notice that silence within yourself that's experiencing the whole field of our experience.

It may seem like nothing,

But it only seems like nothing when the mind thinks after it's been to that place.

That place we're going to is our self,

The place we refer to when we say,

I am.

It has no objective qualities,

So when we go there,

When we seemingly go there,

Which is another way of saying,

When we simply notice that already present awareness,

Ourself,

We are in our pure condition.

We're in our pure condition in the sense that our attention isn't filtering through the mind.

When we go to ourself,

Which we are there just by definition of being alive,

When we notice that presence,

There is no objective quality,

So there is no things.

Now for the mind that's so used to focusing on things,

We may miss it or mistake it.

Maybe the mind says that the state is boring.

Maybe the mind totally misses it and mistakes it for just nothing.

The reason that the mind may mistake it is because the mind can't know it.

The mind can't know anything about awareness.

Only awareness can know anything about awareness because awareness is the only one that's aware.

So when awareness is aware of itself,

Which is what being alive is,

Being to be,

To exist,

Alive to be or know of that self-existence,

To know ourself,

Being alive.

When we're being alive,

The raw experience of being alive,

When we are knowing ourself,

Which never really lands on ourself,

The knowing of ourself is simply pure knowing.

For instance,

If I know an object,

It seems like the object is known,

But when I know myself or when we know ourself,

The self is never known because it isn't an object.

So the experience just naturally abides in pure knowing because the self that we refer to is made of pure knowing.

The self can never be known in the way an object can because the self that we refer to,

The place we point to when we say,

I am or when we know that we exist,

Is the source of all things that we can know.

All things that we can apparently know.

All objective experience.

It is the knower of it all.

So when we come to this space,

This silent space of being,

The silent space of being alive,

There is nothing to know.

There is only knowing.

And that doesn't mean that the mind turns off.

In other words,

The mind I refer to here is everything that we experience through our senses or our thoughts.

Everything that can be experienced objectively is what I refer to as the mind,

Thoughts,

Images,

Sensations and perceptions.

The faculties of our mind don't turn off when we come into this presence.

They stay on.

And that's the point.

The trick here is to be in this presence with everything turned on.

Now,

We can never go to what we are.

So when there's a suggestion made,

Like go to the I or go to the reference point of the I am,

Go to that which it refers to.

If we seem to go somewhere other than where we are,

Then we have gone in the wrong direction.

So my suggestion would be to that,

If we appear to go somewhere with our attention,

Whenever we go towards ourself or whenever we go to the I am presence,

Do whatever you normally do.

Then let go of it.

Then forget about it.

And just rest in whatever is left over after that.

Now,

Be in that space.

You're already there.

Don't make any effort.

Just notice it.

It's like the difference in quality is like,

Say you're standing in a street and there's a load of people walking around.

And someone is walking closer to you,

But your attention is slightly over there,

So you're not really noticing who it is.

Then they get a bit closer and you're looking at them and you're looking at their face.

You're seeing exactly who it is,

But you still don't recognize them.

Then they come just a little bit closer and then you recognize who it is.

The person hasn't changed.

The person hasn't moved.

The person hasn't gone anywhere different.

He has come closer,

But we're not.

That's not to say that he needed to.

You probably would have recognized them if they stood in the same spot.

But that person is the same person that he or she was before you recognized them.

And they are the same person after you recognize them.

The only difference is you simply noticed who it was.

Nothing has changed.

Everything is the same.

You still know that person.

You still did know that person.

The only thing that has changed is that you've identified who it is.

Likewise,

Meditation is the same.

We simply recognize or notice what is already there.

Now,

The purpose of meditations like these or thought yoga explorations are to,

If possible,

Nudge you in the direction of that noticing.

Unlike the person in the street,

No one can bring that person closer to you.

It's so close to you that it's the most obvious thing in experience.

In fact,

It's so obvious that it's not obvious.

It's so obvious.

It's like the,

It's like infinites.

.

.

If we were to,

I don't know what the reverse word of infinitesimal is,

But if we were to somehow create the word that is the opposite for that,

It's infinitesimally obvious.

It's just obvious for infinity.

It's never-ending obviousness.

So much so that it almost hides itself.

It's almost as if.

.

.

It's like looking at something and being so focused on what you look at that you never recognize the eyes that seem to look at them.

And just like our eyes,

We can't look at our eyes.

If we were to look at our eyes,

We would be in the presence of pure seeing.

If we were to bring our attention so close that we merged our eyes with our seeing,

We would just be experienced pure seeing.

There'd be nothing seen other than seeing.

Likewise,

If we bring our attention so close to ourselves that the seeming stretch of attention collapses,

And that which is alive is experiencing itself,

Experiencing being alive,

The raw experience of it,

We experience meditation.

And that is the raw experience of being alive.

There's nothing to expect beyond this point.

That's pretty much it.

There is no.

.

.

There should be no desire for anything more than that.

It's the background of all states.

It's prior to the mind.

It's not necessarily beyond the mind,

Because it isn't past the mind.

It's simply before the mind takes place.

The mind then,

Or thought,

Emerges from that empty space of awareness,

In the same way that a wave emerges from the ocean,

Or that wind emerges from the air.

But now notice that nothing ever emerges from consciousness.

There is no emerging from it.

There's only emotion within it,

In the same way that there's only a motion within the air,

Or a current within the ocean.

What do we call the movement of the air?

We call it wind.

Is there ever anything that is actually wind?

Does the air turn into something else and become another substance called wind?

Or is the name wind just the name we give to the air which never changes,

To the air which stays the same,

To the air which is the same substance it always and always will be,

And always has been?

Likewise.

Consciousness never changes.

It doesn't become something else.

The mind is simply that.

In the same way the wind blows,

The mind blows.

Consciousness blows the mind into existence,

Into apparent existence within itself.

So now notice that this presence of being,

It can't be moved by anything that we experience.

You can move your arms.

You can think thoughts.

You can listen to music.

You can do as you wish.

You'll notice that just like gravity pulls towards,

Pulls us as an earth towards the sun,

The gravity of awareness or the gravity of life pulls ourself towards ourself.

What may happen is that through day to day we will simply notice more and more often that we are alive,

Or that I am.

It won't happen by effort and it can't happen by practice because there is no individual self that has control over whether that happens.

There's only the natural gravitational pull of the universe moving ourself to ourself.

Just now rest.

And that.

Just being that knowing.

It's undisturbable,

Indeterbable.

Still,

Silent and filled with life.

It's so filled with life we don't even know the difference.

We wouldn't know the difference.

We wouldn't know what it's like to not be screamingly filled with life because it's the only thing we can experience.

The essence of meditation and the nature of being alive are one and the same.

Rotate them to your heart and quiet as you reach their surroundings with silence.

Thank you.

Reviews

Wow. That was amazing. Some of this talk was a little over my head but the essence I understood. Thank you