A contemplation of the nature of consciousness


Magdi Badawy, 07-12-2024

Hello, everyone.
Lovely to be with you.

So you can either close your eyes
or turn your gaze inward and
rest as being,
rest as presence.

Welcome your experience
whichever way it appears to you
in this moment
without doing anything,
without any reference
to the past or the future.

This effortless welcoming
without knowing,
without engaging the mind.

It’s not necessary right now.

Awareness is hearing these words
appearing in awareness effortlessly.
There is possibly awareness of stillness,
awareness of an inner quiet.

Awareness is always on board.

That which neither comes nor goes.
The being factor,
the knowing element.

You don’t need to go anywhere,
you don’t need to do anything
in order to be aware
and to be aware that you are aware.

This awareness is alive,
takes on the form of the breath,
various sensations,
thoughts.

And irrespective of the forms which it takes,
it is alive within itself;
from itself to itself.

It knows it is.
It knows that it knows.

Thought may appear to you
and the impression of movement
may appear to you,
but you don’t move.

You don’t go anywhere
because you are nowhere and everywhere.
Everything appears within you,
consciousness.

So simply invite yourself to this recognition
awareness, awareing itself.

There is a deep relaxation in
this restfulness of consciousness
resting within itself.

The mind is invited to rest
in the peace,
in the peace of being.

The world appears within
this formless awareness.
Which is its reality,
its essence.

Nothing is happening to awareness.
Nothing is happening to you.

You,
this aware presence.

The mind is empty.
The heart is full.

A few words about
the emptiness teachings:
Sunyata.

In our inquiry about
what am I?
What is reality?
We usually start with
I am this person,
this body mind,
this son or daughter.

And as we look deeply into that belief,
we realize that I am not the body
which I perceive or I experience.
I am not the mind,
the thoughts,
the memories
which I perceive.

I am not the form
which I perceive.
Netty, netty: I am not this,
I am not that.

We may come
to a premature conclusion,
that nothing is real.

I do not exist.
The world does not exist.
Nothing exists.
Nothing is.

Which is a partial understanding
Which I refer to as nihilism.

But the emptiness teachings
go beyond that.
They go beyond the empty emptiness.

Because right now you’re aware,
and you know you are aware,
and that is not nothing.
That is everything.

In time,
as we go beyond nihilism,
we come to the understanding
that there is
something which is everything.
There is reality.
There is aware presence,
which is borderless, universal.

It is empty in that it there are no things
separate from it.
And yet it is not empty
because everything, is it.

In the absence of things,
in the absence of thoughts,
in the absence of hearing, perceiving,
you do not disappear.

This emptiness is a full emptiness.
One could say it is full of peace
and inner tranquility,
love,
understanding.

It is empty of separate objects.
But it is not nothing,
it is everything.

So you,
when you refer to yourself as I,
you are referring to this totality.
It is totality which is referring to itself as I.

I am,
and I know that I am.
This body mind experience
appears to I,
appears to consciousness.

This entire human experience
is about the understanding;
Experiential understanding
about your universal reality,
your universal beingness,
It is absolute freedom,
which is unopposed.

For a while it may seem
that you are in the dream.
A character in the dream,
a mother, a father, a son, a daughter in the dream.

But in time,
you realize that you are the awareness of the dream.
The impression that you are subject
to various conditions
dissolves in your understanding.

So keep turning your attention to the source
whenever you’re inspired to do so.
Because the Source is inviting you
to Itself, from Itself to Itself.

You are inviting yourself
to your recognition
in this moment.

So if you have any questions,
anything you would like to explore,
make sure you unmute yourself
and raise your hand.

Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash


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