Guided Meditation: Always Effortlessly Aware

Good morning everyone. Nice to see you again and good evening those of you in India or the Far East. Just notice that you are effortlessly aware. Being effortlessly aware is your your natural condition. It is what you naturally effortlessly are irrespective of what you are aware of. the activities of thinking feeling sensing perceiving and so on. These are activities that you do from time to time. But being effortlessly aware is not something you do. It's what you essentially are. You are not always thinking, but you are always effortlessly aware. You are not always feeling, sensing, perceiving, but you are always effortlessly aware. You are not always acting and relating, but you are always effortlessly aware. When when you wake up in the morning, the activities of thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving and so begin. But being effortlessly aware doesn't begin. You are always that. Sometimes in the presence of experience, sometimes in the absence of experience. Just as the screen, relatively speaking, is always the screen. Sometimes in the presence of a movie, sometimes in the absence of a movie. The content of the movie doesn't affect the screen. What we are aware of doesn't affect the nature of being aware. Being aware is the constant steady changeless background of all continually changing experience. And we don't have to practice being aware. Being aware is what you naturally effortlessly are. It is true that the fact of being effortlessly aware can be overlooked in favor of the content of experience. But even then you don't cease being effortlessly aware. Being effortlessly aware is just temporarily obscured by the content of experience. Meditation is simply to notice the natural effortless awareness that you essentially a --- . And to be that knowingly, everyone is always only that, but mostly without realizing it. They are that so to speak unknowingly without realizing it. Meditation is simply to be that knowingly, to stand as that in the face of all experience. In other words, it is simply to to be knowingly what you always and already are. See that there is no agitation, sorrow, pain or conflict in what you naturally effortlessly are the agitation belongs to our thoughts. It is what we are aware of. The sorrow belongs to our feelings. It is what we are aware of. The pain belongs to the body. It is what we are aware of. The conflict takes place in relationships. It's what we are aware of. But that which is aware or being effortlessly aware is inherently free of the agitation, sorrow, pain, and conflict that characterize our experience. In other words, being effortlessly aware is already at peace, already free of all suff sorrow. It is already the peace, the quiet joy, the absence of conflict that is the love that we seek. as we sit here in silence like this. Some of you may be at peace, but others amongst you may be bored or irritated or restless, boredom irritation restlessness. These are feelings that we are aware of. They do not touch the awareness that we essentially are being effortlessly aware. So if you are bored, irritated or restless, don't do what these feelings want you to do, which is to get busy with some object or activity in order to escape from the discomfort of them. Just go gently back to being effortlessly aware. Leave the boredom, irritation or restlessness alone and it will leave you alone. If you find yourself through force of habit, lost in the content of experience, just come back to being effortlessly aware. And notice tha --- his this recognition of what we essentially are is always a a coming back a returning. It is never a a reaching for ourself. It is never a a going towards ourself. It is never the result of searching for ourself. It is always a returning, a relaxing, a coming back, a sinking. We cannot or rather we do not find ourself. We are ourself. It would only be possible to find something that was that was lost that was not present and becomes present as a result of finding We cannot reach for ourself. We can only be ourself knowingly. We are always ourself either knowingly or unknowingly. enlightenment, awakening self-realization liberation. These must be amongst the most misunderstood words in all the spiritual traditions. suggesting as they do some marvelous, extraordinary, mystical, spiritual experience. There is nothing marvelous, extraordinary, mystical or spiritual about our being. or rather about being or being effortlessly aware. Being or being aware is the simplest, the most ordinary, the least exotic, the most familiar, the most intimate experience. If we can call it an experience there is The cultures in which many of us first heard about awakening enlightenment self-realization may seem exotic to us. India, China, Tibet and so on. But we have allowed the exotic nature of these cultures to color our understanding of the enlightenment or the awakening that they refer to. So-called enlightenment or awakening is the least exotic experience there is. Just the recognition of the nature of being Everything we see, we see with our eyes or we see through the eyes. The only thing that the eyes cannot see are themselves. The eyes. Why? Because the eyes are too close to themselves to be able to look at themselves. The eyes can only see s --- ing at a distance from them. If you try now to look at your eyes with your eyes, there is a a kind of blind spot, a an emptiness, an openness where nothing is seen. It's exactly the same when we try to know ourself. It is only possible to know something that is at a distance from our self. In other words, in subject to object relationship, we can know a thought or experience a feeling or perceive an object because the thought, the feeling or the object stand as it were at a distance from us. We know them in subject object relationship. We are the subject the knower and the thought the feeling or the object are the object the known. But when we try to know ourself it's like the eyes trying to see themselves. We are too close to ourself. We that is effortless aware being. We are too close to to ourself to know ourself in subject object relationship. We cannot stand apart from ourself and look at ourself and know ourself objectively. So when we try to know ourself, there is an absence of experience, an openness, an emptiness. Just pure aware being without any objective features. A pure aware being or awareness itself cannot know itself as an object. It can only be itself knowingly. So let any residual impulse or desire to know yourself or to find yourself. Subside in this understanding. To know yourself is to be yourself. knowingly. in other words in self-nowledge there is no knowledge This absence of knowledge is your presence. all alone. And in this presence is all the peace, the joy, the love that you have ever longed for. It is in our absence that we find our presence. Well, what a nice day to start the day with you all. Thank you. And thank you, Neil. Have a lovely day and look forward to being with you later on. Bye for now.