Questions
You asked …
“Is what we see touch think and smell made of awareness or are they just objects and sensations appearing in awareness?”
Briefly, the answer is, ‘both’. All phenomena such as thoughts, feelings, sensations, sights, smells, sounds etc. arise out of awareness and appear in awareness — there’s no actual separation — it is all ultimately One. You could say it’s something like what happens when you dream. The dream comes out of your mind AND appears in your mind as the dream. You are both the creator of your dream and, at the same time, you may appear as a character in your dream. A wonderful mystery isn’t it?
You then asked …
“is awareness a substance and what happens to it at death?”
No, awareness is not a substance … in fact, it’s not a ‘thing’ at all. Awareness could be called no-thing-ness … or Spirit … or the Life force. Awareness was not born with our body nor will it ever die, even though our body will finally dissolve and disappear. Our body/mind/personality evolves and changes constantly but Awareness is always the same … it is ageless. Awareness can never die because it is life ItSelf.
Awareness is not something you have like a memory or a heart: Awareness is what you already and always ARE. Awareness cannot go anywhere when the body dies because it is everywhere (or beyond ‘here’ and ‘there’) … eternally, even though we presently experience it only within our own body/mind.
Imagine awareness as being something like the space behind and around these words. If you were to delete all the words, the blank space would still remain unchanged. Without the space (the blank background), the words would not be possible, but the space does not depend upon the words in any way whatever. It’s existence is constant whether words are on the page or not. That is the relationship between the true Self (Awareness) and the temporary self (the body/mind/personality known as ‘me’.)
