“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’.)

In life, we never know what’s coming next. As much as we want to know and plan our future, it will come as it is meant to come. So why fear? Why seek to control something we cannot control? The beauty of it is, we don’t have to know what’s going to be as we have a power within us that will create and attract whatever we may need in each moment.

Life is always ‘in the right’. It doesn’t matter if we agree with it or not, it simply is. Life will decide if we shall meet again or not. Life will bring us together again if it’s meant to be. Life will show us when it’s time to go. Life will let us know what is next. Life will guide us in the right direction. Life will bring us everything we need at the right time. Life will help us when we truly need help.

Life is more than we can imagine or ever understand. And most importantly: life is not separate from us. We don’t have a life, because we are this life.

Close your eyes and, with your hands on your chest, feel your heartbeat and breathing that has continued without fail since your birth. It’s always been there and guess what, you’re not controlling it! Have you ever realized this?

Without your hearbeat and breathing, there would be no life — these simple miracles are here to teach you to stop trying to control your life and to let it simply happen. Let life happen to you. And trust that whatever happens, is right because it is happening.

Notice that there’s something much greater within you than can be contained by your mind and body. This ’something,’ which is really not a thing at all, cannot be controlled and the more you accept this, the more life will flow — the more abundance and love you will experience.

And you will realize, that you are this love and abundance. You are life and your only responsibility is to trust this simple knowing of who you truly are.

~ by Jason Lee Mitchell

~ John Astin

Morality is important in many traditional teachings because those teachings have not gone beyond Ego, so they still function within the framework of the Ego.

If you live in a society that is inhabited by Egos, you need certain external rules of behavior and regulations so that there is not absolute chaos. What you need then is commandments, or laws that need to be in place so that the Ego does not create absolute chaos in the world.

The emphasis of this teaching is to transcend the Ego so that a different state of consciousness arises, we call it *presence*. Once this state of consciousness operates, external rules and regulations are not really needed anymore, because a knowing of what is right and wrong arises from within you, and you are no longer able to inflict suffering on others because the illusion of absolute separateness between who you are and who another human being is, has disappeared.

You’re no longer trapped in that illusion, so you know that ultimately, whatever you are doing to another, you are doing to yourself. Most importantly, there is love as the recognition of the other as yourself — the recognition of oneness. Once that is the basis of your life, you don’t need rules or regulations anymore because that arises directly and spontaneously from within you.

One could say that all you need to do is to be in that state of love, which is not conventional love, but the recognition of non-separation, recognition of the ultimate Oneness of all beings. Once that is there, then the right conduct flows naturally from within you. You don’t need to memorize the commandments anymore to tell you what’s right and wrong.

Once the Ego is transcended, morality emerges from within. Morality arises spontaneously as the effect of the inner transformation. The emphasis of this teaching is not on morality, but on something deeper, out of which true morality flows.

~ by Eckhart Tolle

~ by Gangaji

A: Thanks for your question. It’s one of the most common concerns raised about the teachings of non-duality.

While there is just one reality or one Being here, the manifestations and movements of that one Being are as diverse as can be. Oneness seems to love to appear and dance as many. And there are also many levels of truth that operate within this amazing dance of life.

So your question about murder and war can be answered at different levels, and all of the answers would have some relevance. At the most relative level, there is the definite appearance of free will. It’s important what we do, and if people made better choices, this would be wonderful for the world.

If we shift to a more absolute perspective, we can see that all action is purely an illusion created by our consciousness. No action has ever harmed consciousness, and so the appearances of murder and war are just that: an appearance.

But to be complete, we also can experience how both of these perspectives are true, and also experience a perspective that is in between these two extremes. It turns out that when someone directly experiences their true nature as empty spacious presence, this doesn’t necessarily lead to a disinterest in the appearances and illusions of this world. In fact, the recognition that there’s no one here and no individual doing anything most often leads to the experience and expression of a deep love for this world and all of the illusions in it.

If it’s just an illusion, then why bother with murder or war? If you and your actions are just an illusion, then the pain and fears of the illusory ego simply do not matter anymore. If we see through the illusions of our personal story, then there are no longer any motivations that would lead to murder or war.

In the absence of a personal self, we are not left with nothing. There are many deeper qualities of true nature that are revealed as the ego loosens it’s grip on us. And it is perhaps a surprise to find out that they are all positive qualities like love, joy, peace, clarity, strength, and wisdom. I say it is perhaps a surprise because of the psychological view that our unconscious is filled with all kinds of repressed negative emotions that must be contained.

And while there is also some truth to this perspective, the missing piece in much of psychology is that underneath even our darkest unconscious emotions are these essential qualities of our Being. It turns out that at the core, we are loving, joyful and divine. This is not something that you can grasp intellectually, but it is something that you can experience as your sense of self is weakened or dissolved by direct inquiry.

It’s possible to have a purely intellectual grasp of the concept that there is no individual doer, and that the world is just an illusion. And like any belief or concept, it can just be believed and identified with and lead to all kinds of distortions and justifications for terrible actions.

For examples, just examine the history of religious fundamentalism where teachings about peace and love have been used to justify hatred, murder and war. Even a belief in there being no doer can lead to this kind of fundamentalism if it is just a belief. But in the actual experience of the dissolving of an egoic sense of self, there is an opening to the deeper realities of our essential Being, and beyond that to the mystery at the core of Being which can not be described or defined.

The positive qualities at the core of our Being are strangely found to be nondual also. At that depth of experience, it is seen that there is only goodness and that there is no opposite thing called badness. This is the important discovery that counterbalances any tendency of the ego to form a belief about nonduality that denies the importance or value of the world and its beautiful illusions.

It’s this essential core of goodness that loves the world and everything in it, and so makes it extremely unlikely that someone resting in their deepest essence would ever act to harm another. In fact there is a natural arising of a compassion and appreciation for all of life.

The concept of nonduality is just that: a concept. As such it can be distorted and co-opted by the ego and the mind to justify anything. But the reality of our nondual nature is not a concept, and the direct experience of it is filled with peace, love and joy beyond anything we could have imagined.

But don’t take my word for any of this. See what you find when you inquire deeply into this question of who it is that acts in this world. Do you find a complete lack of any love and concern for the world when you experience a more open and complete sense of your true nature, or do you find that there is no limit to the love and compassion that can be found within the empty spaces of your soul?

~ by Nirmala

Seeking could be described as eating potato chips while desiring to reach a state of enlightenment or to be an awakened person eating chips or to have some experience other than the simple fact of eating chips right now. Presence is simply eating chips without that desire for some future moment.

Presence is so simple that it is overlooked by the mind seeking something other than what is happening now. In presence, life is simple. There is only the crunch, crunch of the chip, the sensation of it going down your throat, and then biting into the next chip. It’s that simple.

Just that — the reality of eating chips. It’s not about the story of a person eating chips. It’s much simpler. It’s just eating chips.

The desire for something more than what is happening is the problem, not the road to the solution.

From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com

Truth comes into the non-seeking mind fresh and alive. It is not something you can carry with you, accumulate, or hold onto.

Truth leaps into view when the mind is quiet, not asserting itself. You cannot contain or domesticate truth, for if you do, it dies instantly.

Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the mind’s activity. When that gap is there, the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.

Instantly you comprehend it and sense its sacredness. The timeless has broken through like a flash of lightning and illuminated the moment with its presence.

Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament. Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself and illumines the human heart from the inside out.

~ by Adyashanti, 2009

A conclusion cannot see. It just repeats itself. A false sense of mental certainty often comes with this repetition. If any conclusion is repeated enough, it turns into a rigidly held position. Conflict is right around the corner. The need to be right arises directly from egoic insecurity. Conflict arises from attachment to thought — from an attempt to take ownership of reality. No one owns reality.

Actual awareness is not a conclusion. It is a deeply and relentlessly compassionate and loving awakeness to everything that is arising now including to any particular conclusion that may be arising or being held onto as “truth.” The degree of conflict and self-righteousness in your life are good indicators of whether awareness is being treated as a static mental conclusion or whether there is true abiding as actual timeless awareness.

Awareness is naturally secure and confident. It has nothing to prove. This confidence is different than mental certainty. It is a confidence of the heart. It is a confidence with a deep resonance of love, compassion, and pure openness to what is arising now. Conclusions fragment life into pieces. Awareness reveals that the fragments are illusory. It reveals wholeness.

From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby

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Eckhart Tolle: We are talking about a deeper gratitude. There are more superficial forms of gratitude, and that is not what we are talking about. By that I mean, to be grateful that someone else is worse off than you are … sometimes that is a source of gratitude. People say, “Oh I really should be grateful, because look at this person – they are worse off than I am, so I should be grateful.” That’s not the true gratitude, that’s the gratitude that is arrived at through thinking, where you compare yourself to others.

The deeper gratitude is not arrived at through some conceptual process, where you explain to yourself why you should be grateful. That’s a superficial form of gratitude, that’s not really what it is, that’s ultimately to do with ego. More fundamental than the true form of gratitude is the deep sense of appreciation. It’s not to do with what you are telling yourself in your head, it’s something that you sense in the present moment, it’s an appreciation of the ‘is-ness’ of this moment.

We are using words as pointers. When I say ‘appreciation’, some people might ask, “What do you mean by appreciation?” It’s to feel that the world around you is alive, and you share in the aliveness of the world that surrounds you. There’s the outer aliveness, in other human beings, even in your surroundings – whether it’s nature, or even in a room, you sense the aliveness of what’s around you at this moment, through your own aliveness.

And with that comes the feeling, “it’s good to be alive.” You appreciate the many forms of life that are arising at this moment. You don’t impose judgment on the form that life takes at this moment, because the form that life takes changes continuously around you – one moment you’re here, the next moment you’re somewhere else. It’s a deep sense of Being-ness, or aliveness, and through that you appreciate what is, in your life.

And by saying ‘in your life’, it always means in the present moment, because apart from the present moment, there is no such thing as ‘your life’. If there’s something else there that’s not the present moment that you call ‘your life’, it’s a mental construct. You have formed an image of “me” and “my life”, it’s a story, and you mistake that for your life.

Fundamentally your life is whatever form this moment takes. Your life is always what is now. That’s your life. Not some story you’re telling yourself in your head. Through that appreciation, you are sensing a sense of Oneness with what’s outside and what’s inside. There is no longer a separation that is created by excessive conceptual thinking between other people and the self, the separation is created by judgment. There is a sense of allowing the present moment to be as it is.

All these are fundamental aspects of gratitude. It’s that openness to the ‘is-ness’ of this moment. With that openness, comes an appreciation for the ‘is-ness’ of this moment. There is no longer a denial or a rejection of what is, because you have some story in your mind that clashes with what is around you at this moment. And that’s how many people live, so they go through life continuously, there’s a clash between their ideas of what should be now, and what is ‘now’.

The greatest form of suffering and frustration and non-fulfillment is the clash between the mental story of what ’should’ be and what is. That’s really the root of the madness. There cannot be gratitude when that operates in your life. When something seemingly negative happens, people may find it very hard to say, “Okay, I should be grateful, even for this.”

I’m not saying you should do that, because even that is an idea in your head. It’s better to forget about trying to be grateful when something seemingly negative happens, and simply let go of the mental judgment of it, and say, “This is what is, this is what happened, and this is the situation now.”

If you can be free of mental judgment and denial or projection, complaining, and so on … just allow what is, and then something deeper emerges, even in a seemingly negative situation. By coming into this place of acceptance, of the inevitable ‘is-ness’ of now, your inner state is no longer ultimately dependant on what is happening or not happening outside. That is a vital transformation of consciousness, where the external world no longer determines your state of consciousness.

So when something seemingly bad happens, say, “this is.” Whether it is a small thing or a large thing, be open to that. If you’re open to the ‘is-ness’ of what is, something within you which we could call ‘peace’ arises. Sometimes it’s very subtle, and you can’t notice it at first. You’re not grateful for the seemingly bad thing, but you’re grateful that you can still be at peace, even in this situation.

Internally you feel that by accepting, peace arises. Even in seemingly bad circumstances. And what is that peace? It’s an inner sense of aliveness, being-ness, presence. It’s the source of all gratitude. There can be gratitude even when something bad happens. Not for the bad, but for the fact that even in the face of something seemingly negative, there is still peace in the background. But you won’t find that until you first accept what is.

Gratitude is very important. It transforms your whole life, if you can remember the importance of being grateful for life. As you go through your day, every day, you can even have little reminders — of the importance of being appreciative of life. Every person has to verify for themselves, what can I be grateful for at this moment? Sense the being that you are — not just the physical, but the sense of your own presence. That’s a great source of joy, to feel your own presence, it cannot really be defined. That’s the ultimate gratitude.