The Spiritual Path
“Individuation: Each one of us is a unique being with very individual traits, feelings, thoughts and abilities. To discover this uniqueness and live it, seems to be natural at first, but a lifelong task at second glance.” DJ
The spiritual quest starts with the vague intuition, that one is more or something else than one currently knows. One is not fully identified with this body and this sense of self, „I“-consciousness anymore and feels the inexplecable need to discover something that includes and exceeds body and mind.
At this point, some start to seek for teachers, ideologies or concepts in the outer world to fill the intense void they suddenly feel within them. Others turn inside and want to learn more about themselves. This is the first step toward true Self.knowledge. Individual consciousness becomes the object of inquiry. Awareness is focussed on the sense of self and all phenomena, experiences, thoughts and feelings connected to this individual self. The subject, the experiencer is closely examined by the question: „Who am I?“. This develops the quality of discernment = viveka, the ability to discriminate the true nature from false identification, and unattachment = vairagya, the ability to let go of fears and desires, in other words to let go of the need to grasp for and cling to objects.
Self.Observation, introspection, means self.awareness. Awareness is not concentration, it is rather a form of pure consciousness focussed on both, objects appearing in consciousness and the subject that perceives these objects. The aware person knows that he knows and he knows what he knows at the same time. Because of this, he is present and clear-minded. He lives by the maxim: „Stay focussed on yourself, your sense of self, even when disturbing or enchanting objects cross your path.“ Even the body, thoughts and feelings are objects in subjective consciousness.
Those, aware of the sense of „I“, will soon experience witnessing consciousness in the waking, dream and deep sleep states. The seer, the drastha, becomes visible. This inner witness is beyond subject-object consciousness. It is like the allknowing eye, the pure awareness beyond everything. This witness enables unattached experience, because it dissolves the illusion of doership. And soon it also dissolves the illusion of ownership, the false idea that any object permanently belongs to us, not even our own body.
Self.Knowledge is the realization of the true nature, which is hidden beyond personal consciousness, time and space. To know yourself means to see that, which makes the experience of subject and object possible. One knows oneself when consciousness realizes itself as source and origin of any experience; when that, which used to identify with something else experiences its true nature. Self.Knowledge is the temporary dissolution of I-consciousness in the Self. This process ends in permanent Self.Knowledge, in full
SELF.Realization means abiding in the true nature permanently. Divine, pure consciousness knows nothing but itself. Dualistic separation of subject and object, of perceiver and the perceived does not veil pure consciousness anymore. This is the realization, the actualization of our natural state of love, the total merging of the individual and the universal, of I-consciousness and the SELF.
