Knowing Presence-Pure Awareness

Written by Mathew Naismith

I find this bloke called Tony quite interesting, we do tend to play the same tune but using different notes but at the same time we somehow keep in tune with each other, like good musicians do I suppose, in other words we give a slightly different perspective to a particular topic.  I always find other people’s perspective interesting so I inserted a portion of his reply to me in this post.

 Tony

Pure Awareness (Knowing Presence) is the basis of Consciousness (Knowing Presence with objects). Consciousness exists because of this presence, which has the potential to know. When there is knowing of an object it becomes consciousness. Consciousness is of objects. This knowing presence has no qualities of its own (from our limited perspective); there is no volition there. There is some organizing force there but not organizing as in the human definition of intelligence. We are this organizing force and that which results from it.

It contains no objects. It simply has potential. In the same way as a stationary object has potential energy. It requires an outside force to organize it in the appropriate conditions so that this potential can be utilized. In this case, the outside force would be the apparent external world reflected through the body's sensory apparatus. Think of a mirror. Consciousness is like a mirror. The sole purpose of mirrors is as a reflector of light. Light hits an object; the light from that object is reflected onto the mirror and the mirror because of its reflective nature displays a very close representation of the object. Awareness is the glass; our sensory apparatus is the reflective surface; the external world is the light; and the resulting reflection is consciousness.

My Reply

The way I see it is everything is one thing, one consciousness or one presence.

When this one presence or consciousness is expressed, this is when we perceive it as a different consciousness or a separate item.

The funny thing is this presence is consciousness and of emotion, motion and everything else that is being expressed even though this presence is motionless.

The reason for this is to do with timelessness; this presence is of this timelessness therefore everything that is expressed from this timelessness has always existed.

The reason for this is nothing has a starting or ending point, it has always existed, this includes everything expressed in time.      

There is no true separation between this presence and consciousness or even human emotions. 

However, I feel when we are the ones expressing this presence, we need to believe it's all separate to be able to express such presence or what I deemed as pure awareness.

The reason I called this presence pure awareness or consciousness, is to do with when you are in this state of timelessness, you do indeed become aware but in a motionless state.

Nothing is truly separate; however, this is where a lot of people get the idea that realities like this one and time are illusions when it's not. If everything is one with this presence, then all else is an illusion but that's not true, that's just a human perception.

The reason for this is everything has always existed, we are neither just of time (expressive) or timelessness (presence), we are all of what is in the present.  

I suppose the question is did we and everything else come from this presence, this pure awareness?

At times I have said so myself for very good reasons, everything was created from this presence (pure awareness), this one thing, this is brought about by perceiving through human perceptions while using spiritual concepts of oneness.  

However when you consider that this presence (pure awareness) is of timelessness, you become aware that everything has always existed including time itself and all it represents. This means everything was created from everything, from the whole of consciousness not just from this presence (pure awareness).  

What’s above is also below, how do we human come into being? Through the interaction of at least two energy sources, our parents, this is the same with everything else, it takes two energy sources to create, in this case instead of parents we have states of time and timelessness or presence (pure awareness) and ignorance.  Don’t judge ignorance badly, if it wasn’t for ignorance, I perceive as one of the parents, I don’t think we could express this pure awareness.

So where does this leave us with oneness?  Are not both our parents human, one kind of energy source, this is the same with time and timelessness or awareness and ignorance; they are the same kind of energy sources creating whatever.  However, awareness and ignorance in a human perspective are quite the opposite, there not one of the same source or are they? Take our parents, are they not yin a yang but of the same human energy source.  I really do think we look at ignorance in a too shallow judgmental way.

What’s above is also below; it takes two seemingly different energy sources to create, if ignorance allows for this pure awareness to be expressive of itself in time, I can’t truly see anything wrong with ignorance. When we become too destructive, all we have to do is become aware and utilise both ignorance and this pure awareness in unison to find balance again. Actually I’m not sure if that is not what we are doing right now!!   

The best way for me to look at this is by looking at everything as just energy, either this energy is stationary in timelessness or actively interacting in time with itself, it’s still just energy which gives us this oneness. I think it’s also good to be aware that while expressing intentions in time, we will have to separate this energy into categories for our grey matter (brains) to decipher, so for example calling anything in time ignorant and anything of timeless aware helps this grey matter to understand ourselves and the environment a lot better.