Guided Meditation: Your Awareness is Beyond Your Senses

If you can just relax where you are. Take a deep breath in and take a deep breath out. So inhale, and then exhale. Inhale and then exhale. So just keep on breathing in a slow and steady pace, where you can feel that inner balance between the body and the mind. It's very important for us to understand the importance of breath and how it directly correlates with the mind. So the calmer our breathing. The calmer, our mind is. So the less tendencies, the less thoughts, the less images appear. If you notice, when you may be angry or disturbed in any way, your breathing picks up, you breathe a lot faster, but when you're calm, you breathe a lot slower. It's much, much slower. And in fact, when you go deeper into meditation, you notice that the breath is very, very subtle So concentrate, first on the inhale of breath, and exhale. So keep it as calm as possible. If we observe the contents of our mind, so if you see a thought arise in the mind, that thought can be, I am the body. I am the mind. I am the results of my karma. I am the tendencies of the mind, the vasanas of the mind. I am the movement of the mind. The vrittis of the mind. If one believes that I am all those things, then one falls under delusion, because those are the contents of what you are observing. Let's take this slowly. Let's understand this. When you witness a thought, when you observe a thought, when you observe a movement, when you observe a body sensation, you are watching it but you are not the body sensation itself. You are not the thought itself. The thought never says that Consciousness is the thought. No Consciousness is always separate to the thought. Thought appears and then thought disappears. Then the next thought appears and that disappears and the next thought, and then that disappears. So the one that is observing these thoughts appear and disappear. That is not real. That is not who you are. Now that Awareness, whereas the people of the direct path talk about being aware of being aware, the true self. In the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna talks about in chapter two, the Real and the unreal. And the unreal is something that is always changing, but the Real is that Sat, that witness Consciousness, the observer Consciousness, the aware Consciousness. You are that aware Consciousness. You are that witness Consciousness. Now does this witness Consciousness have any thought about itself? No. Does this witness Consciousness, this Ultimate Reality that we may call God, or we may call Waheguru or Brahman, whatever name you want to use. Does this have any shape? Does this witness Consciousness have any memory? Stabilize yourself in this. If you're breathing faster, calm the breath down. Be in that Awareness that we're talking about. That Witness Consciousness, the Sat, the Real, Changeless. Now that which is Changeless, this Witness Consciousness, does it have any boundary? Thought has a boundary, but does the one that is aware of the thought, does that have any boundary. Does that have an edge? No. Is it contained in space? Does space own this Consciousness, this Awareness? Remember you're watching everything. This Watcher, is it contained in space? You'll find that it's not. But space is contained in your witnessing in your Awareness, in your Consciousness. Be in that spaceless dimension. Does this witness Consciousness, this Awareness, Brahman does it have any color? For example, you may say that I see a dark color, but that is your senses. That's your eyes. But does Consciousness see color? Color can be a content of Consciousness, of Awareness, of Brahman, of Waheguru, but it cannot be Consciousness Itself. So if you're seeing darkness or light, that is not the Consciousness. That is a content of Consciousness. That's a content created in your mind. So Awareness does not have any color. Brahman does not have any color. Does Brahman, does Awareness have any sound? Stay with this Awareness. Does this Awareness have any sound? Now you're listening to me. You're listening to the words, but your Awareness is not the sound. Your Awareness is not doing the listening. Your Awareness is observing the listening. Your Consciousness is watching the listening, watching the sound, observing the sound, witnessing the sound, but your Awareness is not sound. Therefore, Awareness does not belong to the sense of hearing of sound Does Awareness touch anything? Does Awareness or Consciousness or Brahman, these are interchangeable words that I use, but they're mean the one same thing. Does this Awareness touch anything? Can it touch a thought? Can it touch an object, a solid object of some kind. No, the body touches something, the mind touches a thought, the mind creates the thought manifests the thought, but the Witness Consciousness, The Awareness of Consciousness does not touch the thought or the object. So we've observed already that Awareness, does not belong to sight, does not belong to sound, does not belong to touch. Therefore, does it belong to smell? If you smell an incense stick, or you smell that chocolate cake that I often talk about in my podcast is that Awareness? Is that Consciousness? No. The smell is also a content of Consciousness, a content of Awareness, a form from Brahman, an attribute of Brahman. An attribute of the Self, a content of the Self. So we've established already that Awareness is not sight, not sound, not touch, not smell. So if it's not smell, then it's also not taste. The mind and the body tastes food. It tastes spicy food. It tastes sweet food, sour food, bitter food, but Awareness is not touched by those experiences. If you taste something sweet, Awareness does not become sweet. If it tastes something bitter, Awareness does not become bitter. Therefore we can establish here that Awareness is not taste either. So in this little exercise that we've just done, we can establish that Awareness is not the five senses of sight, of sound, of touch, of smell, and of taste. Awareness is beyond the projections of our senses. Awareness is so vast, Consciousness is so vast, that the content of it contains all our living experience in this body and mind, but Consciousness, Awareness remains separate to it, or seemingly separate to it. It's like awareness is simply like the screen and. Our lived experience in this body and mind is like the images that are projected onto the screen, the blank screen. Now the movie will have people who get hurt, people who laugh, people who feel joyful, people who love. Those characters will be presenting something, but does the screen take on the experiences of the characters? So if the character gets hurt, does the screen get hurt? No, the screen remains untouched. If there's a joyful moment for the character, does the screen become joyful? No. Your Consciousness, your Awareness is like the screen. It is contentless. It has no content. Therefore, if it has no content, it has no shape. It has no image. It has no edge, no boundary. It has no imagination. It has no time because how can past, present and future happen to Consciousness? We can say that Consciousness is Presence. Therefore it feels like it's in the present moment, but Consciousness does not know anything about any moment. Awareness does not belong to any moment. Awareness simply is. In the Upanishads, they refer to that Pure Consciousness, that Pure Awareness as Is-ness. It simply Is. So Awareness, Consciousness, Brahman, Aum, is beyond time. Beyond karma. How can that, being the Observer of All, have the results of your actions. The results of the actions of the body and mind, the Limited Self. It cannot. So this Awareness is beyond Karma. Beyond action. Is there any limit to this Pure Consciousness? Can you find that there is an end? Can you find there's a beginning here? Contemplate on this for a few moments, try to find the beginning and end of this Consciousness, of this Awareness, of Brahman. You'll find that Consciousness has no beginning and has no end. Stay with this Consciousness. Don't move anywhere. If thoughts appear, if sensations occur, just watch them, let them dissolve naturally. Don't force them to go because if you resist, then there will be more movement. Then the mind will come back into play. So let Awareness be. Awareness is like the blue sky. Thoughts, the movement of the mind, actions, all these things are like clouds. Let the observing, the witnessing be like the breeze, allow the clouds to pass by. Let your witnessing be the breeze, the flow that allows any thoughts, any feelings, any aspect of experience, any content of your Consciousness, allow that witnessing allow the thoughts, the movements, the sensations to flow and reach its destination. Remember, thought, movement, sensations, anything of the mind has a beginning and an end. You are the witness of the beginning and end of all of these. You are the Observer, the Awareness, the Consciousness. You are that blue sky. So this Consciousness has no limit. It has no shape. It has no form. It has no attribute. It has no quality. And most of all, although, we label it as Consciousness or Awareness or Brahman, Nirguna Brahman. It is beyond name too. Be in that Formless Awareness. Be in that Nameless Awareness. Rest in This. Take refuge in This because This is what You are. You have always been This. You are This, and You will always be This. This is the true 'I'. When we say 'I am the body. I am the mind. I am Consciousness. I am Brahman. You are the 'I'. The true 'I', which is Formless and Nameless. Rest in This. Rest in this silence.