Radical Consciousness
by M. F. TAYLOR
C H A P T E R 2
ACT OF AWARENESS
AWARENESS is beyond the powers or understanding of therapy and religion. Conventional therapy and religion are only the projections of social constriction. And social constrictions represent the perceptions of the constricted “you.”
In the medical profession, it has long been known that healing is not something doctors know much about. Doctors assist the healing process but do not know what it is. In the area of self-psychology, and transpersonal psychology, there is even more recognition given to “deeper” “hidden” processes or to a “Secret Self.” There are many hundreds of ads in magazines that describe methods of personal transformation; ad after ad that alludes to Awareness in many forms. Sometimes It is called “energetic core,” “loving energy source,” “core essence,” “spiritual heart,” “essential self,” and so on. The whole point is to learn how to contact this inner “Source,” to become more balanced, less depressed, more focused, and more alive: There is a magical you inside waiting to be awakened…. Yes it is all true. But what is it that will awaken? Is it the “self” that is becom-ing more awake? What is the self? What is Self-Awareness (not simply self-consciousness)? If the self is a series of memory experiences, then what is it that is aware of these experiences as a grouped whole? And what is it that is aware of that?
Awareness makes consciousness possible. Consciousness contains sensations, thoughts, perceptions, memories, feelings, desires, ideas, and so on. Awareness is the substratum of experience; It is what makes experience happen but is Itself not simply confined to any of it. Everything takes place within It; everything changes around It and through It, but It is the Source, the Creative Awareness, the Great Producer, yet also the audience. When the self reaches the level of being able to observe the play as entertainment, it and It has reached a certain level of Awareness and Freedom. When we simply Are, Knowingly this Awareness, then we are Free. But since we have identified ourselves with bodies, sensations, emotions, thoughts and beliefs, then we are constricted to what those restrictions bring. As a child, we thought as a child. As adult Homo sapi-ens, we see through those eyes. As Homo novus we are Awareness Perceiving.
Anyone who is reasonably conscious can see that their bodies are changing, that governments come and go, that science, education, friends and lovers all change. We cannot stop that change. Soon we all die, no matter how hard the self-memory tries to work to preserve the past. What is it that sees this? We work so hard to preserve the past or to secure a future, but it is all play, entertainment, a moment or two on stage and then it’s over. Have you not yet discovered this? Do you not yet know you are but an actor or actress in a spontaneous play that never ends? You say the lines and do the melodramas, but do you know who you are? Do you even exist? You have a name, but is that you? After all, if you are but expressing lines, a function of memory, what is it that is actually existing? You are nothing but Awareness, but do you Know this?
When you understand all this (and if there is some purpose of the play it may be to understand this), then you begin to find out what It is that is behind it all. But most are simply not interested, as the daily life, on the level of belief and concept, memory and thought, is the melodrama in which the “I” or self is bound in igno-rance of the Producer. Some may feel there is a secret force inside or outside but these are only spiritual-emotional or religious ideas, again to which the self is bound. And the self seeks religious or spiritual methods, thinking to “get” some-thing. Discovering the Secret self is the spiritual quest but the dis-covery of Awareness is the end of spirituality. Why is it the end? Because there is nothing else, and what is here is beyond the idea of spirituality. Then you are what you are.
To wake up in the middle of a play, to sud-denly discover yourself saying lines, is like discovering having only been an actor or actress saying lines. We’ve all had these experiences and melodramas, but now they are as nothing. Yet we discover the whole cosmos is a play in which galaxies, suns and planets perform just as human beings – within Awareness. This is the Absolute which is prior to it all. And we are that. We are prior to any manifestation in the world, to all the things we think we are, and we are this in this very moment. This is not to be believed but Discovered. And the Discovery is the end of spirituality for there is nothing more to discover. There is just the play, the Absolute Dance. But “you” cannot discover Awareness. Why? Because we are It and this It is occluded and contaminated with thought, belief and sensate fears and involvement. The best we can do is to discover what is not true: And that is to look at ourselves. Here is where methods may help. When the false is subtracted, then we Know.
To subtract the false may be a long and arduous process, depending upon the extent the actor or actress is fused to the act. Some “bad” acts that become too threatening to the actor or other performers are the clients of courts and jails. Other depressing and unre-warding performances are often relegated to psychotherapists in order to clean up the act. But the actor or actress who begins to see themselves as an audience might, who becomes a witness to them-selves and their acts, is beginning to know the possibility of writing their own lines and to step out of the social play as unconscious actor altogether.
The actor has an attitude concerning the part played. And the part played requires an attitude. Society appears to demand certain attitudes so that it comes off a certain way, with great expectations. Everyone needs to do their programmed bit. The script is there and the actors need to know their lines; this is social programming. It is almost automatic. Here are the lines, and we memorize them as though they were ours. We learn them so well we even forget they are not ours. We become the actor in a play, not even knowing it is an act or a play. This makes the performance seem very real, as though it were reality. A successful play draws everybody in, as though it were real. And after all, with the cost of a ticket being so expensive (our life), we want to get our money’s worth. The problem is that in this play the audience, the actors and all the rest, cannot go home. They are bound forever to the theater of the absurd (absurd because it is repeated endlessly and desperately in different forms), thinking it is real, with great expectations.
But suppose we get tired of the routine. Suppose we become aware of our boredom (or the mindless activity that substitutes). We begin to watch the whole thing; to watch ourselves as act, and notice that we are actually watching our-selves and wonder, how is it we are able to see ourselves acting? If we can see these images (acts), what is it seeing the image (act)? Before, we were just the unconscious image in the mirror stage. Now we see that it was the reflection to which we were bound – actor as image – which we took for reality. If we can see this, what is it that is seeing this? Are we more than image, actor or audience? Homo sapiens is the level of the animal with a constricted consciousness. But now this is seen. What sees this? And what a liberation!
We consciously alter a line here or there in the play, not to rebel against the conformity, but because we are under new direction. The true Author and Producer makes a visit. We become the innovator, inventor, and the artist. And if the Ultimate descends in full, where the Whole Act is seen as Act, we get to go Home.
To go Home is to be in Awareness as Awareness manifesting or not – without any limitation or binding act. Home is where You are, manifesting as It, and Everything Everywhere is Creatively Manifesting as It.
