light of awareness - spira

Even Depression is Illuminated by the Light of Awareness
~ ~ ~
This wave of emotion in you is the sign of this recognition that, at some level, you have this deep intuition (while we’re exploring our experience like this) that the only substance present in your experience is the Knowing of it. That Knowing doesn’t belong to any particular experience because it pervades all experience. The screen doesn’t belong to any particular movie because whatever movie you’re watching, it’s the same screen. When the movie disappears, nothing real disappears. Just the screen changes color. The screen…, that is this Knowing; Being aware. Is there any part of your experience that is not pervaded by That?

Look around you. Your entire experience: Is it not all-pervaded by being aware? Try to find now a little corner of your experience that is exempt.

It’s like looking for a part of the movie that is not made out of the screen. Can you find a little feeling of depression or a little feeling of sadness that is not pervaded by the Knowing of it…, that is not pervaded by the experience of Being aware?

No. Your experience is saturated with Being aware. It’s like the landscape; like this evening. It’s drenched in sunlight. It’s bathed in sunlight. Your experience is bathed in Consciousness; permeated by it.

In fact, even that is not right because we can’t say that the image, the movie, is pervaded by the screen. That would suggest that the movie was one thing…, that the movie had its own independent existence and the screen was something else that somehow pervades the movie. It’s not like that. There’s just the screen, changing its colors; appearing one moment as a thriller and one moment as a drama and the next moment as the news.

There’s just the experience of Being aware; appearing one moment as thinking, the next moment as sensing, the next moment as feeling, the next moment as perceiving. The problem is that we believe (and more importantly, feel) that the experience of being aware just pervades this little corner of experience called ‘my body’ and that it doesn’t pervade all of ‘that’. [Sweeps hand across space in front of him in grand gesture.] But is that your experience?

Q: I have the experience that it also pervades everything, but..., I am forgetting it also.

R: Well, just keep reminding yourself. Keep reminding yourself, like we’re doing now. When you’re sitting in your home in Amsterdam without anything particular to do, just sit and look around. And just say to yourself ‘My only experience of the world in this moment is seeing and hearing’. Or ‘Seeing and hearing and touching’. Or if you’re drinking tea ‘Seeing and hearing and tasting and touching’. And then ask yourself ‘What is seeing, hearing, tasting, touching made of? It must be made of something’.

All that’s there is the Knowing of it. All that is there is being aware of it.

What would happen if you removed the Knowing of your experience from experience? Remove awareness from your experience. What would happen?

Q: Awareness remains.

R: No, imagine you could remove awareness. You can’t…, but just imagine you could remove awareness from experience. What would remain?

Q: Awareness. You can’t….

R: Of course, you can’t. That’s why I say ‘Imagine it’. Nothing would remain. You can’t, you’re right; you cannot do that.

In other words, all there is to your experience is the Awareness of it…, is the Knowing of it.

When you’re sitting at home, when you’re walking down the street, when you’re sitting here, when you’re eating dinner, just remind yourself. Just say to yourself ‘Is there any substance present in my experience other than the Knowing of it…, other than the experiencing of it?’

You see, the habit of believing ‘I-Consciousness or Awareness- am identical to this, I am limited by this, I live inside this’ is so strong in us.

Q: For me, it is because I have such a lot of physical pain also.

R: Well, then you go to your physical pain. Do this, to begin with, when it’s not too intense. You treat your physical pain just like you treat the sound of the traffic. Because physical pain is a sensation. It’s an intense version of the sensation you are now experiencing with your hand on the mic…, but it’s more intense. But it’s still made of the same stuff. Yeah?

Pinch yourself. Pinch your arm. It’s a little bit painful; it’s not very painful but it’s a little bit painful. It’s not very pleasant. Yeah? Is there anything there other than the Knowing of it? It’s made out of the same stuff. Now pinch yourself harder. Yeah. Okay? What’s it made of? What’s the stuff that it is made of? … It’s just the Knowing of it. Okay, now let go.

Pain is unpleasant…, it’s supposed to be. It’s an intelligent signal; one of nature’s intelligent signals. Something needs attending to in your body. It’s supposed to be unpleasant. But just because it’s unpleasant doesn’t exempt it from being made out of Consciousness. It’s still made out of Consciousness. It’s still: All that is there is the Knowing of it.

Now, it’s true that at a certain stage pain may become so intense or circumstances may become so demanding that the Knowing of that may SEEM to be obscured. Or the depression may seem to be so deep that we lose touch with the fact that the only substance there is Knowing. Just like when the image on the screen goes black, we may think the image is completely obscured. But it’s not true. When the screen goes black, it is not obscured any more than it is when the screen is white.

And a deep depression is LIT UP, is rendered Know-able, by the brilliant light of pure Consciousness.

Q: Can you say that once more?

R: Even the darkest depression, even our deepest depression…, you know that experience, yes? When you are depressed, you Know you are being depressed. You can say to yourself ‘I am aware of being depressed’. Now, the I that is aware is what illuminates, or renders Know-able, the experience of depression.

A depression is dark, yes? It’s heavy, dense and dark. But it is LIT UP by something that is brilliant and luminous and transparent and empty and innately peaceful; pure Consciousness.

So, even our deepest depressions confirm primarily the Presence of the brilliant light of pure Consciousness.

Nothing can obscure that…, unless we consent to its obscuration, in which case, it SEEMS to be missing. If we believe the black image on the screen has veiled the screen, the screen will appear to be veiled. If we believe that the landscape on the screen is a real landscape, we will (by definition) think that the screen has disappeared. Only because we believe it.

As soon as we realize ‘No, the landscape is just an image. It’s just a modulation of the screen’…, right there [snaps his fingers] the screen is totally visible.

If we believe that our depression obscures Consciousness, that’s how it will feel.

If we realize that our depression is LIT UP or Known by the light of Awareness, and our attention is drawn towards that light of Awareness (rather than toward the darkness of depression) then that light of Awareness will be our experience. And the depression will gradually dissolve in that light.
~ ~ ~
.
.
Rupert Spira
“Even Depression is Illuminated by the Light of Awareness”