The Eternal Subject

We have this idea that we can study life and reality. But while doing so we forget that our closest access to Life is not the object of our studies, but the one who studies. The act of studying is Reality and Life in progress. It is a live, first-person perspective of Life. The greatest way to understand Life is to observe observation and to be aware of awareness. It is Meditation.

This experience of awareness, which is what lets us know that we are, is not an object but a subject. It is actually misleading to say a subject, because then we pin it down, and regard it as an object. When we picture ourselves as objects, we move from the experience of being, into thinking about being, which is hugely different, and may be very misleading.

Awareness (subject), as we experience it, without thinking about it, really has no form. Looking in the mirror we see a body, but that form is nothing like the experience of awareness. Cutting a head open we see a brain, but that form is nothing like awareness either. When someone pinches our arms, or tickles our feet, we are aware of it. If someone bangs our heads to the wall we might lose conscious awareness for a while, and so we tend to draw the conclusion that awareness is in our brains. But is that really the case?

If we pull the pedals out of a car it no longer functions, but does that mean its ability to move is in the pedals? What else is required to make the car move? When we split reality into objects we attribute functions to objects. We say that lamps shine, plants grow, and that cows produce milk, but is that really the case? To produce the thoughts which rise in your consciousness right now, what do you need?

Water, food (plants/animals), sunlight, heat, gravity, electricity, an atmosphere, oxygen, space, a planet. These are some of the constituents of a human being. We can lose our eyes, our legs, a kidney, our memory, even our sanity, and yet survive. But if we lose any of the above, we instantly die. If it wasn't for these and the context we find ourselves in (the input) neither thoughts nor emotions would appear. Isolate a brain in the remotes of space, and I can assure you, it would neither think nor show signs of awareness. Without oxygen most car engines don't work, and without a ground on which to roll, wheels don't do much good. Lamps can't produce light. Lamps can only channel the electricity and power of the Universe and help produce light. That is what lamps do.

Looking at the world through a tube doesn't make us the tube. Feeling the heat upon the skin, doesn't make us the skin. We now go back to awareness, the very thing that tells us that there is being - I AM. But what is it that IS... aware? Instead of looking at awareness like an object, know it as subject. Experience awareness, which is you. Try to stay aware of awareness while objects and thoughts come and go. Do this often, and don't answer the question about what subject is, with your mind, because you can't grasp your Self like that. You cannot catch your own tail.

Awareness is acquainted through awareness. By paying attention to the infant of you, you incite it into communication and growth. A new, ancient root is waiting to be rediscovered. It yearns to sprout into its fullness of being – what we may call, The Christ inside.

When we no longer allow the forms of the world to bewitch us, we rest in the Oneness of Him.

By Paul:

“For we have many parts in one body, but these parts do not all have the same function. In the same way, even though we are many people, we are one body in the Messiah and individual parts connected to each other.” (Romans 12:5)

By Lao-Tzu (Approx 4-6^th century B.C.)
"The reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal Reason.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The Unameable is of heaven and earth the beginning.
The Nameable becomes of the ten thousand things the mother.
Therefore it is said:

'He who desireless is found
The spiritual of the world will sound.
But he who by desire is bound
Sees the mere shell of things around.'

These two things are the same in source
but different in name.
Their sameness is called a mystery.
Indeed, it is the mystery of mysteries.
It is the door of all spirituality. "

(Lao-Tzu. “Reason's Realisation”. The Teachings of Lao-Tzu, The Tao Te Ching. Rider. Singapore. Revised edition. 1999 Paul Carus. p.30)