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Rupert Spira
Contemplating the Nature of Experience

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Be knowingly the inherently peaceful presence of Awareness, in which thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions appear. Allow these
to evolve without interference and, if there is interference, simply allow that also. In allowing everything to be exactly as it is from moment
to moment, we are, without realizing it at rst, taking our stand as Awareness.

Only Awareness is Aware

Could it be that the mind is so quick, powerful and versatile that one of its functions is also the ability to perceive itself?

Dear Rupert,
It is often said that the perceiver cannot be the perceived. So, if I can be aware of
my mind, by definition, I cannot be the mind. But I wonder whether this is really
the case. Could it be that the mind is so quick, powerful and versatile that one of
its functions is also the ability to perceive itself? Much like a multi-cored computer
can set its processing to make calculations and also at the same time set aside
time to watch the processing and analyse the results of that processing.
Best wishes,  Awareness is taking at that particular moment – a temporary name and form of its
John
Dear John,
For the sake of clarity, let me define the way I use the terms ‘Awareness’ and
‘mind’. By ‘Awareness’ I mean whatever it is that is aware of our experience. By
‘mind’ I mean thoughts and images (although in a wider context I sometimes use
the term to include feelings, sensations and perceptions as well.)
The relationship of Awareness to the mind (thoughts) is very similar to the
relationship of the screen (a self-aware screen) to an image that appears on it: the
image is made of the screen but the screen is not made of the image. All thoughts
are made out of Awareness (that is, they are made of the ‘knowing’ – awareness –
of them) but Awareness is not made out of thought. 
Awareness is ever-present; thoughts are intermittent. Something that is ever-
present cannot be made of or indeed be known by something that is intermittent.
This is, of course, said from the point of view of Enlightened Duality in which we
provisionally concede a distinction between Awareness and its objects, in this
case, thoughts.
If we go more deeply into the nature of experience, we do not find this distinction.
In this case, the thought is understood to be nothing other than Awareness itself (if
we can still legitimately call it ‘Awareness’). As such, a thought is the shape that
ever-present, nameless, formless substance – and it is Awareness that knows it
as such. In other words, it is Awareness that knows itself modulating itself in the
form of an apparent thought.
So it is Awareness, not the mind (using my definitions of the words) that has the
ability to perceive – either to perceive an apparent object (Enlightened Duality) or
to know itself alone (Embodied Enlightenment).
The belief that the mind perceives or is aware, doesn’t make sense. Mind is
perceived; it does not perceive. Only Awareness is aware.
With kind regards, 
Rupert

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