well or poorly, as awareness you are free of them. They are just objects that you see: they are not your limitations.
Now things really start to get interesting as we look into the nature of the mind. We will see if the thoughts in the mind really define us in the next chapter, “The Mind.”
Krishna and Radha
The Mind
Now lets step into the mind, the seat of your emotions and your intellect. That must surely be who you are, right? The intellect is made up of your doubts, your determinations (what you determine to be true or false, right or wrong etc.) and your knowledge, while your emotions consist of your joys and your sorrows, your fears and your hopes, anger and all of the various shades in between.
In the same way that you are aware of your body and the pranas, in that very same way you’re aware of the mind. You know if you are happy or sad; you know if you are knowledgeable in a certain subject like mathematics or not; you know if I am taking a reasonable position or not. You’re even aware if you remember or forget something.
Because you are aware of your mind, you are the subject and your mind is just an object in awareness. You are therefore even greater than your mind. Take a moment to feel this out for yourself. You reside as the seer of your mind, and your mind is just another object that you see.
When a person thinks, “My mind is not very clear today,” she doesn’t consider how she knows this. Perhaps the reason that she knows about her mind is because she stands as the ever-clear awareness.
A look at a computer might make this a little clearer. A computer has a greater mind than any of us. In seconds it can calculate problems in mathematics and physics that would take us lifetimes to calculate. A computer can hold volumes and volumes of knowledge in many fields. When programmed, a computer can even imitate emotional thoughts, like those used in computer games.
Then why aren’t we envious of a computer? I don’t know anyone who wishes they were a computer. The difference is that we are aware of our mind and a computer is not. Although we may never have recognized this Awareness, we still value it, because that’s what makes us alive.
Awareness is not thoughts aware of other thoughts that are aware of other thoughts going on and on in an infinite regression. No matter how far you let this regression go, you’re still aware of this whole process occurring in your mind, aren’t you? This shows that the Awareness itself is not a thought. Because of this, you can’t program a computer to be aware of its own thinking. It also points to how Awareness is greater than the thoughts in your mind.
Furthermore this shows that there is something that we value even more than our mind. Although we are not yet quite sure what this is, we have a sense that this thing is what really makes us — us — and not the ups and downs of the mind.
But since we place so much value on this thing that we call “mind,” and the things that we think, we will explore some of its aspects, to show what they do and how they are not really you. We will start with the subconscious. Now we are learning that we stand as the subject. We are aware of limitations, not bound by them. Next is there really a state that’s not quite aware called the subconsciousness?
The Subconscious
More about Awareness later. But first there is one thing that we should discuss: the popular idea of the subconscious or the unconscious. These ideas are used in psychology. They’ve been picked up as popular words for behaviors or feelings that seemingly cannot be accounted for. “I don’t know why, but I constantly feel down or depressed,” “I just can’t seem to shake it,” or, “For no apparent reason I just break out in anger or fear. I just don’t know why.”
One important part of the path of Self-Knowledge is to recognize everything that you take to be you. Even the emotional and behavior patterns that you say, “This is just the way I am.” The Indian sages would call these patterns vasanas and say, “Get rid of your vasanas.” Indeed one of the most amazing feelings of freedom on this path comes from releasing these patterns. They tend to dictate so much of our lives and our experiences.
When you release them, all of a sudden instead of clutter, you have an open space. Furthermore, when you no longer live by the patterns in your mind, your life seems a whole lot less predetermined, and you seem to have a lot more free will. The feeling of automatic goes out of your life and you have choices that you didn’t know were there.
So how do you release these patterns? As you can probably see the whole movement of this meditation is towards the subject. When you become aware of something as objective, you become free of its limitations. When you can see it, you are free of it. That’s because what you see is just an object in your awareness. It is not your identity.
But here there is a quandary. What about the subconscious or the unconscious? If something is unconscious how can you ever become aware of it? I argue that you are already aware of it. If you did not know the thoughts that cause your moods then you wouldn’t have those moods. The same is true of your behaviors.
Right now, however, you may be so close to these thoughts that they come under the category of, “This is just the way I am.” But as you step more into your own Self–Nature, you will begin to see the thought patterns that control your life, and you will step free of them.
Here’s a hint: These thoughts are often masked under the guise of “This is just the way I am,” or “This is just the way my mind works,” or “This is just the way the world is,” or “This is just the way life is.” Later I will show you how to use these guises to catch these patterns.
One of the magical things that happens on this path is that you become aware of these little assumptions, and when you become aware of them, they are no longer the way you are. Yes, just by becoming aware of your assumptions about your mind, the world, life, and your identity, you open up a space that was once clouded over.
The effect is that where you once felt heavy and bound, you now feel light and free. Where you were once predictable in your responses to life, you are now free to experience life, and respond to life in a completely different way. It is at this point in your practice where life becomes fascinating.
I call this the art of introspection. When you master this art, you will know the difference between the theory of self-realization and the experience of your own Self-Nature.
In the next few chapters we will go further into this art of introspection so you will get a better idea what it is. We will start off with “Self Judgment.”
Self Judgment
In a moment I will give you specific examples from my own life so you will see how to pin down and destroy assumptions. I will also show how this will enrich your life and your meditation practice. But first let’s discuss how to gain freedom from self-judgment.
When you first see these thought patterns you might think: “Yuck, did I really live by this? Am I really that bad?” If you feel like this, remember that when you become aware of these thought patterns, you are free of them. There is no other step necessary. Awareness equals freedom. If they are painful to see, they are a lot more painful to live by.
There was a point in my practice where I was anxious to see every yucky thought pattern in my mind, from why I lied to how I though about sex. I had the feeling that the more I could see, the more freedom I could experience.
And sure enough, with awareness as my weapon, I destroyed much of the yuck that kept me in fear and limitation. Finally when I stood as my bare bones self, I saw the good news: I was not a sinner. You too are intrinsically free from sin!
Notice, I didn’t say replace these thoughts with better ones, or resolve to live by a new “better” pattern. For example, you see the cause of your