"The fundamental equation of non-duality is... awareness equals reality."
Enjoy this sample of the wisdom and insights of Francis Lucille on "What is Awakening?" and "What is Awareness?" ... from Part II of an Awakening Mind Films Series interview:
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
What is Awakening?
Well, we would have to define what awakened means, and who is there to be awakened or not awakened. To be awakened means not to believe, in my book, right? Means not to believe to be a separate or limited consciousness. If that's the case, there is no body limited here, no limited entity to be awakened or not to be awakened.
To be awakened means not to believe to be a separate entity. In the absence of such a belief, we are whatever we are. We have no name, or all the names.
We are not this human body-mind which appears in consciousness, or in the world. Experientially, it is made of bodily sensations and thoughts, the body part experientially being the bodily sensations that are part of our human experience, the mind part being the thoughts that are part of our human experience. In fact, our human experience comprises the body, the mind, and the world — the world part being comprised of external sense perceptions.
That's what body-mind is experientially. Conceptually, it's a different story, and that's what people usually refer to as the body-mind. And the concept we have of an object, gross or physical for the body part, and subtle for the mind part.
The interaction between both are obvious since if I decide to raise my hand, it's a thought, but if I follow up, it has an effect in the physical world, and conversely, if I drink too much alcohol, the body gets a little tipsy, but the mind also changes. So obviously there is a mutual interaction between the body and the mind, in this conceptual version. The problem is that we don't know where they interact.
You see, because the thoughts, the perceptions seem to be in the mind sphere, and the world in the physical sphere, there is a connection. That remains a mystery, that's a mystery that already Descartes mentioned, and a mystery that finds a harmonious solution when we understand the real nature of awareness, since the mind, the thoughts experientially, are made out of awareness. The world is made out of an underlying reality that creates all observable phenomena in it.
The identity of this reality and awareness is the key to the solution of this problem, the mind-body problem.
What is Awareness?
Whatever it is which is really hearing my words right now, awareness is the reality which is hearing my words right now, because the fact of this hearing is beyond the shadow of a doubt. It's obvious.
Therefore there is an element of reality that is inherent in this experience, this element of reality, this certainty of awareness, of perception, is what I call awareness. And that's why we can define awareness in terms of reality, awareness is a reality which is hearing these words right now. In contra-distinction with awareness being an attribute of the body, or an attribute of the mind, being something kind of dependent upon the body or on the mind, depending on the version we are considering, by having a glimpse of the reality of awareness, awareness then transcends the limitation of the body, it opens a door to our understanding.
And it makes possible, it opens a possibility that awareness and reality are one and the same. Because if there is only one reality, and if awareness is a reality which is hearing these words right now, then awareness is this reality. It is the way we experience the reality of everything.
That's a great, the open secret, the great secret is that the reality of everything is within us, experienced as awareness. It is, you know, the divine spark in each of us, or the Christ in each of us, or the Atman in the other traditions. Philosophers, real philosophers, philosophers of all, the Parmenides, the Platos, have known that, the sages, the Lao Tzu, the Buddhas, have known that awareness is a reality.
You see, we could define awareness as an attribute of reality, or conversely, reality as an attribute of awareness. There is this mutual exchange, meaning they are equivalent, they are the same. The fundamental equation of non-duality is awareness equals reality.
In Sanskrit terms, it's Brahman, no, Atman, equals Brahman. The problem is that we live in a culture, which is in fact a form of religion, in which awareness is seen as dependent on a much higher reality, which seems to be physical. But there is not such a thing.
What we call the physical reality has its source, it's something which is non-physical. That's evidenced by the fact that there are laws of physics. We are whatever it is which is hearing these words right now, that's obvious to us.
In other words, and that's what I call awareness, right? Most people believe that awareness is dependent upon the body, but if we ask ourselves the question, if it wasn't the case, if by any chance awareness was not dependent upon the body, what, in my opinion, would be my true nature, that which I call "I"? Would that be my body, or would that be awareness? Let's put that in different terms. Let's say the body dies, right? And you find yourself in front of Saint Peter, and Saint Peter tells you, I'm sorry, you're dead, but however, because you were not too, too bad in this life, the boss decided to give you a choice. It's going to be either you keep awareness or you keep the body, but you cannot keep both.
What choose you? My guess is that most people would choose awareness, because what's the use of a body if you're not aware of anything? Right? So, which shows that obviously if it wasn't the case, that awareness is dependent upon the body and limited by the body, our true nature would be experientially awareness rather than the body. And then the next question is, how do I know that awareness is dependent upon the body? What's the evidence? Because we all believe, most of us, believe that we have strong evidence in support of the thesis according to which awareness is an emergent property of the body or something, or an emergent phenomenon. But in fact, what is the evidence? If we try to find it, we find no evidence.
How do I know that something is dependent on something else? Let's say, how do I know that B is dependent on A? It's because if I operate some changes on A, B is going to change accordingly, right? There is a causal relationship from A to B. Now, if we say that awareness is dependent upon the body, it would imply that if I change the body, awareness changes. For instance, it would imply that over time, since the date of my birth, when the body was that tall, up until now, the body has changed, obviously. Did awareness change? Do we have the experience that awareness has changed? Now, we don't.
We don't have the feeling that awareness has changed. The content of awareness, the experience, the content, the phenomenal content changes, but awareness itself doesn't. How could we be aware of change if we were changing with awareness, changing with the change? So, the questioning that we are interested in answering this question or this problem is, what is the evidence that awareness is dependent upon the body? If the body changes, awareness doesn't.
So, this dependency test doesn't work. It fails here. Of course, if I change the body, the content of awareness, the perception, obviously changes.
That is not in question here. The question is, if we change the body, or if the body changes, does the reality that perceives the body change? It's a very different question. Because I don't define awareness as the content in terms of the content of awareness, but in terms of the reality that perceives the content.
That's the hard problem of consciousness. If you read scientific papers on consciousness, you will discover that most of the time, what is defined as consciousness is what I call the content, and it's a very legitimate field of science. But it is not the awareness as I define it in terms of reality.
Interested in more...?
Join Francis Lucille for a 90-minute conversation where he’ll take questions from the audience, using the dialogue as a means to convey to a genuine truth seeker his experience of freedom.
"Self Discovery" with Francis Lucille (A Mind Awake webinar series)
Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Time: 6pm – 7:30pm ET
A Mind Awake Webinar Series is a rare and powerful opportunity to engage with the cast and producers of the Awakening Mind Film series, including Dan Schmidt, creator of the Samadhi films, along with Lisa Natoli, Jan Frazier, Helen Hamilton and other special guests.
Experience the teachings from the films firsthand through satsang gatherings, guided meditations, dialogues, and self-inquiry practices, deepening your understanding and personal transformation.
This meeting-style webinar provides live, experiential teachings and invites you to a direct encounter with the insights presented in the films.
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