"All objective experience is known.
We are aware of our experience.
It would not be possible to have an experience without knowing or being aware of it.
Our current thought, a memory of childhood, whatever emotions or feelings are present, the sensation of pain or hunger, the sound of traffic, the sight of these words or the view from our window are all known or experienced.
As such, knowing or being aware is present in all experience.
Whether we are depressed, lonely, sad, joyful, at peace, in love, anxious, bored, jealous, excited or happy, we are aware. Whether we are thinking, eating, walking, driving, dancing, studying, dreaming or hallucinating, we are aware. Whatever we are thinking, feeling, perceiving or doing, we are aware.
We are aware of whatever is being known or experienced, irrespective of the contents of our knowledge or experience.
Thus, knowing or being aware is the continuous element in all changing knowledge and experience. It remains consistently present throughout the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. No other element of experience is continuous.
In fact, being aware is not continuous in time; it is ever-present.
However, as a concession to the mind’s belief in the reality of time, let us say provisionally that being aware is the continuous element in all experience.
All objective experience – thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions – appears and disappears, but the experience of knowing or being aware never appears or disappears. It remains present throughout all changing experience, just as a screen remains consistently present throughout all movies.
Knowing or being aware intimately pervades all experience but is never changed by any particular experience.
Thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions have changed innumerable times throughout our lives, but the knowing with which they are known – the simple experience of being aware – has remained the same throughout.
Knowledge and experience are always changing; knowing or being aware never changes.
The known always changes; knowing never changes."
- Rupert Spira, excerpt from his book "Being aware of being aware" (part 1)
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