From a site visitor: A friend and I spend time talking about Advaita Vedanta teachings we come across. Last week he said he heard a teacher on a tape make a reference in passing to the “two levels of awareness.” We never heard that phrase used before and wondered if he was talking about awareness of “I AM” and awareness of “I AM THAT.” Or was he maybe talking about something else completely? Are you familiar with the phrase?
F.: Again, nothing definitive can be said about any statements unless the full text and the context are included. That said, the phrase “I AM; I AM THAT” is the consummate statement on non-duality and would never imply two of anything, including "levels." (Remember that “Advaita” means “not two”.) Thus, there cannot be “two levels of awareness.” Awareness is primordial…the original and eternal oneness. Dualities are products of corrupted consciousness. Anything discussed in relative terms or “tagged with duality” (including “two levels” of anything) deals with consciousness, not with awareness. Awareness is absolute, pure, unalterable, and singular. It cannot have an attribute of “two levels.”
Does any part of the teaching deal with “two levels”? Of course dualities are discussed in explanations of non-duality. Too, all along the "path," concepts are offered in order to eventually remove all concepts, so talks might make reference to “persons vs. Realized” or to “asleep vs. awake” or to “outer gurus vs. the inner guru.” In the end, though, only the Absolute remains and is Real. Within that context only, two “levels” or “forms” of witnessing can be discussed as long as the protégé knows that those are concepts being discussed in order to remove all concepts by the “journey’s” end. Just as awareness should not be confused with consciousness, do not confuse witnessing with awareness either. It is within that framework that two forms of witnessing are discussed in the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality.
Therein the point in made that, as the consciousness becomes more and more purified along the “path,” one form of “witnessing” passes into another. The first form comes at the fifth step on the “path” as Objective Witnessing happens. The second is the Pure Witnessing that happens when the True Self stage is reached. The Objective Witness can observe the body doing its thing, the “mind” doing its thing, a Religious Persona and/or a Spiritual Persona doing its thing, and the Child Ignorance doing its thing, but all the while the Objective Witness is aware that it is not any of those. That method of witnessing is a form of subject-object witnessing, as in, “I observe that I am not that” or “I am conscious of the fact that things in the relative are only perceptions which are marked with duality and that none of those are Me.”
F.: Again, nothing definitive can be said about any statements unless the full text and the context are included. That said, the phrase “I AM; I AM THAT” is the consummate statement on non-duality and would never imply two of anything, including "levels." (Remember that “Advaita” means “not two”.) Thus, there cannot be “two levels of awareness.” Awareness is primordial…the original and eternal oneness. Dualities are products of corrupted consciousness. Anything discussed in relative terms or “tagged with duality” (including “two levels” of anything) deals with consciousness, not with awareness. Awareness is absolute, pure, unalterable, and singular. It cannot have an attribute of “two levels.”
Does any part of the teaching deal with “two levels”? Of course dualities are discussed in explanations of non-duality. Too, all along the "path," concepts are offered in order to eventually remove all concepts, so talks might make reference to “persons vs. Realized” or to “asleep vs. awake” or to “outer gurus vs. the inner guru.” In the end, though, only the Absolute remains and is Real. Within that context only, two “levels” or “forms” of witnessing can be discussed as long as the protégé knows that those are concepts being discussed in order to remove all concepts by the “journey’s” end. Just as awareness should not be confused with consciousness, do not confuse witnessing with awareness either. It is within that framework that two forms of witnessing are discussed in the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality.
Therein the point in made that, as the consciousness becomes more and more purified along the “path,” one form of “witnessing” passes into another. The first form comes at the fifth step on the “path” as Objective Witnessing happens. The second is the Pure Witnessing that happens when the True Self stage is reached. The Objective Witness can observe the body doing its thing, the “mind” doing its thing, a Religious Persona and/or a Spiritual Persona doing its thing, and the Child Ignorance doing its thing, but all the while the Objective Witness is aware that it is not any of those. That method of witnessing is a form of subject-object witnessing, as in, “I observe that I am not that” or “I am conscious of the fact that things in the relative are only perceptions which are marked with duality and that none of those are Me.”
At the next step on the “journey,” the True Self stage is reached, and that Real Self/Pure Witness sees accurately that there are no dualities and that there cannot, therefore, be any subject-object pairs. At that level, True Witnessing happens as that True Self becomes conscious of the Oneness...of the unicity instead of subjects-objects. From that platform, the True Self/Pure Self becomes fully conscious of the pure awareness of the Absolute. In one case, the Realization process is underway; in the next case, Full Realization has happened.
At that point, the True Self understands the non-dualistic singularity. That re-purified consciousness understands that there are no “levels of awareness” or levels of anything else. It knows that all perceived multiplicities are false. It knows that what is labeled as “this universe” originated with one single atom, so it knows the claim that “everything is connected” is false and that all is One, period. The pure consciousness understands I Am prior to consciousness, understands I AM THAT, understands that no “twos” exist, and understands the “not two” completely. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
At that point, the True Self understands the non-dualistic singularity. That re-purified consciousness understands that there are no “levels of awareness” or levels of anything else. It knows that all perceived multiplicities are false. It knows that what is labeled as “this universe” originated with one single atom, so it knows the claim that “everything is connected” is false and that all is One, period. The pure consciousness understands I Am prior to consciousness, understands I AM THAT, understands that no “twos” exist, and understands the “not two” completely. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
