4. You Are the Experiencer, Not the Experience
Sadhana Practice§
Suggestions for Wandering: Think back over the last few week and the states of consciousness you most commonly experienced. Imagine being in that state of mind in the present. Then see yourself as the experiencer, awareness, of that state of consciousness. Focus on identifying with the unchanging awareness that is constant through all the varied states of consciousness you experienced.§
Quote from Gurudeva§
Awareness is free to travel in the mind according to our knowledge, our discipline and our ability to detach from the objects of awareness and see ourselves as the experience of awareness itself.§
Supplementary Reading§
“Should we acquire the ability to identify as the experiencer instead of the experience, the true and valid nature of awareness and its patterns of movement in the mind become evident.”§
In this our fourth exercise in claiming our spiritual identity, we are deepening the concept of being the witness who observes the mind by exploring the concepts of awareness and consciousness.§
Let’s look first at the process of seeing an object, our study notes, for example. When we look at the study notes, we say “I see the study notes.” Does anyone think they are the study notes? No. We have been trained to think of ourselves as the seer and not the physical object seen. §
Sound is the same way. Listen to the sounds inside and outside of this room. We say “I hear the sounds.” Again, we have been trained to think of ourselves as the listener and not the sound heard.§
Now, let’s take our emotions. When we are happy we say “I am happy.” And when we are sad, we say “I am unhappy.” This is not parallel to seeing with the eyes and listening with the ears. To be parallel it would have to be “I am experiencing happiness.” And “I am experiencing unhappiness.” §
We can see that we have been taught that we are the happiness and the unhappiness rather than the experiencer of those emotions. However, that is not really the deepest perspective. Just as much as we are not the study notes we looked at, nor the sounds we heard, we are not the emotions of happiness or unhappiness we experience.§
Happiness and unhappiness are the experience; we are the experiencer of both. This shift in identity from the experience to the experiencer is an important part of deepening our spiritual identity and an important concept in Gurudeva’s teachings. §
Gurudeva labels what we are experiencing in the mind as consciousness and the experiencer as awareness. Awareness is constant, whereas the different states of consciousness we are experiencing are constantly changing based on our experiences in life, especially our interactions with other people. §
The soul’s ability to sense, see or know and to be conscious of this knowing is called awareness. It is described as individual consciousness, perception, knowing; the witness of perception, the “inner eye of the soul.” Sanskrit terms for awareness include sakshin and chit. Awareness is known in the Agamas as chitshakti, the “power of awareness,” the inner self and eternal witness. Awareness is known as nef in the mystical Natha language of Shum. §
When our interactions with other people go well, our awareness ends up in positive, happy states of conscious. And when our interactions with other people do not go well, our awareness tends to end up in negative, unhappy states of consciousness.§
However, what we really are in both experiences, awareness, is unchanged. Awareness is like the mind’s eye. Just as our physical eyes look at something beautiful and then at something ugly and are neither, our mind’s eye, awareness, looks at happiness and unhappiness and is neither.§
Therefore, the goal is to reprogram our subconscious mind to look at our everyday experiences in this way and say to ourselves “this morning I find my awareness is in a state of consciousness that is content and happy” rather than “This morning I am content and happy.”§
As some of you know, Gurudeva created his own language to be able to have precise descriptions of the realm of meditation. Every new field of knowledge traditionally develops its own technical vocabulary, for example computers have brought with them a complex vocabulary of recently created terms.§
The language Gurudeva created is called the Shum Tyeif language (also simply known as Shum). It is a Natha mystical language of meditation that was revealed to Gurudeva in Switzerland in 1968. You will be interested to know that there is not just one word in the Shum language for awareness but rather there are many words that give precise descriptions to different perspectives on awareness. The perspective we are referring to is the Shum word niif (neeeef). Its particular perspective of awareness is defined as individual awareness distinguished from impersonal consciousness. It is also defined as the observation of individual awareness as well as the perception of being aware. These three aspects of the definition of niif are helpful in grasping the full meaning:§
Individual awareness distinguished from impersonal consciousness – distinguished, of course, is focusing on recognizing the difference between awareness and consciousness§
Observation of individual awareness – a clear perception of what awareness is, we see it§
Perception of being aware – the sense of being an awareness independent of consciousness (like an eye that is not seeing an object, an ear not hearing anything)§
It is interesting to note that Gurudeva has assembled in Shum what he calls the eeeef collection of twenty-seven words for different perspectives on awareness. For example:§
Eeeef is the observation of one’s awareness flowing or traveling from one area of the higher mind to another.§
Neeemf is the observation of one’s awareness flowing into and out of lower areas of the physical and astral mind. §
Here is one word from the eeeef collection of a deeper nature:§
Innyawf is awareness of experiencing one’s own soul body.§
Additional Resources§
Merging with Śiva, Chapter 6: Wisdom’s Path§