WE ARE
CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF
FREELY OFFERED TO ALL FROM
Fundamental experience is not the experience of “things”.
Fundamental experience is the experience of Being Itself, of Consciousness Itself.
—AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ
INTRODUCTION
What Are We?
What is most basic to human existence?
The fact of awareness.
Awareness is more fundamental than body, more fundamental than emotion, more fundamental than mind.
Most fundamental is not what we are aware of—but the simple fact that we are always aware.
That constant reality of awareness is what Avatar Adi Da Samraj calls “Consciousness Itself”.
Not consciousness of anything—such as a bodily sensation, an emotion, or a thought, or a person or thing in our environment—but Consciousness Itself.
In fact, Consciousness Itself is our real identity—we are Consciousness Itself.
Because Consciousness Itself is the reality that pervades all of human existence, Avatar Adi Da calls it “the True Water of life”—the deep well of Truth that is the real Source of our living.
To know that we are Consciousness Itself grants sanity, freedom, and happiness to the heart—despite the trials of our mortal existence.
And the reality that we are Consciousness Itself is a message that Avatar Adi Da wanted all human beings to receive.
Avatar Adi Da’s communication here is his gift to you.
The Truth of What We Are
Avatar Adi Da summarized his gift of Truth in a single sentence.
He wished to give this gift to every human being, so that knowledge of this Truth could be the foundation of every human life.
Avatar Adi Da even wished that all children could hear this Truth from their youngest days, so that their lives could be guided by it from the beginning.
Avatar Adi Da says that this Truth is the case “no matter what arises”.
In other words, this is the Truth regardless of what the body is experiencing, regardless of what emotions may be coming up, regardless of what thoughts we may be having, and regardless of what appears to be happening in the world.
And Avatar Adi Da also says that this Truth is the case even if there are no bodily sensations or emotions or thoughts happening in the moment.
This Truth, he says, is “always already the case”.
To communicate this Truth most fully, Avatar Adi Da Samraj states it in two different forms:
No matter what arises, or does not arise,
you are only Consciousness Itself.
No matter what arises, or does not arise,
there is only Consciousness Itself.
On the following pages, Avatar Adi Da expands his statement of this Truth in many ways, helping us to understand the profundity and transformative power of this Truth.
READINGS FROM
THE WRITINGS AND TALKS
OF AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ
Become A Participant
In The Real World
Fundamental experience is not the experience of “things”.
Fundamental experience is the experience of Being Itself, of Consciousness Itself.
The self-aware pleasure of existing is the fundamental gift, the Divine gift, the persistent gift that you are tending to ignore.
Therefore, to live a truly human life is to become a participant in the real world of always already existing Reality.
You Presume
You Are The Body
Your problems and your questions only arise because you forget Consciousness.
You presume you are the body—but, in reality, you are only witnessing the body.
You are aware of the body as something in Consciousness.
You do not “experience” the body itself as a “thing” in and of itself.
You are conscious of the body.
Therefore, Consciousness Itself is first—not the body.
Then there appears to be the body, and you identify with it, and forget Consciousness.
That is how Consciousness Itself becomes the unconscious: You presume to be the body, and you imagine Consciousness is to be found somewhere else.
You Are Not
In The Position of The Body
The error in which you live is the error of presuming that the fundamental experience is that of being an individuated body—that that is birth, that is existence, that is the reality in which you exist and everyone exists, and that is what there is to be concerned about, and to participate in, and fulfill, and so forth.
You must understand: That is an error.
That is not the way it is.
You are not in the position of the body.
To presume so is your error.
What is the actual root-experience, or first experience?
What is the context of experience?
It is not the body.
It Is Consciousness—now.
You Are Not
The Thinking Mind
It is commonly presumed that the (apparently individual) conscious “self” is doing the thinking.
You presume that you are thinking and that you are the “subject” of that thinking.
You presume you are the source and cause and doer of thinking.
You presume that the contents, questions, and problems of your thinking are “yours”—but this is only a presumption, or a mere idea.
That presumption is not inspected—and, indeed, that presumption is not true.
Right now, you appear to be thinking—but that thinking is not actually being done by you (as you really are).
You are not the thinking mind.
Rather, you are simply the formless and actionless mere witness of whatever is arising.
Your Real Situation
It appears that you are associated with conditions—in the states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
However, none of those conditions last—and, therefore, you cannot be any of those conditions.
You are that which appears to be modified in the form of all conditional phenomena—you are Consciousness Itself.
The entire waking state arises within Consciousness Itself.
The entire dreaming state arises within Consciousness Itself.
The entire sleeping state arises within Consciousness Itself.
And, when any condition in any of those three states—or (otherwise) when any one of those states itself—passes, Consciousness Itself remains.
Consciousness Itself never changes.
Consciousness Itself is always already the case.
The “Glasses”
of Consciousness
Everything is seen through the “glasses” of Consciousness.
Everything is a mode of Consciousness.
Every perception, every thought, everything altogether that you call “the world”—everything in it, everyone in it, all relations, all functions, all circumstances, all instants of time, all space, all appearances, the entire universe—exists only on the basis of Consciousness Itself.
That is it.
Everything appears on Consciousness as on a screen.
Everything simply passes.
But, always, Consciousness Is the basis of everything appearing.
Consciousness Is the “substance” in which all passing phenomena are arising and disappearing.
Awareness Itself
Never Changes
No matter what happens to the body-mind-“self” while you live, you are always merely aware.
The awareness itself never changes.
Even while you are aware of changes, the awareness itself never changes.
There are not different kinds of awareness—different colors of it or different shapes of it.
Awareness is, simply and only, awareness itself.
No matter what happens in the body-mind-complex [which is comprised of the four faculties of body, emotion, mind, and breath that make up the human structure], awareness is merely and simply aware of the process of the body-mind-complex—and awareness itself is never affected by change.
Awareness itself does not go through changes.
Awareness merely and simply observes changes.
Awareness itself is the in-depth mere witness.
If you are not reality-intelligent in the moments of change, then, every time there is a change, you identify with the change.
“I am that change, then,” you think and say.
When the body is suffering, you think and say, “I am suffering.”
When reactive emotion arises, you think and say, “I am angry, I am sorrowful, I am afraid.”
That which—in and as Reality Itself—never changes is, in its superficial daily-ordinary state, constantly presuming itself to be changed, and to be a change.
In this moment, it is painful—in the next moment, it feels good.
The daily-ordinary ego-mind is constantly identifying pure awareness (or the in-depth mere witness) with the changes that are peripheral to it.
If you inspect awareness itself, if you enter into it most profoundly, you will clearly see that awareness itself does not change, but it is (simply and only) the in-depth mere witness of changes.
A Way To Observe
That Consciousness
Is Always The Same
If you can locate a memory of something that happened earlier in your life, a memory that is so vivid that you can feel the event again, do that and compare it to your feeling now.
Not the content of now, but the feeling of yourself now, compared to the feeling of yourself then.
It does not make any difference how much development there has been of the persona—in terms of content or years or whatever it may be.
The conscious being feels the same whether it is five years old or twenty years old or seventy years old—however many years old, it is the same.
If you clearly recollect how it was being there, if you clearly sense it again, it is the same as now.
Consciousness is always the same, now and in the past—whether the recent past or the past of long ago.
To Realize This
Is Realization Itself
Even now, no matter what arises, you are Consciousness Itself.
Not the ego, not the separate “self”, but Consciousness Itself.
No matter what arises, even now, you are Consciousness Itself.
This is Absolutely True—and it is a way of saying what there is to Realize.
To Realize this Is Realization Itself.
Free Love-Bliss
of Being
Consciousness Itself is not an “effect” (or a result) of any conditional event (or any display of conditional events).
The very existence of Consciousness Itself is not dependent on any condition (or any display of conditions).
Consciousness Itself is the essential inherent characteristic—or most primitive, irreducible, inherently Spiritual (or Love-Blissful), Transcendental, intrinsically egoless, and self-evidently Divine Element—of Being (Itself), or of Existence (Itself), or of Reality (Itself).
When conditions arise, or change, or pass away in the view of Consciousness, Consciousness Itself remains always as the same Free Love-Bliss of Being.
This Message
Should Be Given To All
It would do everyone good if the basics of this message were given to them from their infancy.
Simply this: No matter what arises, or does not arise, you are only Consciousness Itself.
The basic communication of all humankind to all its future children should be that.
And, then, no matter what people do from then on, no matter what they experience, they will know that this is the case, this is Reality, and this is the great thing to be Realized.
This message should be given to every living being, without cost or obligation of any kind.
It should be made known to everyone, even if only as a verbal communication.
To Realize the Truth of that verbal communication requires a great process.
Whatever anyone wants to do about that is up to the individual.
But this much basic information—if only in the form of just these words, whatever they may mean to anyone, at any time—is something of which no one should be deprived.
It should be a basic common gift to humankind.
Whatever anyone will make of It, at least this Message should be given to all, without any limitation of any situation in the world.
I want everyone to know this.
I want everyone to hear this.
It is simply a gift.
This understanding—everything that comes from it, everything that is associated with it—should become the foundation of human culture in the future.
This understanding should be the undeniably real basis for the future culture of humankind.
It is Avatar Adi Da’s everliving Intent in regard to this work that it be freely distributed intact, and not be modified without consulting ASA, who may be contacted via the website: www.consciousnessitself.org
Produced by the Adi Da Foundation.
All quotations in this booklet are drawn from the book Notice This, by Avatar Adi Da Samraj, except for the final sentence of “Become A Participant In The Real World” (which is drawn from a talk given by Avatar Adi Da on December 27, 1998), “A Way To Observe That Consciousness Is Always The Same” (which is drawn from a talk given by Avatar Adi Da on November 30, 1998), and “Free LoveBliss of Being” (which is drawn from Avatar Adi Da’s book The Dawn Horse Testament). Some editorial conventions have been adjusted in this booklet, per agreements made during Avatar Adi Da’s lifetime.
The image on the cover is a visual communication created by Avatar Adi Da Samraj. The white circle in the black field is what Avatar Adi Da Samraj calls the “Midnight Sun”—a visual representation of Conscious Light—Free-Standing Beyond (or Perfectly Prior to) all conditional phenomena.