[ the brain and awareness, dept. ]
The infinite awareness one is, cannot be recognized by the finite brain – the knower or the known. It is, and all else appears.
That which one is, is not a concept, an idea or ideal – all of which are the sole domain of the brain. Awareness is that constant infinity which is aware of the passing finite brain and its’ activity. Yes, “The brain is animated by awareness and is an expression of awareness.”..but the brain cannot know reality, it can only conceptually compare and contrast verbally, sort and sift data (0-1) from daulity; conjure with words and feelings ‘about’ reality from its culturally conditioned good/bad, right/wrong dual nature.
Brain is an excellent tool for technical functions but itself can only describe, measure, devise and theorize; it is always attempting to conclude, but it keeps dividing and separating and labeling and fragmenting that reality which is One. It cannot know nonconceptual, nonpersonal facts beyond its descriptions using merely words-about-words. Indeed, reality lies beyond its’ comprehension.
Awareness is reality; it does not exclude; it includes the brain and the body ‘consciousness,’ ie. body/brain experience, but is itself not any passing ‘experience.’ Awareness is indescribable, unknowable, inaccessible by the brain; it is what one is – love, peace, beauty and joy – so to speak – all of which only arise in and from, emptiness.
~ A further note: The brain as talked about here, is thought and memory – which constitutes the suppossed ‘person’. In direct awareness, there is the recognition that in fact there is no person. Only awareness, being not personal, is aware. That infinite, choiceless awareness includes the personal, the passing of finite experience. That fact can only be directly, not personally, conceptually, recognized only by awareness itself – not by the brain, thought and memory, (sentient, body/brain experience) but only from and by awareness itself, so to speak. In other words, the lower ( phenoumena: brain, time and space relative ‘world’) cannot know anything about the higher ( noumena: absolute, timeless awareness)
Indeed, “..what detracts a person from his irrevocable clarity of awareness?” is the belief in being ‘a person’. In deepening self-knowing, there’s a movement beyond the person/brain, beyond belief. In that seeing of truly being much more than a limited, mind-made ‘person,’ there’s emptiness: all beliefs are fully and freely abandoned and awareness arises.. (it is seen that it was and is, obviously, already here, now.) There is only awareness; all else is illusion. In quietude and gratitude, in open, unfiltered, belief-free, non-personal watching and listening – as a child – one may be graced to see and know the awareness of simply being it. Love is the light that reveals what one is. 🙂 Love, and be well.