Dimebag wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:41 am
It’s true that there is only one “I”, there is no other, but, the actual “I” or awareness, can merge, or can remain attached to its contents.
For that reason, this affects awareness’s own understanding of itself, or in other words, it’s identity.
But identity is like a tree like structure in the mind (not literally), but as a networked structure. It contains a “root”, and this root is connected to larger branch like “structures” which awareness can merge with, at any point.
One branch might contain your identity as your profession or work, another, as a carer such as father or mother. Another branch exists as man, or woman. This is sexual identity. All of these are branches. Some branches exist attached further from the root than others, and some branches branch from other branches, for example, the “man” branch is closer to the root than the “father” branch. The closer the branch is to the root, the more unchanging this aspect of identity is. But, further down this tree of identity, there are more fundamental aspects of identity, for instance, very close to the root, is the identity as the agent of all actions, thinker of thoughts, then, closely tied, is the identity as the body. You actually identify “as” the body.
Important to note is, awareness is always looking “through” this tree of identity, and “as” one of the branches. Whichever branch it looks “as” it identifies “as” that aspect of identity, plus all other branches leading towards the root. But all parts of the identity structure leading back towards the root, are essentially invisible to awareness, because it’s looking as, and through. These aspects are essentially unconsciously held, and “assumed” without awareness.
Notice throughout the day, the branches you identify as, changes. For instances, you might begin the day waking to your alarm, telling you to wake up and get ready for work. As such, you are identifying “as” your profession. Then, you might go see a friend later in the day, and you switch to the friend branch of this tree of identity.
Have you ever noticed, that your wife tells you, “you are a different person around your friends”? That’s because, you actually are. Your identity informs the way you act, what is appropriate and what’s not, things you can and can’t say. Even the way you speak, including accents, or nuances of speech. You have no control of this. It’s completely situational, unless of course, you notice it.
At the very base of this tree of identity is the sense “I am”. This can only be known once all other aspects of identity have been shed, by “detaching” or disidentifying.
Important to note is, once awareness knows, or sees an aspect of identity from outside that branch, it can then realise when it is “merged”, and thus, has an ability to detach, by becoming mindful.
The “I am”, is the last bastion of identity, once it’s been seen that one is awareness, there can still be this sense of “I am”, the non distinct sense of being here. This is what keeps awareness from knowing itself “as” itself, because awareness is actually not distinct from its contents. The contents “play” within awareness, like waves on the surface of a body of water.
The system of identity, also is the system which sorts self from other. If it’s seen that there is no self, by implication it is known that there is no other. This is why when the illusion of self is seen through, awareness knows it is the same as every other thing which appears in it, because it is that which appears in it.
This is how one comes to know the “observer IS the observed”, as distinct from “the observer cannot be observed”, which means, everything you look at, is not you, because you are awareness. But awareness IS it’s contents, though this is not most people’s experience. The two distinctions reflect different progressions of experience.