Exploring the Nature of Awareness and Consciousness Limits

Awareness is the essential, irreducible self that remains regardless of thoughts, feelings, or sensations.

### Exploring the Nature of Awareness: A Thought Experiment
* 🧠 The thought experiment begins with the idea of **removing all non-essential aspects of the self**, such as thoughts, feelings, memories, and bodily sensations, to discover what remains.
* 🔍 What remains is described as "**something that feels or senses**," which can be further understood as **pure awareness or consciousness**, devoid of any specific content or experience.
* 🌌 The discussion progresses to whether one can identify a boundary to this awareness, leading to the realization that any perceived boundary is based on **belief rather than direct knowledge**.
* 💡 It is emphasized that awareness is **self-aware**, and any exploration of awareness must come from **within that awareness itself**, making it impossible to conceptualize anything **outside of it**.
* 🌀 The conversation delves into the distinction between feelings and knowledge, asserting that while feelings may have limits, **awareness itself does not share those limits**.
* 🚦 The analogy of exploring physical space is used to illustrate that just as one cannot find a **limit to space**, one cannot find a **limit to consciousness or awareness**.
* 🔗 The discussion concludes with the notion that while theories about **non-conscious matter or other universes** can be intriguing, they remain **abstract and unverified**, contrasting with the **direct experience of consciousness**.
* 🎤 The exploration of awareness is framed as an **experiential journey**, encouraging listeners to engage with their own understanding of **consciousness and its limitless nature**.

Remove from yourself in your imagination. Do this thought experiment. Remove from yourself your thoughts because your thoughts are obviously not essential to you. They are continually appearing and disappearing a bit, but you remain intact. You don't feel that a little bit of yourself disappears every time a self should be sitting. Should I be sitting? Should I be sitting for this? Should I be sitting down or doesn't matter? No, just stay exactly as you are. All right. Okay. Sorry for interrupting. No, no, that's all right. So remove your thoughts, or it's not actually necessary to get rid of your thoughts. You can imagine removing your thoughts. They are not essential to you. Imagine removing your feelings. They are obviously not essential to you. Imagine removing your memories. Imagine removing your bodily sensations, the tingling of your face or your hands or your feet. Imagine you're in a

sensory deprivation tank, you have no, no sights, no sounds, no tastes, no textures, no smells, none of these are essential to you. So you are to continue the undressing metaphor, you're taking off everything that is superfluous to you. Now what remains? I would call it something that feels or senses. Rupert Spira Something that feels that something that could we broaden it and say something that experiences or even even more accurate, something that that knows and by knows, I don't mean conceptually something that something that it just that that knows or is aware or experience, right? Now, I'm not saying that I was able to get there in its pure form, but I could see myself. No, no, no, you're dead, right? Your your answer was, was, was, was perfect, that that which remains is something that senses but

but something that is aware, but without anything to be aware of. Something that experiences without there being anything to experience, or we could call it pure experiencing without any objective content, or pure knowing or pure consciousness. Now, can you go further back? It's continue the undressing in your actual experience? Can you remove consciousness? Can you go further back in your experience than that which knows or is aware? Right, right, right. So what you're getting at right now is an identification between you, so me, and awareness, because as soon as I say where I'm not aware, then I'm no longer there. As soon as you, as soon as you say, I am not aware, I'm then going to ask you, what is the I who is not aware? What experience could you have of that one? In the absence of awareness? Unknown Speaker I don't know, Rupert Spira you

couldn't have any experience of it, because awareness is the prerequisite for experience. So to postulate something prior to awareness is purely conceptual, it is abstract. It cannot be verified in experience, because awareness is the prerequisite for experience. So if we're wanting not to talk about abstract philosophy, but if we're wanting to make an experiential exploration of ourself, we have to admit that we can go all the way back to awareness, we can remove everything from ourself apart from the fact of being aware. And in that sense, if we stay close to the evidence of experience, awareness or consciousness is our essential, irreducible self, if we can call it a self. Now, can I ask you, can we continue the experiment? If I were to ask you now, describe the sensations of the soles of your feet, just pluck a couple

of words to just give us a tingling tingling, and slight pain, tingling, painful, okay, slight. Now, if I were to our warmth, but also I feel like my TOEs are cold. Perfect. If I were to ask you to describe your thoughts now, just very briefly. fleeting. Okay, that that's that's sufficient that fleeting and rapid fleeting and rapid. Perfect. Okay. Now, do the experiment we previously did remove everything from yourself that is not essential to yourself. And you remain just with the fact of being aware, without being aware of anything. And tell us about that experience. Rupert, I'm trying to get there. No, no, imagine that I'm not an experienced meditator. No, on the contrary, it's I can see I'm getting to cut it's much better. Sorry to interrupt. It's much better if you're not an experienced meditator,

and you don't have the correct answers. Okay, great, great, great. Maybe I can serve as a vessel for some of the people who are similar. So try again, to describe, try to find words that best describe the pure fact of that, which is aware, you in other words, what you referred to as your essential, irreducible self. Can you tell us about it? Yeah, and I can also find imagery, almost like artistic representations. I'll explain that after. But I want you to describe the actual experience that you told us you're your TOEs are tingling, they're cold, your thoughts are fleeting and rapid. Try to give us a words that accurately describe the nature of that which is aware, without referring to anything that you are aware of. It feels expansive. It feels okay, let me just let's just stay with that for a minute. Expansive. So that that is it's vast.

It's not tiny. It's not small. It's not contract. But it's not infinite. It's larger than I am until I start to hear okay, it's amazing. And then it brings me back to tell us about the edge of it, the boundary. You say it's expansive, but it's not infinite. So if you can, if you can say from your experience that it's not infinite, you must perceive a boundary to it. Now, remember that you're referring to the fact of being aware without referring to anything that you are aware of. So tell us what is your experience of a boundary to awareness? It's difficult to describe. Because as I try to get to the edges, it's shaky, unsteady, and unresolved. The way that I can, I can make an analogy, it's like, if I'm in a forest,

just denude the forest of the trees, but you need the trees for this example. And I have a flashlight, and I'm trying to find the edge. But it's the edges beyond the darkness beyond the purview of the flashlight. So I'm looking for the edge, but I can't see it. But I know that there's an edge to it. Or at least I get a feeling that there's an edge to it. You have a feeling that there's an edge to it. You say, I know there is an edge to it. But you can't actually find the edge. So you don't know there is an edge to it, you believe that there is an edge to it. And your feelings arise in such a way that they support your belief. So your feeling that there is an edge comes from not from your knowledge that there is an edge, but your belief that there is an edge. Now, here, we're not interested either in feelings,

or in beliefs, we're interested in truth. And we consider experience to be the test of truth, with subject. So go back to your experience of yourself, the experience of being aware or awareness itself. And realize that your knowledge that it has a boundary is not in fact knowledge, it's belief. It's substantiated by your feelings. But your feelings are substantiating a belief, not knowledge. So here, we're only interested in knowledge, what knowledge do you have, that there is a boundary to awareness, without reference to anything that you are aware of? Curt Jaimungal So there's a distinction here between feelings and knowledge. Do you mind explicating that for me? Because, to me, if I'm just this awareness, I don't know how to dissociate between the two in this form, Rupert Spira feelings are something that you are aware of. So what the question now is not whether feelings have a border or limit

or an edge? The question is that which is aware of your feelings? I agree with you, the feelings are limited. For instance, they come and go, they are limited in time. But the question is, what about that which is aware of your feelings? Does that share their limits? Give me 10 more seconds. It's hard to say, Rupert. I'm trying. I imagine trying is the opposite of what I should be doing. Trying is no, no, but trying is exactly what you should be doing. When you say trying, what you're really doing is you're exploring your experience. You're not just conceptualizing about when you're not thinking about you're in the lab, you're not in the classroom. We're in the classroom, we get the theory consciousness is infinite. But now that that's the that gives us we're open to the possibility, but we want to test that possibility. We want to come out of the classroom,

We want to go into the lab and test whether it's true. So now, yes, what you call trying is testing the validity of the theory that consciousness may be unlimited. Well, the way to test that is to see in our actual experience, we're not speculating about consciousness, being conscious or being aware is our experience, we don't need to speculate about it, we can test it, because it is our experience. So we are now testing whether or not we have the actual experience of a limit to consciousness. Now, let me just go a little bit further, I'd like to come back to this experiment, because it's really key. What is it in us that could explore the nature of awareness? Whatever these are questions you would like me to ponder or the audience or? Yes, I'd like, I'd like to explore with you. And of course, for your

audience, they can do the experiment with us. I'd like to just ascertain what it is in us that is able to explore the nature of awareness. Now, let me elaborate. Whatever it is that is able to explore the nature of awareness must know awareness. Yes, it must be aware of awareness. We couldn't explore something we are not aware of. Okay, now, the question is, what is it that is aware of the fact that we are aware? Is awareness known by another kind of awareness? Or is it your awareness that knows that you are aware? Curt Jaimungal. I would say that for me, it's tricky when what when I say me when I say I even, but when I say me, I would say that I'm aware of my, my awareness. Exactly. Perfect. There are not two awarenesses in you, one that is the subject of your exploration and one that is the object. Curt Jaimungal. Well, for me, I didn't

I don't know if I did it properly. But I was aware of an awareness. And in that awareness, it was as if that outside awareness was the object. And I was the subject looking at my own awareness. Rupert Spira If that was the case, the object's awareness that you were looking at would have been some kind of objective experience, and would as such have had a limit to it. But that's not the case when we say, I am aware that I am aware, there isn't one eye that is aware. And another eye that is aware that we are aware. It is I awareness that is aware that I am aware. In other words, awareness is self-aware. Okay. So now, when I ask you, do you have a limit? Do you have any experience of a limit to your awareness? What I'm really doing is asking you awareness? Do you have any actual experience of a limit in yourself to yourself? Curt Jaimungal I

don't know. I don't know how to answer that. If I'm understanding the question correctly, it's that I have some awareness. I'm from a perspective right now. I have experiences, but I'm trying to just look at forget the experiences that are thoughts and sensations, but look at what's experiencing those thoughts and sensations. Okay, so that is something like a perspective, which we're also calling awareness. Now, can I be aware of my own perspective? Can I be aware of awareness? Rupert Spira Well, you if I were to ask you now, Curt, are you aware? Not what are you aware of just a simple question? Are you aware? What would you say? Curt Jaimungal I'd say I I'm partially aware. And that I hope I'm aware because I want to be present for you. Rupert Spira Yes, but it is your experience. I'm not trying to be surely it is obvious to you now that

you are aware. Curt Jaimungal. Yes. I think here's where the reason why I'm hesitating is, it's fairly simple. It's that when I'm driving, let's say, let's say I'm driving down the highway, there, obviously, most of that, obviously, most of that constitutes gaps in memory, because we're moving along unconsciously. But then if I was to be tapped on the shoulder at any point, and I look back at the previous five seconds, I can recall them, but not just recall them, but at least have a feeling that I was conscious during them. Although if you were to tap me two minutes later, instead of five seconds, I wouldn't be able to recall that little five-second gap. And I would have said that was a lapse in my consciousness. So the what cost is, it was a lapse in Rupert Spira consciously, it was sorry to interrupt, it was a lapse in the

content of your consciousness. You didn't have any experience of a lapse in being aware you were aware, all the way through the experience, but there was a gap in what you were aware of. Okay, it's like when one movie ends, and another movie begins, there is a gap. The gap is not the absence of the screen; it is the absence of the content. You will never say when a movie comes to an end; you don't say the screen has come to an end. So what you're getting me to do is to identify with the screen or try to get close to the screen, rather than what you've already said, Curt, as a result of our initial experiment, when I remove everything from myself that is not essential. All that remains is that which experiences or that which is aware. And now I'm trying to push you a little bit further to discover the nature of that which is aware. Let me let me. And by the way,

you're, you're doing very well. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you're the reason you're having so much difficulty. Well, let me say about that later. But it may not feel like it to you. But it's a very good sign that you're struggling with this so much when I asked you, what is the tell us about the sensations of the soles of your feet. We didn't discuss it for 15 minutes, you just told me they're cold and tingling. When I asked you about the nature of your thoughts, we didn't debate it for 15. And you just told me they're fleeting and rapid. Now, when I asked you, what is the nature of that which is aware, we're still talking about it 20 minutes later. And it's good that we are, because it's not clear to you that the nature of your sensations in your thoughts is absolutely

clear to you. The nature of your awareness is not clear to you. That's very good. So that that's the actually that that's the beginning that that's the best sign at the beginning of this investigation. I want to just add another analogy here to help you to possibly help you. Did you I certainly did as a young child, I lay awake in bed, wondering how far space went on as someone interested in physics and mathematics. I'm quite sure, early on in your life, you must have imagined how far space goes on and you go on and you eventually you come to what you think is a limit of your space. And then you think, but hang on, what what's outside that? That must be space also. So and you, you experience this frustration that you cannot imagine something outside space. You from it, you had that feeling thought as a boy. Yeah, yeah. Now, imagine that instead

of you exploring the nature of space as something objective. Imagine now that space, physical space itself, were conscious, just for the sake of this thought experiment. Imagine the faculty of being aware of physical space, and now imagine that physical space itself were to explore itself. Would it ever find a limit in itself? I'm just talking about the ordinary classical conventional idea of space. Curt Jaimungal. No, as far as I can tell, yeah, exactly. I keep prefacing this with as far as I can tell often, just to be clear, often when we're playing, when we're using language, often there are linguistic tricks that prevent us from seeing truths. So, for example, I can't give an example, but I'm sure you can think of examples. Some examples from math would be the barber's paradox: who cuts the barber's hair if the barber cuts all those who don't cut their

own hair, but everyone shaved in the town. And then that leads to an investigation and set theory to overcome that. And so there's many, there are many times when an answer seemed obviously, it's so and so, or obviously, it's not so and so that years, decades, even hundreds of years later, we found out, well, it's not so obvious, the more we investigated their subtleties. So that's why I'm prefacing with it seems like what you're saying is correct. And my feeling is like, my feeling is in accordance with what you're saying. But I don't have a I don't have the certainty that you do, perhaps, because I lack. Okay. Years. Can we leave it like this? I don't mean leave it. Can we agree at least thus far that when you explore the experience of being aware, you don't find any limit there. You don't find an edge to the space of awareness if

we can add a space-like quality to it just for the purposes of this conversation? Curt Jaimungal Yes, yes. And what I would say is that if I try to be aware of not being aware, sorry, if I tried to get into a place of non-awareness, which is the border of awareness, if such a border existed, I can't because in order to know it, I would have to be aware of it. Exactly. And thus, by definition, I'm locked within this realm of awareness, there may exist what's outside awareness, I just don't know it. At least I can't know it. As far as I can tell, you can't know it. Could can anybody know it? If my body you means another awareness, then I would say no. Could any kind of a being embodied or whatever other kinds of beings there may be in reality? Could any being

know that which exists prior to or in the absence of awareness? Curt Jaimungal. I would say that an aware being, if one is to be a being and synonymize that with being aware, then it would be no, as far as I can tell. But like I said, there's subtleties that decades later, we find out, okay, if we did, if we considered so and so at the edge case, hold on, as far as I can tell, hold on, you say, as far as you can tell, and maybe decades later, but but but imagine decades later, what kind of in the absence of awareness? Would it be possible to be aware of anything? Can anybody I would say no, by definition? No, by definition? Yes. Right. Right. In other words, I'm couching this and I'm not trying to be difficult. No, no, be difficult. Be difficult. It's good that

you're being difficult. The reason is that let's imagine it's true that there's dead matter. And that's materialism. But let's also imagine that there exists consciousness. So let's imagine a dual existence. Then one may say, well, what's not matter and not consciousness at the same time? Well, there's nothing? Well, I don't know, maybe there's a third element to do with matter or consciousness that can interact with them in some way. That's why I'm saying yes, from definition from the definition. Yes, yes. But you're starting with the presumption that there may be something outside consciousness, which exists alongside consciousness. Now, if we try to find that stuff, that exists outside consciousness, in fact, we have been trying to find it for a couple of millennia. Now, we don't find that stuff. It's we have to, it's an abstract category of experience,

which nobody has ever, or could ever come in contact with. For those listening, I'll just recapitulate what you said shortly, so that the people who may be tuned in later can understand. When you're saying that we can never know what's outside of, we can never know the dead matter. What you're referring to is that in order even in the lab, if let's say we're analysing an electron at some point, so well, that's not conscious, but you only know of the electron through your own consciousness. Is it something like that? Is that what you're saying? That we can never get to this dead matter? Unconscious? Rupert Spira. Your question implies that there is something called dead matter, or be it that we cannot know. What I'm implying by this line of questioning is why presume that there is something called dead matter in the first place, whether we can know it or not.

because it is not consistent with experience. And if we want to build a model of reality, why start with an abstract category of experience, namely dead matter, that nobody has ever or could ever experience, and then try to build a model of the one thing we do experience, namely conscious experience. That is apparently derived from the one thing we never experience, which is dead matter. That is convoluted. Curt Jaimungal. Firstly, I'm not saying I presume. Rupert Spira. No, no, no, I realize I can't. I realize I understand you're playing devil's advocate. And Curt Jaimungal. Yeah, let me give an answer to that. So why presume what we can't know. So that's an epistemological claim. But then you're taking this claim about epistemology that we only have access to a certain set of data points. And those data points are all

conscious points. So why would we ever posit a non-conscious data point, given all we've only seen is consciousness, and all we can see is consciousness, or all we can experience is consciousness. Okay, so I'll give you a reason why to posit. This is not necessarily the reason why it is posited. But I'm just telling you, here's one, we can imagine universes that don't interact with ours, such as in the potential M theory, there are branes, well, in some flavors of string theory, there's things called D branes, and then they interact. And perhaps when they collide, they create big bangs. And there are other cyclical models of the universe that we can't that say that universes existed before us and may after us that we can't actually touch or see. But the reason to play with them, and this is not a reason to assume that they're true, but I'm giving

an argument to play with them. The reason to play with them is because what we find is through often convoluted arguments. What we'll see is actually what we thought of as an uninteracting piece is an intimation of that other universe. So, for example, even though we can't see the quantum foam, some people talk about the quantum foam at the bottom of the Planck scale. Even though we can't see that. So why do we think it exists? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One may be that in the early universe, when the Big Bang happened, and there was a huge inflation, maybe an imprint of that moment, quantum foam is on the sky. So at this place where we thought we could never get to, even by principle, we can never get to, we can theorize, what would it be like if that were here, and then thousands of heads of brilliant people coming, using this and playing with it come to

conclusions that say, actually, if we look in this direction, we can see an imprint of so and so. Okay, so that's why I'm saying, I'm not saying I believe that there exists matter outside consciousness or consciousness outside matter. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there is a reason to toy with it. Rupert Spira Yes. Curt, I'm not, I just want to be clear, I'm not suggesting, or I hope implying that all there is to reality is the contents, the one total of each of our finite minds, I would suggest that our finite minds were a very small segment, a narrow cross section, a localization of the infinite mind or the one reality, the one consciousness. If you enjoyed this TOE clipping, then the full video is linked in the description. Don't forget to follow Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal on Spotify for exclusive content and in-depth

discussions. Your support on Spotify helps us grow and to reach more curious minds like yours. Check out the link in the description and join the Core TOE community on Spotify today. See you there.

Simple Technique to Connect with Pure Conscious Awareness | Rupert Spira

Curt Jaimungal

The thought experiment involves removing all non-essential aspects of oneself, such as thoughts, feelings, memories, and bodily sensations, to discover what remains.

What remains is described as pure experiencing, knowing, or awareness, which is essential for any experience to occur.

The exploration suggests that awareness or consciousness is the irreducible essence of the self, and the experiment can be continued by focusing on specific sensations, like those of the soles of the feet.

The speaker describes their awareness as tingling and cold, with fleeting and rapid thoughts.

They struggle to define the essential self, describing it as expansive and vast, but not infinite.

The search for the boundary of awareness is difficult, leading to a feeling of uncertainty and belief in its existence without being able to find it.

The distinction between feelings and knowledge is emphasized, with feelings being something we are aware of, while awareness itself may not share the same limits.

The conversation encourages testing the theory of consciousness being unlimited through personal experience.

The exploration of awareness is framed as a shared experience, with the same awareness knowing both the exploration and the fact of being aware.

Self-awareness is a complex concept, where awareness is both the subject and the object.

There is no limit to awareness itself, as it is inherently self-aware.

The experience of gaps in consciousness does not indicate a lapse in being aware, but rather a gap in the content of what one is aware of.

The Nature of Awareness and Its Exploration

The struggle to understand the nature of awareness is a positive sign in the investigation process.

The analogy of exploring physical space helps illustrate the concept of awareness, suggesting that it may not have a limit or edge.

The discussion highlights the complexities of language and thought, emphasizing that answers to profound questions may not be as obvious as they seem.

The Nature of Awareness and Consciousness

Awareness seems to be a locked realm, as trying to know non-awareness requires awareness itself.

The possibility of any being knowing what exists prior to or in the absence of awareness is questioned, with the conclusion that an aware being cannot know it.

The discussion explores the dual existence of matter and consciousness, pondering the possibility of a third element that interacts with both, but ultimately highlights the difficulty in finding anything that exists outside of consciousness.

The Nature of Consciousness and Dead Matter

The discussion revolves around the concept of dead matter and its relationship to consciousness, questioning the assumption that dead matter exists since it cannot be experienced.

Rupert Spira argues that building a model of reality based on an abstract category like dead matter is convoluted, as we only have access to conscious experience.

Curt Jaimungal offers a counterpoint, suggesting that the existence of non-conscious data points, such as in M theory and cyclical models of the universe, provides a reason to posit their existence, even if they cannot be directly experienced.

The Role of Quantum Foam in Understanding the Universe

Quantum foam, theorized to exist at the Planck scale, may have left an imprint on the sky during the Big Bang's inflation.

The idea of this unseen quantum foam has led brilliant minds to theorize its impact and search for its imprint in the universe.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of toying with these concepts, suggesting that our finite minds are a small segment of the infinite reality or consciousness.