The following is an excerpt from Georg Kuehlewind's 'Awareness and Devotion' (Aufmerksamkeit und Hingabe)
Translated by Mark Robertson
Revised by Doris Jordi
I AM AWARENESS
Chapter Four
The conclusion of our last contemplation can hardly be anything else than awareness being the SUBSTANCE of the I. And were you to try to discover something ELSE being obviously closer, it would still always be awareness that is aware of that something "else" (whether it be the I, the Will, a focal point, etc.), and therefore awareness is closer than that which is "discovered," which would still always be an object of awareness. That's the first piece of evidence for the above assertion.
The second piece of evidence is to be seen in the experience that the senses don't function without awareness; even if everthing happens physically, physiologically or chemically -- which ordinarily lead to the sense-perception itself -- awareness still plays a part in that process.
The third piece of evidence was already mentioned. It exists in the fact that you know about all of your experiences and memories, and also that they are your own, without ever needing to think about it.
Fourthly, you can ascertain that the me-feeling, which we usually consider being the essentiality of our I, is not a SUBJECT, but an OBJECT, of awareness, which you are not, or are seldom, conscious of.
That fact is strengthened by the fifth phenomenon. This reveals how awareness can be divided between the me-feeling (which is the pith of the everyday I) and another object. The greater the devotion to another object, the more the everyday I is "forgotten."
Because we are awareness or consciousness, one with it, we become one with all that which consciousness becomes one with: tones, colors, forms, ideas, memories, dreams. We are one with all these contents of consciousness in the same measure as that with which awareness becomes one with them. That measure can be the complete, total concentration of awareness, or even just a part of it. And because we become one with all these contents, we "know" that they are OUR tones, colors, forms, etc.
This fact, that we are wakefulness or consciousness, seems to be the actual reason why we give IT no name; it cannot be adequately named. I am "my" awareness; I and this specific human capacity are ONE. And what I am one with, I cannot name, nor can I ask any questions regarding it, because a certain degree of separation, a distance, is necessary for it to be that OTHER.
The mysterious word "self" or "I" taken in its original meaning, stands juxtaposed to that which we are trying to relate here: Awareness. But we only come close to the essence of ths, when we are trying to experience these words in meditation. There is nothing closer than this non-other, because no matter what you might or would find as something "closer," it would still be found only through awareness, that is today, it would still be an object of the peering facility of awareness.
That there is nothing closer, and also that there cannot be anything given closer, no central I, no cental Will (awareness IS the Will), reveals that it is the basic substance of that which can actually be called "I," which is the true subject, the true witness. True means primordial, that nothing remains "hidden," that the true witness knows about the attested to and about itself AT THE SAME TIME, not having the experience in two distinct acts in succession, but precisely in the identity in which the witness really remains a self: in the transparentness that lets the object appear in consciousness. THIS self, generally, is no actuality, but is sheer potentiality. So long as it is not realized, it remains the free and open, persuadable-by-the-will supraconsciousness awareness; a supraconscious ability that remains unawakened.
MEDITATION: I AM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
