Welcome everybody. Welcome to satsang. Tonight, I would like to start with the topic of 'Recognition', as it's so important (if not key) in our lives. Without it we are essentially lost, confused and blind. Without it we are without an important element of the foundation on which rests true peace and contentment, our heart's innermost desire.

So Recognition is Recognition of what, we may pertinently ask? Well, Recognition is the Recognition of what it is that we truly are at the deepest core and centre of our beings. It is the Recognition of our essential being, to put it slightly differently. We can see we 'have' a body and 'have' a mind, but we cannot say we 'are' the body or the mind. 'Being' something and 'having' something is something quite distinct! It's quite definitely distinct! Most definitely! Both the body and mind are functionings, functioning systems, but they cannot be what we are at essence as they are objects, functioning objects of which we are aware. There is something, the Subject, that sees or is aware of them.

So there's quite clearly a third component present. And that is, of course, Awareness or Consciousness. We can't say we 'have' Awareness or Consciousness as that would mean making Awareness or Consciousness into an object. And what would be aware of Awareness or Consciousness if it was an object? Another Awareness or Consciousness? And what would be aware of that? It would just go on and on. Doesn't make any sense! So Awareness or Consciousness is not an object. It is not something we 'have'. It is something we 'are'.

Now most of you here are aware, of course, that your true nature is Awareness or Consciousness. You've read the relevant 'spiritual' books, so you've got the idea intellectually, at least. However, intellectual understanding is not enough. Intellectual understanding is not Recognition. Recognition has an 'experiential component' which intellectual understanding lacks. One can read all the spiritual books going and still not get the all important 'experiential component'.

So how do we move on from a mere intellectual understanding to direct cognition, i.e. 'Recognition'. Well, as an 'experiential component' is needed we need to look at the Awareness we are in an 'experiential' way.

(i) Look at the beautiful flowers on the table to the right of me. Notice their shape and colour. Now turning the attention 180' away from the flowers notice that which is experiencing those flowers, i.e. the Awareness that is present right where you are now, the Awareness that you in fact 'are' that is taking in, so to speak, those beautiful flowers. What shape does the Awareness you are have? Does it have a shape? Is it shapeless and without any particular form? When I check the Facts, I find that it is.

I find the Awareness I am is empty of all substantial form. Awareness has no shape. Also, Awareness has no weight or colour or boundary that is discernible. Very unlike objects which certainly do have shape, colour, weight and a definite boundary. Awareness is very much the opposite to objects, is it not? This is hardly surprising, of course, as it is the Subject. Awareness is that formless 'Something' (or more correctly, 'No-thing') that is different to any and all objects that can be perceived or known. It is rather the formless Perceiver or Knower or Subject of objects, of all objects whether they are objects of perception, thought, emotion or sensation. So the Awareness we are, we can say, is without form and is empty of, indeed free of, the stuff of the world. In an image, the Awareness we are is like open empty Space, forever free and untouched by all the goings on in all the many worlds.

(ii) Secondly, if you switch your attention back to the flowers on the table and now look round the room to some other object, notice that the Awareness you are stays the same. The object that your attention alights on (the chair I am sitting on, for example) may be different to the flowers on the table but the Awareness you are stays the same. Regardless of the object that is experienced the Awareness that perceives it is always the same. Is that not your experience? Tomorrow when you wake up you will be experiencing a whole load of different objects as you go about your day. But throughout the day as objects and experiences come-and-go the Awareness you are will always stay the same. It doesn't matter what is experienced in any particular day, the Awareness you are will always be the same.

What does our experience consist of? It consists of sensory perceptions of objects, emotions and feelings and thoughts and imaginations. This is the ever-changing stuff of experience. But the Awareness that is aware of all that ever-changing stuff is always the same unchanging or never-changing Awareness. The Awareness we are is always the same and always ever-present. We could say, in fact, that the Awareness we are is the unchanging 'Context' in which the ever-changing 'content' of our lives happens. To echo the image I used earlier, this Awareness we are is like the unchanging, timeless or eternal Space in which all the worlds arise, exist for a while, and then pass.

(iii) Thirdly, notice that this Awareness we are gives us that Stability, so to speak, we feel throughout our day-to-day life. Despite our bodies and minds being in a state of constant flux and flow we have a sense of wholeness and integrity. We feel individual, despite the fact that our minds, especially, are in a constant state of change. One moment we are thinking or feeling this, the next we are thinking and feeling something else. Yet despite this constant flow of change in regard to our psychological functioning, we feel single and 'one' inside. Our bodies too are in a state of constant flow and change, though on a much longer time scale than the butterfly fluttering of the mind.

So, both the body and the mind are in a sense types of 'shifting sands', so to speak. They don't really have any 'centre of stability', so to put it. They are flowing systems, much like the flowing of a river in a certain sense. In relation to the body, what flows is material organic matter. Every cell in our body, according to scientists, is replaced over a period of 7 years or so. And in relation to our minds what flows is a constant stream of thoughts and feelings. Of course, we can point to the body and say despite the (slow) flow of organic matter that constitutes its structure, it still retains an integrity and individuality until its death. But the same applies, of course, to a whirlpool in a stream. It may seem to have its own integrity and individual identity, but the reality is that a whirlpool is just a particular type of movement of water. It has no real integrity or stability all of its own. In a similar way, the flow and flux of what we call the body and mind have no real integrity or stability all of their own.

So, from these considerations perhaps we can see and appreciate more fully that it can only be Awareness, this 'always-Now' Awareness we are right now, that is the real Stability present. And it is this ever-present Stability of Awareness that underpins our sense of individual integrity (as well as continuity) in our day-to-day lives. If we say the body and mind are flowing 'shifting sands', then this Awareness we are is the rock-solid Solid Rock upon which our lives depend and stand.

(iv) Fourthly, if we check, and do check(!), this Awareness we are is that within us that is truly Alive and Conscious. The body and mind are not really truly alive in the same sense that we as Awareness are. The body and mind are types of functioning systems when we look into and examine their nature. The body is a type of organic machine, a wondrous electro-biological machine maybe, but still a machine nonetheless. It's clearly, of itself, as much Alive and Conscious as the average washing machine or lawn mower or car-building robot, or whatnot. It's the same thing with the mind. When we look into it, the mind is again a type of functioning. It can conjure up thoughts and imaginations. It can have feelings and emotions. However, all these functionings or capabilities have no meaning or existence without Awareness. A thought or a feeling or a sensation cannot exist without this Awareness we are. In fact, we could say that Awareness and Existence are cognate terms, as without Awareness nothing phenomenal can possibly exist. We can imagine that something exists independently of this Awareness we are, but this is just in imagination and not in empirical reality. Furthermore, even the imagination of something existing independently of our Awareness can only occur in this Awareness that we are. Can this imagination exist without Awareness? No! The truth is, you just can't avoid Awareness. No getting away from it! :-)) In philosophical terms, this Awareness we are is the Noumenal and the 'content' of our Awareness the phenomenal.

(v) Fifthly, going back to the ever-present Awareness we are, some other characteristics that can be ascribed to Awareness are Motionlessness, Stillness and Silence. Wherever we go the Awareness we are is always exactly right Here. We could be in Australia or Timbuktu but if we check where we Awareness actually are we are right Here. Our outer perceptions may be that of Australia or Timbuktu but the Awareness we are is always unmovingly Here. Even if we go out for a walk in the park, for example, we Awareness are always motionless with every step we take. Each step just involves a change in perceptions. It's perceptions that are in movement, not Awareness. This is what the Facts actually are when we bother to check. Also, given that we Awareness are 'inwardly' empty of all phenomenal content (i.e. sensory perceptions, thoughts, emotions, sensations) we as Awareness are absolute Stillness and Silence. All the stuff, noise, hustle and bustle of the world is all on the 'outside', as it were, whereas within reigns rock-solid Stillness and Silence.

(vi) Sixthly, this Awareness we are is always in a state of Rest and Peacefulness. As mentioned, all the noise, hustle and bustle of the world is all on the 'outside', but 'inwardly' we as Awareness are always at Rest and at Peace. Why is it that we all love and desire 'peace of mind', as we sometimes call it. This is because the essence of what we really are (i.e. Awareness) is Peace. If we stray into and are overcome in our minds by noise and aggravation we become discontented and unhappy. Being deeply rooted in Recognition assuages and placates the vicissitudes of the mind so that our inherent Quiet and Peace comes to the fore. Consequently, we are therefore generally more content and happy within ourselves and with how our life unfolds.

So, summing up, Recognition is the Recognition of our deepest nature, of this ever-present Awareness we are. And the characteristics of ourselves as Awareness are:
(1) Subjectness
(2) Facelessness
(3) No-Thingness
(4) Openness
(5) Emptiness
(6) Unboundedness
(7) Spaciousness
(8) Motionlessness
(9) Hereness
(10) Nowness
(11) Unchangingness
(12) Stability
(13) Knowingness
(14) Aliveness
(15) Self-Awareness
(16) Stillness
(17) Silence
(18) Peacefulness
(19) Undividedness

(vii) Now, as many of you know, there's 'a certain fly in the ointment', so to speak, that seems to get in the way of our realisation of what it is we truly are, i.e. of the unbounded, open and untouched ever-present Awareness that we truly are. And that is, of course, our supposed very limited personal identity. We've all been conditioned by our upbringing to believe that what we are is a limited body-mind human thing in the world. From this deluded perspective, when we reflect and think about ourselves what we imagine ourselves to be is essentially based on that face we see in the mirror everyday. It's as though the face we see in the mirror has come out of the mirror and plastered itself slap bang straight onto the Awareness that we truly are. A most unfortunate illusion indeed! I think we can all agree on that one! When we look in a mirror we do indeed see the reflected face of our human body on the other side of the mirror. But on this side of the mirror, when we 'experientially' check the facts, it's clear that what's experiencing that face on the other side of the mirror is this Open, Empty, Still and Faceless Awareness which is present exactly where we are, and furthermore is what we really are. Check it out!

Now by being aware of how the illusion works means that we have a way to see relatively easily through it, whereas before due to unawareness and inattention the illusion of our body's face being plastered on Awareness had us firmly in its grip. Also, as the habit and conditioning of this 'plastering' is so deeply ingrained within us, its important to look and look again to break this habit of deeply conditioned thought. We need to 'steep' in Recognition, so to speak. This is what sadhana or spiritual practice is really about. Sadhana in-itself cannot (or is very unlikely to) trigger Recognition, but it can and does reinforce and deepen Recognition when its occurred to the point where Self-Realisation in its fullness can arise.

(viii) Now some bright spark among you may say that the foregoing implies a dualism between the ever-present Awareness we are, on the one hand, and ever-changing phenomenal experience we have, on the other. Well, in one sense there is a dualism here which if we are true to our experience we cannot deny. Just saying that Reality is Non-dual on the basis of intellectual principle is just not good enough as a standard of proof. The truth is that language, reflecting the way our minds work, is dualistic. So to say anything at all will necessarily imply some sort of dualism somewhere. If we assert on the basis of philosophical position that Reality has to be Non-dual, then how do we account for 'Illusion' where duality seems to exist? We now have a dualism between Reality and Illusion which negates the original assertion that Reality is Non-dual. [It's a good idea to laugh here, by the way!] The way to get out of these intellectual messes and paradoxes is, of course, simply to reject all notions of Non-duality or Duality or Whatnot. It's just a game of the immature mind, really. If we have to assert some position in relation to Reality then the best that can be said is: “Reality is both Non-dual and Dual and neither all at the same time.” Or, alternatively, perhaps its better just to simply say that Reality (Awareness and its experience) is "Undivided", a fact appreciated as our Recognition deepens and matures. In the end it's best just to concentrate on practicalities. Namely, acquiring Recognition and steeping in Awareness' beautiful and unfolding Mystery.

Right! Now for some satsang tea and biscuits. Hope we've got some of that really expensive but really delicious shortbread!