Francis Lucille - "Awareness, and what it means to be Awakened" - Excerpt from full 4K interview.

[Music] well we would have to Define what awaken awakened means and uh who is there to be awakened or not awakened um to be awakened means not to believe in my book right means not to believe to be a separate or limited Consciousness if that's the case there is nobody limited here no limited entity to be awakened or not to be awakened to be awakened means not to be not to believe to be a separate entity in the absence of such a belief we are whatever we are we have no name or all the names

we are not this human body mind which appears in Consciousness or and in the world experientially it is made of bodily Sensations and thoughts the body part experientially being the bodily Sensations that are part of our Human Experience the Mind part being the thoughts that are part of our human experience in fact our human experience experience comprises the body the mind and the world the World Part being comprised of external sense perceptions that's what body mind is experientially conceptually it's a different story and that's what people usually refer to as the body in mind the

concept we have of an object grow or physical for the body part and subtle for the Mind part the interaction between both are obvious since if I decide to raise my hand it's a thought but it I I follow up it has an effect in the physical world and conversely if I drink too much alcohol the body gets a little tipsy but the mind also changes so obviously there is a mutual interaction between the body and the mind in this conceptual version the problem is that we don't know where they interact you see because the

thoughts of perceptions seem to be in the mind sphere and the world in the physical sphere or is a connection that remains a mystery that's a mystery that already dickart mentioned and uh a mystery that finds a harmonious solution when we understand the real nature of awareness since the mind the thoughts experientially are made out of awareness the world is made out of an underlying reality that creates all observable phenomena in it the identity of this reality and awareness is the key to this the solution of this problem the Mind Body Problem whatever it is

which is really hearing my words right now awareness is the reality which is hearing my words right now because the fact of this hearing is beyond the shadow of a doubt it's obvious therefore there is an element of reality that is inherent in this experience this element of reality this certainty of awareness of perception is what I call awareness and that's why we can Define awareness in terms of reality awareness is a reality which is here in these words now in contradistinction with awareness being uh an attribute of the body or an attribute of the

mind but being something kind of dependent upon the body or on the Mind depending on the version we are considering by having a glimpse of the reality of awareness awareness then transcends the limitation of the body it opens a door to our understanding and uh it makes possible it opens the possibility that awareness and reality are one and the same because if there is only one reality and if awareness is a reality which is hearing this word right now these words right now then awareness is this reality it is the way we experience the reality

of everything that's a great the Open Secret the great secret is that the reality of everything is within us experienced as awareness it is you know the Divine spark in each of us as a Christ in each of us or the Atman in the other Traditions philosophers real philosophers philosophers of all the pareses The Plato have known that the sages the L Buddhas have known that is reality you see we could uh we could Define awareness as an attribute of reality or conversely reality as an attribute of awareness there is this Mutual exchange meaning they

are equivalent they are the same the the fundamental equation of nonduality is awareness equals reality in Sanskrit terms it's Brahman no Atman equals Brahman the problem is that we live in a culture which is in fact a form of religion in which awareness is seen as dependent on a much higher reality which seems to be physical but there is not such a thing the what we call the physical reality has its source is something which is non physical that's evidenced by the fact that there are loss of physics we are whatever it is which is

heing these words right now that's obvious to us in other words and that's what I call awareness right uh most people believe that awareness is dependent upon the body and uh but if we ask ourselves a question if it wasn't the case if if by any chance awareness was not dependent upon the body what in my opinion would be my true nature that which I call I would that be my body or would that be awareness let's put that in a different terms let's say the body dies right and you find yourself in front of

St Peter and St Peter tells you I'm sorry you're dead but however because you are not too too bad in this life the boss decided to give you a choice it's going to be either you keep awareness or you keep the body but you you cannot keep both what choose you my guess is that Mo most people would choose awareness because what's the use of a body if you are not aware of anything right so which shows that obviously if it wasn't the case that awareness is dependent upon the body and limited by the body

our true nature nature would be experientially awareness rather than the body and then the next question is how do I know that awareness is dependent upon the body you see what's the evidence because we all believe most of us believe that we have strong evidence in support of the phis According to which awareness is an emergent property of the body or something an emergent phenomenon but in fact what is the evidence if we try to find it we find no evidence I can how do I know that something is dependent on something else let's say

how do I know that being is dependent on a it's because if I operate some changes on a b is going to change accordingly right there is a causal relationship from A to B now if we say that awareness is dependent upon the body it would imply that if I change the body awareness changes for instance it would imply that over time since my the date of my birth when the body was that tall up until now the body has changed obviously did awareness change ex do we have the experience that awareness has changed now

we don't we don't have the feeling that aware the content of awareness the experience the content the the phenomenal content changes but awareness itself doesn't how could we aware of change if we were changing we awareness changing with a change so the questioning that we're interested in answering this question or this this problem is what is the a evidence that awareness is dependent upon the body the body changes awareness doesn't so this depend dependency test doesn't work it fails here of course if I change the body the content of awareness the perceptions obviously changes that

is not in question here the question is if we change the body or if the body changes does the reality that perceive the body change it's a very different question you know because I don't Define awareness as the content in terms of the content of awareness but in terms of the reality that perceives the content you know that's the hard problem of Consciousness if you read scientific papers on Consciousness you will discover that most of the time what is defined as Consciousness is the what I call the content and it's a very legitimate field of

science but it is not the awareness as I Define it in terms of reality [Music]