387. Experiencing Awareness

Awareness is the amalgam of everything we have seen in all of our experiences throughout life. In this way, awareness might be thought of as a kind of memory we have formed. But unlike the memories we can directly recall and explore, awareness only reaches us through intuitions that arise from it.

A past event that we have no ability to recall might still have influenced us in a way that causes a particular intuition to arise. Since we cannot see where this intuition comes from, we might become distrustful of our awareness. We expect to be fully conscious of our past experiences and the impact they have had on us. But we also know this isn’t always true. Countless things happen to us every day that we forget entirely, and our ability to recall the details of even the most important events fades with time.

We can be affected by our past experiences in ways we do not realize, which can cause unexpected intuitions to arise in the present moment. Awareness itself is a kind of metaphorical entity, something we have but cannot locate or delimit. It is nothing more or less than the unique combination of everything our attention has absorbed throughout life. This combination is never complete or finished for there is always more for us to see in both the self and the world.

Our intuitions are sometimes stronger in certain circumstances than in others because our awareness is broader and deeper in those areas. But even the faintest intuition can encourage us to investigate the experiences it might have arisen from. In doing so, we create a new experience of reflection that can further broaden our awareness. By having more and more experiences, our awareness will continue to expand, which means our intuitive sensitivity to ourselves and the world around us will become stronger and more refined.