New Sessions: Ever-Present Awareness, by Jitindriyā

Gradually, through meditation, we begin to notice that there are gaps in our internal dialogue. In the midst of continually talking to ourselves, we experience a pause, as if awakening from a dream. We recognize our capacity to relax with the clarity, the space, the open-ended awareness that already exist in our minds. We experience moments of bein

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Mindful awareness is nonconceptual, nonjudgmental, sometimes nonverbal, and exploratory. Pure awareness is not the extinguishing of the self but rather the stilling of the construction of the story of “me” as it arises. The stilling of these fluctuating stories is not the goal of yoga but rather the final technique by means of which we can wake up

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Being aware is the constant, steady, changeless background of all continually changing experience. You don’t have to practice being aware; you are essentially that, naturally, effortlessly.

Right now, and in any given moment, there is only awareness. You can wake up and notice this each morning. There is awareness of the light coming through the window, awareness of the duvet on the body, awareness of the sound of birds chirping outside. Even if there are disturbing thoughts and emotions, you aren’t doing anything to create them. Ther

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It’s still possible to get caught up in habitual patterns of the thinking mind and the compulsive body. But eventually, there is a remembering, a coming home. The mind stops, the body quiets, the heart opens. When this happens, in that natural stillness and wakefulness, everything is complete and nothing more is needed. There is no me, no resistanc

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Being effortlessly aware is your natural condition. It is what you naturally, effortlessly are, irrespective of what you are aware of – the activities of thinking, feeling, sensing and perceiving. These are activities that you do from time to time. But being effortlessly aware is not something you do; it’s what you essentially are.