When this is seen, the search that has driven the mind outward comes naturally to rest. Thoughts and perceptions continue as before, but they now shine with the quiet radiance of their source – the transparent, untroubled light of pure knowing.

To recognise this is to discover that what we have always longed for is not hidden in the world or in others but lies in the simple, ever-present fact of being aware. This is the ground of all happiness, the unchanging reality that underlies every changing experience.

It is for this reason that awareness is the abiding source of peace and quiet joy in us. Not a peace that depends on circumstances, but the inherent stillness of our own being; not a joy that comes and goes, but the quiet fulfilment that is inherent in knowing itself.

Just as the screen is never disturbed by the violence or sorrow depicted in a film, awareness is never agitated by the changing content of experience. Whatever arises in it – pleasure, pain, agitation or sadness – leaves awareness exactly as it is: open, unbroken, at peace.

This recognition marks the beginning of a new kind of knowledge. It is not the knowledge of something, but knowledge as itself – knowing that is direct and immediate, not mediated by thought or perception, but recognised wordlessly, in its own light.

Just as the screen is the common element in every scene of a film, knowing or awareness is the ever-present background of all experience. The screen is intimately one with the drama it displays and yet it is never touched or affected by the story that plays upon it. In the same way, pure knowing or awareness is intimately one with the entire... See more

Being aware or awareness itself is the knowing in all that is known, the experiencing in all experience.

If we look for this knowing as an object, we will not find it, because it is that by which all objects are known. And yet it is never absent. It is what allows every experience to appear. Just as the sun’s light renders all objects visible, so the light of pure knowing renders all experience knowable.

This knowing is not an experience among other experiences. It does not have a colour, a size, an age or a location. It is not joyful or sorrowful, dense or diffuse. It is like the transparent water of the ocean – taking the shape of every wave yet never becoming the wave itself.