Everything Is an Object
Todo es un objeto
The teacher introduces the distinction between objects of experience and the observing awareness in which they appear, pointing to an open, undefined sense of being that has never gone away.
Everything Is an Object
The teacher introduces the distinction between objects of experience and the observing awareness in which they appear, pointing to an open, undefined sense of being that has never gone away.
It's an object. Anything is an object. Anything you can describe or point to is an object. Physical things, what we understand as matter, are objects, and thoughts are objects. If I think of a unicorn, that's a real object, but it's real in the dimension of imagination, of thought. The word "I" is an object. It's a concept. The number three is an object. Everything you can think of is a form of object.
Whatever the mind does, it produces some combination of images and sounds. Those are objects. What you perceive, what you see, what you feel: those are all objects.
The observing aspect
But there is something that is experiencing all those objects. Those objects are happening in some space, in some place. The question is: what is that observing aspect? Usually we think what's observing is "me," located inside this body. That's actually a belief. There is a perspective happening through a body, but if you look carefully for that subject, you will discover it's not in the body.
Where a newborn lives
That is the place where a newborn lives. That is the place from which it experiences. And we don't lose that place. It's not something that is lost. It's not that we grow up and that place evolves and goes away. What happens is the mind develops and creates a map: first a perceptual map of what reality is, and then a conceptual map of what we are inside of that reality. It creates a kind of virtual world that we see as reality. And then that place I was pointing to gets hidden behind the map.
This is well known. There is actually no debate in psychology that a baby experiences reality in this way: fully open, fully not knowing that there is a sense of a "me," a "not me," a subject, an object, an "I," a "mother." None of that is real for the perception and sense of self of a baby.
Always present, never lost
What can be discovered is that that same reality is still here. That same place, that deep sense of being and of what we are, open and undefined, can be discovered as always present. And it can be seen that it was never not present. It's like looking for something that is right in front of you. You don't see it, and then suddenly you see it and realize you've been looking at it the whole time. It's that kind of thing.
What you are looking for, what you are longing for the most in this life, is something that has never gone away. It has always been there. It is the depth and the core of what you are. But then we believe we are looking for something inside of an experience, in this body-mind, that we can get to in the future. That belief propagates identification with the narrative: "I am XYZ, looking for ABC tomorrow, or this afternoon, or five seconds from now."
Ego as function, not identity
That system doing all of this is what is called ego. It's remarkable. And it doesn't have to stop or go away. What can happen is that we realize that's not what we are. It's a part of us. Like our heart, our body, our mind, our ego is a part of us. It's a function.