Writing this is a constant refining and failing, like making soup du jour – there’s no perfection, no secret sauce! – just add water (truth) to an empty vessel, top and tail veggies, sip, sniff and savor, add and subtract taste, put it aside, tweak, taste again, and come up perhaps with something nourishing that fills, inspires and delights, maybe!

What's said here comes with a reminder that that which one is - awareness - is not transferrable, not teachable; only you can directly 'taste' the aware nature of simply Being, and with J Krishnamurti's caveat to "be your own authority". Despite the mind's constant urging to conclude, to know, stay open and open. Indeed, one may learn that real freedom lies in never needing to know! ;) That said, and speaking from experience stored in memory, it seems 'waking up' can and does ultimately happen to anyone without efforts, practices, and traditional techniques that may divert and delay.

It further seems that for some there's a necessary psychological healing and restoration of order that happens with therapy, slowly, in time, but also it seems there's an essential timeless instant - a direct, indescribable recognition of what one is. In subsequent living, one learns moment to moment what one is not and never gets to 'know' what one is. Or needs to know, beyond that certain knowing of one's infinite Being. Awakening - that melting into awareness - never ends; it's an instant and progressive shattering of what one thinks, feels, and believes is 'me' and 'my' life. It's the desolution of all knowing.

Post awakening is, as one of my teachers used to say: "a minefield." The mines are the mind's beliefs, and they often take their toll as the body/mind continues over subsequent years to experience its ups and downs - its post-awakening residues of shallow and deeply conditioned habits, personal desires and fears that seem to continue as one lives and moves and adjusts to relating to life not only in space and time, but also from an absolute, timeless, non-personal knowing perspective. In fine, aware living is an art without an artist, a meditation without a meditator; a living and dynamic experiencing that mind cannot know and all words cannot convey, like the eye cannot see itself.

This awareness is not about accumulated conceptual and experiential knowledge - that social and culturally acknowledged 'reality' that each of us personally seem to experience. Aware living is not an experience with its experiencer; it’s about living in, as and with, the unknown; and that seems to be very challenging to the 'person', to the ego/mind. It's impossible to determine and describe with words that merely re-present and seemingly separate and create a duality where in fact there is none. Nevertheless, let's continue to taste and talk about aware living:

~ One begins where one ends: all there is, is choiceless Awareness.

~ There's a pervasive inner Peace akin to Silence and Clarity grounded in a total sufficiency that abides in all and any circumstances and events in time.

~ One is already, unconditionally, free. This Freedom without boundaries abides in the midst of the mind's inherent conflict and confusion and the feelings it produces.

~ Joy and delight and beauty are abundant, along with deep gratitude in simply Being .

~ One apparently lives in a world of personal fancy AND actually lives in an unknown 'world' of nonpersonal fact, - a world of paradox.

~ There's a deep and deepening love beyond measure and this shows up in acts of compassion in daily relationships.

~ In truth, in aware living, one never knows, there being no knower. One is moved to act presently, not react; to engage without knowing, without attachment, without expectation, without a plan. Of course, one can still function well and truly, to catch a bus! ;)

~ In sum, Awareness totally and intimately engages without attachment and fully enjoys what is, as it presents, knowing all is well.

There's much more - and ultimately much less! - that could be said about aware living.These are just a few observations that arise and may stimulate your own; you're invited to explore, question and otherwise comment. In looking thru and beyond the mind's filters of 'knowing already', one may see and taste and love the whole unknown beauty of this moment!