This is a question which I'm yet to discover experientially, but am interested in what you've all discovered through your own experience. There seems to be something which is aware of thoughts, feelings and external perceptions. This thing, some refer to it as consciousness, the observer or the silent witness.

What I wonder is, can the thing which is aware/the perceiver of this stimuli, be aware of its own self?

What is it to be self-aware then?

To answer this question, there first must be the assumption that there is some form of an individuated 'self', somewhere within; some "I", "Me".

Where would that be? I've yet to find this 'self'.

Im curious to see peoples responses. I'll comment later after work.

Two things come to my mind :

- the perception of a mirror (maybe especially "designed" to perceive the self ?)
- maybe the awareness/perception of stimuli/things is the distraction from the (cosmic)self always being self aware in the first place ? (hey Tat, i mean THAT )

“Man thinks. God knows. God knows man thinks.”

There is a mystic from London called Mooji who talks about this question quite often. I've enjoyed quite a few of his videos:

Mooji videos

I bumped into this:
No subject.
No object.
No subject, no object.

it came from a book I was reading, sorry, I don't recall the name.

Then, there's this:
"... each and every infinitesimal fraction of a second - in which even the appearance of time itself breaks down and there remains no individual to identify, attach, seek, categorize, analyze or progress - IS the destination, and there is no other goal. In this nondual perception nothing is appropriated from reality, because there is no thing to take and no self to do the grasping .. even apparent "obstacles" that arise in the mind provide in this way the key to their own resolution. Refusing nothing, rejecting nothing, everything that arises in the mind is fully accepted without discrimination or repression."
- Garab Dorje/Vairotsana/Dowman, "The Vast Space of Vajrasattva"

Finally:
Self-knowing awareness, involving no perception of outer object and inner subject,
has no time or place and is beyond phenomena that originate or cease.
It is pure like space, and so entails no provisional spiritual approach.
Since all thoughts of this as ultimately existent are mistaken, avoid any pitfall or obscuration that comes from misconstruing phenomena as having identity.
In the indivisible and wholly positive realm, be decisive in supreme and infinite emptiness.
-Longchenpa, "The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena"

^^ Rabjam Longchenpa rocks


The juice calls it: ̶e̶̶y̶̶e̶ am THAT ̶e̶̶y̶̶e̶ am, but that juicy analogy is only due too using a flawed system of eastern delta language based on established golden calf lingo-file associations? Like putting the stress on the eye. But one has to make use of what is there.



THAT's suchness may be singular (no otherness). In other words, there may be no multitude of singular THAT awareness̶e̶̶s̶ at all, hence we call it Al-Khabir (The all Aware), the all Subtle, the One being aware of the internal qualities and meanings of the all while (THAT's source) being beyond range (Hoo). We don't call it The Self-Aware for example...

That is why we (the terror babies = dread) say:

1) A simple (moment of) meditation is equal to many years of prayer and worship

2. A medium quality (moment of) meditation is equal a lifetime prayer and worship

3. A highest quality (moment of) meditation is equal all the prayer and worship of all humans, jinn, angels and other entities troughout the 3 times...

We hope intezam hasn't accidentaly urinated or spat one someboday's golden calf, it was not our sole intention.

Lovin the replies!

Here's an interesting perspective:

"What better way for "God" to know himself than to divide his awareness so that "he" can observe objectively as creator and subjectively as creation?"


"One of the first things we learn is that emanation consists of a hierarchy of awareness. The Kabbalah explains that the Ein-Sof (Logos, Brahman, whatever) made ten emanations called Sephiroth, vessels to contain the light (consciousness) pouring into them from Consciousness-Without-An-Object's imagination. These vessels weren't able to contain this outpouring, and in what Kabbalists describe as a "cosmic catastrophe", the vessels shattered in into innumerable pieces and scattered throughout the realms of hyperspace, each fragment containing a spark of divine light (that's us). The main task of every Kabbalist is to "raise the sparks" of his or her own separated consciousness to reunite with the Ein-Sof that emanated them."

"Every sentient entity in the multiverse is both an observer and an object of perception, and the source from which they emanate is the Primary Observer, which is unadulterated Consciousness itself. Before emanation, perception can not take place because perception involves both an observer and that which is observed."

and

"[The universe is apparently] constructed (and thus in such as way as to be able) to see itself. But in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen. In this severed and multilated condition, whatever it sees is only partially itself...But, in any attempt to see itself as an object, it must, equally undoubtedly, act so as to make itself distinct from, and therefore, false to, itself. In this condition it will always partially elude itself." (55)

"Thus consciousness is prior to observation. Combine this logical necessity with emanation and we see that whatever the Cosmic Mind imagines cannot be separated from its source. It follows then, that as the matter-energy created within this explosive act of imagination expands and fragments, becoming ever more complex, each emerging monad of fresh awareness perceives as a subjective fractal of the objective One Mind in whatever dimension it finds itself. Hence universe becomes Multiverse."

The Cracking Tower, by Jim DeKorne

I was going to reply, but then I read this.

Great post.

Oath bro, he is who evoked this question deeply within myself and its become quite an inner enquiry.

All that happens, what is the nature of the "container" in which it happens? Can we call this container consciousness or awareness?

I like the analogy with a painting (analogies always fail ):
* The awareness as being the canvas: it has no story in itself but is just there, it supports the stories that will be brought forth on it;
* the paint-work as the stories that take place on the canvas, the colors, the themes, fleeting and changeable, life and history, the creation that need a canvas to be able to exist.

The buddhist yogacarins actually called it that (container consciousness, storehouse consciousness or alayavijñāna/amalavijñāna).

Later, it has been linked to the Tathagatagarbha further in the East. Anyway, there may be a reasons why a well known fella called all these: small mouth words...

Hmm, I really like the question, my answer is yes, you can become aware of being the experiencer.

During my first break through I distinctly remember being in hyperspace, realising the I was just I, pure being, I had become aware of my true self. I was omniscient of my being, it was life changing to say the least, at least for my time here on earth. What I normally associated with the 'self' my body and mind are now things which I believe to be temporal, along with this universe, there is a ultimate reality and our true being will transcend this one.
Love

I would say that awareness of our own awareness is the single most salient experience one can ever have, and we're having it all the time.

Now, can you have consciousness without self-awareness - that is, I think, a more interesting question. My hunch is 'yes.'

Blessings
~ND

Although i love the replies, i think the most satisfactory answer is going to come from you asking yourself the question, that way it will be your own intuition and direct experience guiding you, rather than what someone else thinks about it.

While concepts can appear to help clarify, no conceptualization about the nature of awareness is ever going to be as fulfilling as your own direct self-awareness. Questions such as ‘who am i?’, ‘what is awareness?’ or ‘can you be aware of awareness?’ are great questions to ask, but shouldn’t only be answered verbally. Ultimately there is no objective answer that is correct, as you can only be the answer. Seeing is Being.