The energy within, consciousness, the deathless Self, is what you feel right now as ‘I exist’,‘I am’, without knowing it. That sense you have of ‘I am here’ – that’s what it is but how is it named and how is it known
Self-realisation is coming to know consciousness as a phenomenal, qualitative human attainment. It happens, has happened, for thousands of years, is happening now and will happen to people now. It is limited by words, even beautiful, brilliant words. There’s still a limitation, this cannot be grasped by the senses and it cannot be grasped by the mind because it is not an object.
Our essential nature can’t be known as an object in the way we know other things but neither is it unknown because its intimacy is perfectly evident to you all the time flowing forth. You intuitively, self-evidently know the qualitative ‘feelingness’ of ‘I exist’. So it’s not unknown. It’s a unique category. Do you feel that tingle of recognition as I say this? This is a unique category of experience which is not known as a thing, but neither is it not known because it thrives and flows forth as this that can’t be satisfactorily named, yet I have named it and chosen to call it ‘intimacy’. The Upanishads will call it lots of other names: Atman, Brahman. Ramana called it ‘I,I,I’. Often it’s called ‘being’, usually it’s called ‘consciousness’. We need names such as these to communicate but every single one of them is limited and is not a complete description because you cannot completely describe something which is objectless. It defies it.
Your experience is full of bits, sensations, thoughts, mind, actions, behaviour, attitudes, feelings, all bits. Then we ask, that which is experiencing the bits, what is that? It’s the experiencer. Who’s that? It’s consciousness. Where’s that? It’s here. It cannot be grasped as an object so you cannot be satisfied in your search for it, but it is fundamentally not unknown to you, only known in a different way.
If the mature sadhak completely accepts that this cannot be found by the senses or the mind as an object, that progress of perspective opens its gates. This is a different way of knowing yourself, subtle but powerfully profound. It’s something that defies these categories, yet is pulsating and flashing as the fullness of you right now, as the unique category of experiencing rather than the experience itself