How do I know whether I am aware? || Acharya Prashant (2014)

Questioner: How to know whether I am aware?

Acharya Prashant: What you call as ‘knowing’ is just thinking. It is a mental activity. Do you know of anything that is beyond the mind? You know of so many things in this world. Right? List them and see whether anything that you know is beyond time and space. Whatever you know of is a thing of thought.

You are asking, “How to know that I am aware?” You are asking, “How can I ‘think’ about awareness?” You have to see who is asking this question. Thought is asking this question so that it can capture awareness within its limits. Is that possible? Why are we interested in knowing that whether I am aware?

I recently received a message from a lady asking that, "How can I know whether I am enlightened?" She had some sneaking suspicion that she is enlightened. She wanted a certificate that she is enlightened. What did she really want? She wanted something to ‘think’ about. That’s all. Thought gives pleasure, thought thrives on pleasure, all pleasure arises from the thought.

When I say ‘thought’, I am referring broadly to all the mental activity here. There is no point in this that "How do I know whether I am aware?" You will never know that you are aware because the ‘you’ that is asking this question will not be the aware ‘you’. The ‘you’ that is asking this question is the ‘you’ that is confused, doubtful, tangled in all kinds of suspicion.