你所能看到、聽到、嘗到、碰觸到和聞到的東西，當(dāng)然，都是感官的客體(objects)。它們是你所經(jīng)驗到的。但誰是那個主體(subject)，那個經(jīng)驗者呢?比如，你現(xiàn)在說:“嗯，當(dāng)然，我是陳淑貞，一個資深的會計師，45歲，離婚，有兩個孩子，臺灣人，我就是那個主體，那個經(jīng)驗者?！逼鋵嵞沐e了。陳淑貞，和其他所有與陳淑貞這個心理概念認同的事物，都是經(jīng)驗的客體，不是那個經(jīng)驗的主體。
每一個經(jīng)驗都有三種可能的成分:感官覺受、思想或心理的意象(images)，還有情緒。陳淑貞，資深會計師，45歲，兩個孩子的母親，離過婚，臺灣人，這些都是思想，所以它們是你在思考這些想法的時候，所經(jīng)驗到的一部分。這些和其他你可以談?wù)摶蚴窍氲降年P(guān)于自己的事情，都是客體，不是主體。它們是你的經(jīng)驗，不是經(jīng)驗者。關(guān)于你是誰，你還可以加上另外一千個定義(想法)，這樣做當(dāng)然會增加你自己經(jīng)驗的復(fù)雜性(還有充實你的心理咨詢師的荷包)。但是，這樣還是找不到主體——就是在所有經(jīng)驗出現(xiàn)之前就已經(jīng)存在的那個經(jīng)驗者。沒有他的話，根本就沒有經(jīng)驗可言。所以到底誰是經(jīng)驗者呢?當(dāng)然是你。那你又是誰呢?意識。那么意識又是什么呢?這個問題沒有辦法回答。一旦你回答了它，你就歪曲它了，使它成為另外一個客體。意識，傳統(tǒng)的說法是心靈(spirit)，是無法用一般文字來理解的，而試著去尋找它也是徒勞無功。
所有的知曉(knowing)都是在二元對立的范疇內(nèi)，受限于主體和客體，知曉者和被知者。那個主體，我，一個知曉者，沒有它的話，任何事物都無法被知曉、被覺察、被思考或被感覺到，所以它一定是要維持一個永遠無法被知曉的狀態(tài)。這是因為那個“我”是沒有形相的。只有形相才能被知曉，然而，沒有那個無形的向度的話，這個有形的世界就無由存在。它是這個世界生滅于其中的光明空間。那個空間就是我本是的那個生命，它是無時間性的?！拔冶臼恰笔菬o時間性的，永恒的。在那個空間里發(fā)生的事，都是相對而短暫的:樂與苦，得與失，生與死。
去發(fā)掘內(nèi)在空間并且尋得那個經(jīng)驗者的最大障礙就是，你被那個經(jīng)驗迷惑而在其中喪失了自己，意思就是意識在它自己的夢中迷失了。你被每一個思想、情緒、經(jīng)驗欺騙到了一個程度，以至于你事實上已經(jīng)在一個夢幻的狀態(tài)中了。這已經(jīng)變成了幾千年以來，人類一個普遍的狀態(tài)。雖然你無法知曉意識，你卻可以意識到它就是你自己。
無論你在何處，你可以在任何情況下直接感受到它。你可以在此時此地感受到，它就是你的臨在。就是在這個內(nèi)在空間中，這一頁的句子能夠被認知到并且轉(zhuǎn)變成思想。它就是隱于幕后的本我(I am)。你在讀和想的這些字句是幕前的東西，而本我則是幕后的基礎(chǔ)，它是支持每一個經(jīng)驗、思想和感受的幕后背景。
WHO IS THE EXPERIENCER?
What you see and hear, taste, touch, and smell are, of course, sense objects. They are what you experience. But who is the subject, the experiencer? If you now say, for example, “Well, of course, I , Jane Smith, senior accountant, forty-five years old, divorced, mother of two, American, am the subject, the experiencer,” you are mistaken. Jane Smith and whatever else becomes identified with the mental concept of Jane Smith are all objects of experience, not the experiencing subject
Every experience has three possible ingredients: sense perceptions, thoughts or mental images, and emotions. Jane Smith, senior accountant, forty-five years old, mother of two, divorced, American – these are all thoughts and therefore part of what you experience the moment you think these thoughts. They and whatever else you can say and think about yourself are objects, not the subject. They are experience, not the experiencer. You can add a thousand more definitions (thoughts) of who you are and by doing so will certainly increase the complexity of the experience of yourself (as well as your psychiatrist's income) but, in this way, you will not end up with the subject, the experiencer who is prior to all experience but without whom there would be no experience.
So who is the experiencer? You are. And who are you? Consciousness. And what is consciousness? This question cannot be answered. The moment you answer it, you have falsified it, made it into another object. Consciousness, the traditional word for which is spirit, cannot be known in the normal sense of the word, and seeing it is futile. All knowing is within the realm of duality – subject and object, the knower and the known. the subject, the I, the knower without which nothing could be known, perceived, thought, or felt, must remain forever unknowable. This is because the I has no form. Only forms can be known, and yet without the formless dimension, the world of form could not be. It is the luminous space in which the world arises and subsides. That space is the life that I Am. It is timeless. I Am timeless, eternal. What happens in that space is relative and temporary: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, birth and death.
The greatest impediment to the discovery of inner space, the greatest impediment to finding the experiencer, is to become so enthralled by the experience that you lose yourself in it. It means consciousness is lost in its own dream. You get taken in by every thought, every emotion, and every experience to such a degree that you are in fact in a dreamlike state. This has been the normal state of humanity for thousands of years.
Although you cannot know consciousness, you can become conscious of it as yourself. You can sense it directly in any situation, no matter where you are. You can sense it here and now as your very Presence, the inner space in which the words on this page are perceived and become thoughts. It is the underlying I Am. The word you are reading and thinking are the foreground, and the I Am is the substratum, the underlying background to every experience, thought, feeling.
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