"you" are identical to experience; not separate from it

[Tom Dietvorst]

The point of meditation is to recognize the fundamental nature of conscious experience,

and by doing so to clear up some basic confusion about the nature of the self,

and this confusion has a kind of structure.

Consider, by analogy, the confusion we might have about space and time.

For instance, it seems possible to ask the question, "Where is space?"

But of course the concept of where is entirely dependent on the notion of space.

Similarly, we might ask, "When did time begin?'

But this very question invokes the intuition of time in full.

There can be no beginning to time in that sense.

And nothing changes when we graduate to the more modern concept of space-time,

One simply can't wonder about the where and the when of it without stepping into its conceptual frame.

Now there is an analogy to be drawn to the nature of consciousness in this moment,

and to the sense of self, to the feeling that there is a subject at the center of experience,

doing the experiencing.

You might ask the question, "Who or what is experiencing my experience in this moment?"

But every reference point for who or what is part of experience itself.

There is no who or what, apart from whatever appears.

There is no one standing on the river bank watching the contents of consciousness flow by;

There is only the river;

You are not aware of consciousness and its contents;

You are aware as consciousness and its contents.

And the sense that there is someone being aware, is itself more of the contents.

Right now, you are not having an experience from some place outside of experience;

you are identical to experience.

can you feel that?

 

(Sam Harris, "Moment," Waking Up app)