THE BODY AND THE REALIZATION OF THE SELF
Friend: In what way does the body help realization?
Reply: The body is an appearance. All appearances, such as the body refer to their ultimate perceiver. Contemplation of the body reveals that it is not different from the perceiving awareness out of which and as which it appears. The body appears as perceptions, thoughts and sensations which are known as awareness.
Also, the body is the most common appearance with which we identify consciousness. As a result, we can experience the feelings of separation as unhappy bodily contractions. The body therefore acts as the canary in the coal mine.
Friend: This seems to omit the practical or obvious side of life. I brush my teeth, not yours. Isn’t there something personal or local about the body?
Reply: Each body has its own characteristics and traits. But there is only one ‘I’. One Awareness/Consciousness.
The fact that bodies appear different, does not mean that their reality, which is awareness is different.
Awareness is non dual.
Friend: Ok. That’s a great pointer. Thank you. Glad I asked. Glad you answered.
Reply: The reality of the one that asked and the reality of the one that answered is one. That is Awareness/Consciousness.
One reality… Infinite dream forms… One reality.
This reality is borderless, formless Aware Presence.
Impersonal, edgeless… Thought cannot know awareness.
Friend: So how is it that one knows something the other does not? If there are answerers why are there questioners? I see I’m making it personal and local again, yet ….
Reply: Thought says: There are two separate selves and conceptualizes a questioner and an answerer. It is thought that says: I am this body mind and you are another body mind. Thought overlooks non dual reality of consciousness. Awareness/Consciousness is non dual. One ‘I’ without a second.
It is always ‘I’ that knows… One ‘I’, one reality.
Thought creates an imagined personal knower. Thought overlooks that the knower is impersonal and borderless awareness. Thought is material and is fixated upon the content of awareness. Therefore it materializes, conceptualizes and personalizes awareness. Thought creates ‘my’ awareness vs ‘your’ awareness.
Thought confuses the content of awareness (which is phenomenal) with awareness itself (which is non-phenomenal, noumenal)
Friend: Ok, I get this in one way and not another. You know the address of the house you live in and I do not.
Reply: There is no personal knower. As soon as you believe thought, it will take you on an illusory ride. The merry go round. But it is not too merry 
Being Awareness already is. Thought overlooks Being Awareness and wanders in concepts.
I am not a concept. Concepts are empty and do not reveal the truth.
Friend: I wonder if you’re pointing to a form of thought that I’m not in touch with. I am familiar with discursive, loopy or deliberate thoughts, such as story thoughts used in meditation to help slow down. Yet I can maintain the perception of separation and body identification when the mind is calm or still. What thought supports that belief, given that I’m not in touch with any thinking going on?
Reply: The I-thought is a hidden thought, which is the belief that I am born. The belief that consciousness is limited to a body mind. The I-thought is a close cousin of the me-feeling.
A serious contemplation of truth will reveal the emptiness of the I-thought and will diffuse it. The I-thought is experienced as unhappiness.
The revelation of Sat-Chit-Ananda ends the unhappiness.
