IS SELF KNOWING UNNECESSARY?

Friend: What is all this talk about knowing myself? It sounds unnecessary. For me just to be open to experience as it occurs is enough. I don’t make any story about it or about finding myself. I simply am whatever I am. I don’t struggle with what is. No complications.

Reply: If you are as you are without any issues, problems or complications, then your question is answered and you don’t need any reply from me.
If, on the other hand, you perceive the pointer about Self knowing to be a problem, then you are still questioning, exploring, looking for clarity.
The wide open sky does not perceive a problem with the clouds, no matter what shape they take. It is from the vantage point of a cloud that you perceive differentiations.
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Friend: Yes, but you are complicating peoples lives with talk about waking from the dream. That is not helpful. What I am, I already am. It is simple.

Reply: Again, if you have found peace and contentment as you already are, then all is well and this discussion is not needed.
On the other hand, don’t be so certain that I am complicating things. Certitude may be one of the ways in which you limit yourself and others. You don’t know for sure. If it complicates things for you, it makes sense to look in another direction. That is true for everyone.
You can sing your song as you please. But there are other bird songs in the prairie. Does the robin criticize the song of the nightingale and find it annoying and irritating?
The pointer about dreaming and waking from the dream is an important pointer. But it may not resonate for everyone all the time as you seem to state that is the case for you.
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Friend: There is nothing special to attain or realize. Yet you speak of realization and that is a fools errand that does not help anyone. There is nothing special.

Reply: Indeed, there is nothing special and yet consciousness is magnificent, isn’t it?
Somehow we overlook consciousness and we are mesmerized with the repetitive mind impressions. We are addicted to our images and thoughts.
Realization is not an attainment, it is more like a shedding of beliefs. The main belief is the belief in a dual power. The belief that I (consciousness) is born in time and space as a human form.
One could say that being free is nothing special. That is true from the vantage point of freedom. But for someone in jail, freedom means a lot. It is very special.
As long as you believe yourself to be a man or woman, you are limited and living in the dream.
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Friend: Here you go again Magdi denying your humanity. You are denying yourself. That is why you teach ‘know yourself’. It seems to me you don’t need to deny yourself and your experience in the first place.

Reply: By examining my beliefs, I shed the false ones. Why maintain the beliefs that have no evidential support? I do not take my information from thought or social folklore. It is upon examining our beliefs that the false ones lose their grip.
The belief that I am a human organism, male or female, does not stand under close scrutiny.
I see no problem in referring to the body mind as human, or homo sapien, or cro magnon, etc. since these are different ways to refer to the body. I have no issue with the fact that the body is born and exists in time and space.
The question is ‘are you the body?’ or does the body appear to you? If a thought appears to you, or if an image appears to you, does it define you? Do you define yourself by what appears to you? Only you can look into these questions.
I am not denying humanity. Humanity refers to the human tribe, to a specific manifestation.
It is true that from the human perspective, there is a closer association with the human form than with the vegetal or animal form. And yet, without the vegetal or animal form, the human form will die. If we want to be truer in defining ourselves phenomenally, then we should say that we are not only human but human/vegetal/animal/atomic/etc.
We could not live without gravity, fire, oceans, sun, galactic dust, etc. Why do we define ourselves simply as human?
I choose to define myself as That that does not come and go. That that is eternal. Not a new belief, not a new concept of eternity or a concept of consciousness.
Consciousness is formless and real, is it not? Is it not consciousness that perceives this perception?
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Friend: The body is also real, is it not?

Reply: Where and what is the body before its birth and after its death?
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Friend: What do you mean?

Reply: Well, if the body is real, then it is real when it is alive, as well as before and after being alive. Reality does not die. Right?
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Friend: I still feel there is no other reality out there.

Reply: Even if what you perceive may be a dream, there is no denying that there is something knowing it.
This knowingness is not a concept, not a dream.
That is what I refer to as reality. Whatever it is that is before thought, during thought and after thought. It is neither out there nor in here. It simply IS.
What is it that truly perceives? Is it not Awareness/Consciousness? Presence.
Reality, the Absolute is formless and cannot be conceived or understood via the mind. But you can apperceive it and know it as your very Self.