Discovering The Holy Grail
You’ve heard the tales. You’ve seen the movies. The Holy Grail has a rich history of legend that spans millennia. The Grail has been conceptualized in literal terms as the cup used at the last supper and to catch Jesus’ blood and metaphorically as the ultimate prize in one area of life or another.
What if I told you that I found the Grail?
What if I told you that you can have it?
Now, what if I told you that you already do?!?
That’s a ludicrous claim but there it is. Undoubtably this needs to be explained in more detail so let’s start with a description:
The Holy Grail…
Is A Vessel
Has Healing Powers
Grants Eternal Life
Is The Goal Of Spiritual Quests
Is The Ultimate Prize Of Life
Now let’s take each characteristic in turn:
Vessel
A vessel is a container of one craft or another. It’s function is to hold something within it. A goblet may hold wine or ale for example. A shaker cup might hold a protein drink for post-workout nutrition. A vase holds flowers. You get the idea.
What holds your experience?
The totality of experience can be said to be in consciousness. If you’re not conscious of it, well, you’re not experiencing it. Therefore, consciousness or awareness is a vessel for experience. Jesus’ blood was experienced in one vessel and one vessel only…consciousness!
So, let’s toss a checkmark next to Awareness as a vessel.
Healing Powers
This is slightly more challenging but can be contorted to fit nonetheless. Can you change a habit that you aren’t aware you have? No, well, not intentionally anyway. Bringing something to the light of awareness in my experience usually precedes the start of a healing process. The realization “Oh, look at that, I ate 3 dozen cookies this month and gained 4 pounds.” might come just prior to a new exercise and nutrition program to get back in shape.
A bit tenuous but I still feel that after exploring this we can check the box next to healing powers and that is without even getting into siddhis and other super-awesome phenomenon.
Eternal Life
Ok, this one is easier than the last to explore as long as our definitions are clear. I am going to describe eternal as “beyond spacetime” not “ever lasting within spacetime”. That distinction will be key.
Does the Holy Grail of Awareness grant an ever lasting physical or mental existence? If it does, I am not aware of that. However, if we look at the qualities of awareness and evaluate the evidence we can say with confidence that a) it is what you are and b) spacetime is experienced within it. Therefore realizing your identity as awareness brings one to the felt experience that you are beyond space-time and without being subject to spacetime could not have been born and cannot die: therefore you, Awareness, are eternal.
Another checkmark!
Goal of Spiritual Quests
This is almost not worth addressing it is so self explanatory. That being said, there is a very valid and important point to be made here and that is: knowing oneself as awareness and not its contents is halfway to a full enlightenment. We can call it “classical enlightenment” in that it would be a witnessing position and therefore maintain a subtle subject-object duality. Non-duality goes a step further. An “integral” enlightenment would go further still!
That, however, is a juicy topic that deserves separate attention so for now…checkmark!
Ultimate Prize Of Life
Hmm, not sure about this one. Heres the thing, the mind is the only thing to say what the meaning or goal of life should be and the mind can’t ‘know’ awareness. What we could argue is: the results/symptoms of enlightenment on daily life are to the mind the ultimate prize of life.
What are these symptoms?
Peace, Happiness, Love, Security, Ease, Freedom, etc.
I agree that these are what the mind wants. The catch is that the mind wants them for the illusory separate self and what the mind gets from awakening is freedom from the selfing-process!
Either way: checkmark!
There you have it! The Holy Grail is Awareness.
Oh wait, you wanted the grail for yourself and I said you could have it.
Let me ask you this then…
Are you aware?