The Seer is the Seen

by Vic Shayne
author
Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience

The great enlightened masters, such as Jiddu Krishnamurti, have taught that the seer is the seen. Once you get this, Krishnamurti suggested, you need nothing else in order to understand the self and reality. The idea that the seer and the seen are one and the same is true on more than one level.

What’s in here is out there
What is it that we see, or experience “out there” in the world in which we appear to live? All of the things, including other people, animals, objects, nature, the elements, phenomena, and so on, are the contents of consciousness. We too, as physical, biological bodies, are within these contents. As bodies with senses we gaze out into the world (or hear or touch it) and experience ourselves. This is because all physical objects and bodies are made of the same stuff as our bodies. Eastern teachings call this stuff the five elements — fire, wind, ethers, earth, and water. The body is made of these elements, because these are the building blocks of living organisms and inanimate objects, arranged in a multiplicity of ways.

A breathakingly beautiful woman’s face and body are made up tissues, cells, blood vessels, bacteria, and all the rest, which are, molecularly and subatomically speaking, the same components of the ugliest man who ever walked the earth. So, what we see when we look at anyone else, or anything else, are the same basic elements as ourselves. The seer and the seen are the same. A Toyota Prius and the most expensive Tesla automobile are made of essentially the same materials; only the arrangement is different.

Consciousness reflects itself
Beyond the physical level we come to the level of consciousness, which is a word that represents every expression, thought, idea, physical and nonphysical being, element, particle, wave, movement, memory, body, phenomenon, natural force, and so on. The contents of consciousness is consciousness. One of the contents is the body, and another is the mind.

All that we see as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual things within consciousness are ourselves. Consciousness is a reflection: As consciousness, we gaze out into the world and see ourselves. If we can ignore the apparent differences in shapes, sizes, textures, and arrangements (including the arrangements of thoughts into ideas, ideologies, etc.), we are actually seeing ourselves, not only as physical beings, but also our emotions, ideas, thoughts, actions, tendencies, faults, creativity, destruction, love, hate, fear, drive, and desires. All that we see is us as consciousness. Consciousness allows us to exist as people, and consciousness shows us who we are in the reflection of all things and beings in life. When you look at another person, or anything else, you are seeing yourself. The seer is the seen.

Nothing is connected
We are not all connected. Rather, we are all the same thing. It’s common for people to say we are all connected, but in light of what was discussed above, we can see that this is a woefully inaccurate description. To be connected suggests that it is possible to be disconnected. But there is no disconnection and there has never been a disconnection. It is only the mind that does not realize the wholeness of life, which is the totality of consciousness.

The ‘me’ is an image that sees its own images
Let’s look at yet another aspect of the seer is the seen, from the standpoint of the egoic self, which is the person that people take themselves to be. This person, this egoic self or “me,” is a creation, a construct. The “me” comes into being as an accretion of thoughts that forms a sense of self from ideas that are tightly held and suggest that a person is a body with associations and identities — with a gender, nationality, ethnicity, race, intellect, set of values, tastes, appearances, and so on. These are all ideas that are impermanent and changing. If you delve deeply enough you cannot find them at all; they are intangible. All the while there is something that is permanent that apperceives all of these things of consciousness, including the whole so-called play of life — the set, scenes, actors, director, producer, lights, sound, script, and so on. But who is noticing or seeing the play? Who is this seer? Is it the seer of the egoic self, the seer of consciousness, or something else? The only way you can know is to investigate yourself. Answers from other sources will not do, because they are only more beliefs and thoughts.

When the egoic self, the me, sees the world, due to its conditioning that leads to the creation of images about everything in its world, it is seeing an image and not the real thing. The me creates images of all that it sees. The me is an image, and what it sees is also an image. Therefore, the seer is the seen.

Seeing without the seer
If you were to look at the world, or an object or living being, such as a duck, and merely observe it without any preconceived notion, judgment, approval, disapproval, acceptance, rejection, or criticism, then there is no “me” involved in the seeing. The duck does not even have a name or a shape; it just is. If you were to see the world only on present evidence, without bringing to bear any knowledge, teaching, supposition, names, labels, memories, or ideas, then there would be no “me” involved, and what you would see is the extraordinary in the now. But this is not what people usually do, because they have been psychologically conditioned — trained — to do otherwise.

But wait, there’s more…
We have all been fooled, tricked, hoodwinked! We have been brought up to believe that we are centered here in the body, but are we really? Without the mind or body, which is obviously not what we are, then what are we really? The awareness that we know seems to have a locus, but only because we have been conditioned to believe that we are inside the body, attached to it. We believe that when we see an object then we see it from here and look over there where it seems to be. But is this really what’s happening?

Wherever the attention is placed is where we, as awareness, really are. If the attention is on a tree then we are where the tree is. If the attention is in or on the body then we are where the body is. If the attention is placed nowhere at all, such as in deep sleep, then we remain as potentiality. The awareness is everywhere and in everything. However, even these terms are misleading, because only the mind believes that there are things here and there. Awareness makes no distinction.

To see without the seer is to be the seeing. This is not an idea that the “me” is able to grasp; it is experiential and not known by way of mentation. Seeing is a state of awareness if there is no seer. What do you see? Is it your self? If you care enough to know then you will look into it.

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