The Invisible You — Part 4: One Awareness, Many Lives
What happens when you discover the same awareness lives through every person on Earth.
In the last three parts of The Invisible You series, we explored how you are the silent awareness - something that can’t be touched, seen, or fully explained by logic, because it exists beyond all thought. We ended with the sunlight analogy.
If you’ve been following along, you might now be wondering:
“Is my awareness different from everyone else’s?”
If that question has come up for you, you’ve arrived at the heart of non-duality. And that’s exactly what we’ll explore in this final part of the series.
Awareness is not “yours” or “mine” in the way we think of possessions.
The body–mind you call “me” appears in awareness.
Awareness isn’t produced by your brain - rather, your brain is like a receiver, a window through which awareness operates.
This awareness is the same “field” in which everything - your thoughts, my words, the sound of the fan, the world - appears.
It’s universal in the sense that there aren’t separate awarenesses for each person, just one infinite awareness appearing as many perspectives.
“We share the same being.”
let’s see how the universal awareness can seem like ‘my’ awareness once it shines through the mind and body
1. The Ocean and Waves Analogy 🌊
Think of awareness as an infinite ocean.
Each person’s mind and body is like a wave on that ocean.
From the wave’s point of view: “I am separate, I began when I rose, I’ll end when I fall.”
From the ocean’s point of view: “I was never born, I never die - waves just rise and fall in me.”
Your personal awareness feels like it began when you were born because the wave (body-mind) began then.
But the ocean itself - awareness - was already there before any particular wave appeared.
2. Light and Colored Glass Analogy 💡
Awareness is like a pure, clear light.
Your mind and body are like a piece of colored glass.
When the light shines through the glass, it appears as your personal awareness — colored by memories, language, personality.
Break the glass (metaphorically), and the light is still the same - it was never inside the glass; the glass was inside the light.
3. Why it feels personal
When awareness shines through your brain and senses:
It takes on the flavor of your experiences, so it feels like “my” awareness.
But if the body-mind stops (e.g., in deep sleep or death), the personal aspect disappears - yet awareness itself doesn’t vanish.
it’s the same awareness looking through every mind - just with different conditioning.
If you’ve been following this series, you now know about the silent awareness - the part of you that was never born, never dies, and can’t be fully explained with thoughts.
Let’s finish with the most important part:
What happens when you see this for yourself.
When you think of awareness as the ocean, and your body–mind as a wave, something changes.
There’s relief - the fear of “ending” starts to fade, because the wave was never the whole ocean.
You start to see that the “me” you’ve always defended is not as separate as it seems. We are all waves in the same water.
Or think of the light and glass. The light is awareness. The glass is your mind and body. The color of the glass changes how the light looks, but the light itself never changes. This means your thoughts, feelings, and memories are not the real “you” -they just shape how the awareness appears.
When you understand this, daily life feels lighter. You don’t have to fight so hard to protect your identity. You become less angry when people disagree. You start to care more for others, because you see the same awareness looking through their eyes too.
Non-duality is not something to “believe.” It’s something to test.
Try this: when you feel a strong emotion, stop for a moment. Notice the awareness that sees the emotion. Ask yourself - is this awareness only mine? Watch what happens. Over time, this becomes real in your experience, not just in words.
If you remember only one thing from this series, remember this: once you see the awareness behind everything, you can’t go back to believing you are only a wave. You will still rise and fall, but you’ll know you are the ocean too. And that changes everything.