by Nat Noble | Sep 13, 2025 | The Self
You’ve probably heard many spiritual teachers say, “You are just an awareness.” They often explain this idea by stating that the body, thoughts, and emotions are constantly changing, but awareness always remains the same. It is the “stage” where everything appears, and you are that stage. While there is nothing wrong with this explanation, something is missing.
If we look carefully, we can see that our awareness is also constantly changing because we have different levels of awareness—from the very dim level we have in our regular dreams to the full awareness of The Self (Self-Awareness) that we are able to reach. Furthermore, we also know that a person can completely lose awareness but still be alive.
There is something much deeper than awareness—it is Beingness. And Beingness is something that we never lose, even if we are not aware of it. Even though without awareness we probably would never know that we exist, Beingness is something completely different from awareness.
We are not only aware but also immersed in a complex world of experiences and inner reflections upon these experiences. We are not just aware of the world around us; we are also able to understand what is going on, at least to a certain degree.
The realization that Understanding is a “thing” in itself is one of the major breakthroughs I experienced on my spiritual journey of Self-discovery. Because Understanding is one of the most crucial parts of who we are and what we are capable of doing, experiencing, and creating.
Without Understanding, we wouldn’t even know that we are aware because we wouldn’t be able to understand what we experience. And without Understanding, we wouldn’t be able to have any meaningful experiences. Additionally, Understanding is also a very powerful “tool” that can help us navigate all our experiences.
However, there is something else that is usually hidden from us. This something is known as “bliss” or “supreme happiness.” When I realized The Self (Real Self), I also discovered that happiness is the natural state of the Real Self. That’s why, in my opinion, many of us have this constant desire to be happy.
I believe that the best way to describe ourselves is “Beingness-Awareness-Understanding-Bliss.” This is very similar to “Sat-Chit-Ananda”; however, it is often translated differently, making this description incomplete.
When we understand that we are “Beingness-Awareness-Understanding-Bliss,” we can better understand who we really are. Thinking that we are “just an awareness” can create an empty state, disconnected from the Real Self.
That’s probably why many people who meditate for years complain that they don’t make any progress. The idea that they are just an awareness most likely keeps them in the region of their “head,” instead of concentrating on the region of the “heart,” which is the center of our “Beingness.”
The center of our Beingness is where we feel the connection with our Real Self much stronger and where we can connect with our natural state, which is permanent bliss or happiness. Some also call it “the center of I AM.” And the “I AM” is another way to describe the Real Self.
Thinking that “I am just an awareness” is a good way to start our spiritual journey. It makes us step away from the visible things around us, as well as our thoughts and emotions. But when we already have an understanding that we are not our thoughts, emotions, or the body, it is time to move to the deeper levels of Self-exploration.
by Nat Noble | Jul 31, 2025 | Happiness
Recently, I came across several videos that suggested the idea that we don’t need happiness. Even though it was presented from different angles and with different arguments, I know exactly where this idea comes from—the false self. It doesn’t need happiness and doesn’t know what it actually is, because it appears that the false self (also known as the ego, shadow, mind, etc.) is actually no more than a complex subconscious program.
When I realized The Self (Real Self), I found that true happiness or supreme bliss is our natural state. We don’t need to do anything or have anything to achieve this state when we realize our Real Self. But when we confuse ourselves with the false self, we are not able to experience true happiness for a prolonged period of time, if ever.
The problem is most people think that they are their false self. This strange illusion arises because we identify ourselves with our minds and think that the internal dialogue that we hear is the reflection of our own thoughts.
After long and careful observation, I concluded that the main goal that the false self is trying to pursue is to divert us from Self-Realization. And since happiness is the natural state of our Real Self, it’s trying to do everything possible to keep us away from it.
What most people understand as happiness is often just a state of excitement, and very often it is a chaotic state—similar to what we experience when we feel fear or anxiety. Surprisingly, it is actually produced by negative emotions, and it’s not a positive feeling at all.
Sometimes happiness is also confused with feelings of satisfaction or joy. These are positive and desirable states that belong to our Real Self, but they are not the same as true happiness. True happiness is a much more profound state, in my experience.
Most important is to understand that true happiness cannot be achieved by any material or exterior means. The chasing of happiness in the outside world is a useless endeavor. How often do we think that as soon as we get something or achieve something, we’ll become completely happy? And how long does it last?
But there is something we can do to realize the Real Self and find true happiness—it is the “purification of Consciousness.” When I first heard this expression, I thought that we need to purify our Consciousness from some “dark” energies. And this is how it’s usually described by many—because to our inner vision and feelings, it often appears as something dark, heavy, and unsettling.
However, after spending many years purifying my Consciousness, I finally realized that this dark and heavy “stuff” is actually made of negative subconscious understanding. And this negative subconscious understanding is also known as “negative subconscious beliefs.”
Although we usually think that our feelings and thoughts are something completely different, in reality, they have something in common—understanding. And as I write in my book Technologies of Happiness:
“Consciousness feels what it understands and understands what it feels.”
—Nat Noble
This means that what we experience as negative emotions are basically also thoughts; only they are on a much deeper (subconscious) level, and we’ve invested much more energy in them. However, our pure energy is trapped in a discordant pattern (or “charge”) that is stored in our body and is associated with a certain negative belief.
When a negative subconscious belief becomes activated, we experience what we call a “negative emotion.” We all intuitively understand that an emotion has a meaning, but we usually don’t know that its meaning is very precise. When we change this meaning by replacing the subconscious belief, we stop experiencing this emotion.
Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that we have thousands of negative subconscious beliefs and, consequently, thousands of emotions—because each emotion is a unique combination of meaning and sensations. We just don’t have names for all of them, and that is why we often don’t know what exactly we feel.
The good news is that when you learn how to replace negative subconscious beliefs, the process becomes almost automatic, and you can replace negative beliefs as soon as they become activated or find and replace them when you want or need.
This means that we don’t have to carry the burden of heavy feelings our entire life. We can release them as long as we understand that the negative subconscious beliefs that we have are the result of wrong understanding and need to be corrected.
It is also important to know that negative subconscious beliefs are responsible for all other negative issues, including problems related to our health, and all negative events and circumstances that we encounter. This is because our subconscious creates our entire reality for us—just like it creates our dreams.
After we remove all the confusion from our subconscious mind, we uncover our true nature, which begins to shine with true happiness, and we are able to rediscover the blissful state of our Real Self.
