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Awareness
Have you ever experienced total peace, total flow? Have you felt complete inner Silence, feeling (not thinking) completely a part of your surroundings, when time has stopped or slowed down?
Open up your senses. Meet perception half-way. Listen to the sounds around you right now. See if you can meet them half-way, so that there is no delay between sensing and hearing. There is no delay when there is no interpretation.
photo credit: alicepopkorn
This experience of innate, effortless awareness is the crux of all spirituality. If we miss this core, spirituality then becomes nothing more than the chase of concepts and hierarchies.
Listen to music at this level of consciousness. See the vibrancy of colors at this level. Feel the aliveness in the inner body in this awareness.
We all run to self-help, but self-help is the advancement of the ego, and there is nothing wrong with this if we realize this. We run to books and blogs and seminars and the latest spiritual secret, and there is nothing wrong, but the crux of the living is still very, very simple. It is Awareness.
We seek peace outside ourselves, in achievements and vacations and beliefs and concepts and God and prayer, and there is nothing wrong with this, but the crux of the matter is still very, very simple.
We march to the loud drumbeats of the latest secrets of happiness. We run to positive thinking, but positive thinking doesn’t release negativity—it just covers it up if we try hard enough, for a while. We run to the likes of the law of attraction but it cannot be terribly useful to us when we are full of embodied patterns of sadness and fear.
We beat up quite a bit of foam and lather in seeking our true purpose, but when we realize our inner purpose is, and always has been, to awaken, we can happily give up the angst of seeking out our great purpose. Then, there is great purpose in everything that we do, and everyone who we meet.
We run away from pain, but pain can can only be released when we allow it, even welcome it, and watch it, with awareness.
Awareness does not require you to believe, or to have faith, or to be strong, or diligent, or to be spiritual.
Let’s try it.
Relax completely. Let go of thoughts and emotions. Let go of beliefs. Notice your breath. Notice the sounds around you. Notice the taste in your mouth. Notice where you skin touches your clothes. Notice the inside aliveness. Relax deeply, release tension, be aware of tightness in your body and let go. Be aware of the air going in your lungs. When thoughts arise, allow them, watch them, and bring attention gently back to your senses.
With short moments of self-observation, we become conscious of thoughts and emotions and fears and patterns and beliefs and egos. We become conscious of what Einstein called the “optical illusion of consciousness.” We become conscious of our delusion.
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strongly recommend Anthony de Mello’s book, ‘Awareness.’ It is life changing.
Thanks, Mark. Anthony de Mello’s wisdom is timeless and I frequently use quotations by him.
Beautifully said, using words that conveyed the peaceful energy of which you spoke.
Hi Megan,
It’s good to hear from after a long time. I hope you are well, my friend.
love and peace,
k
I am curious that whenever someone talks about this ‘awareness’ it is done with such reverence, such shall I say glory and yet I find it difficult to find such glory in the ordinariness of listening to my breath, to feeling the clothes on my back. Do sounds really sound sooo sweet, colors so vivid? In my experience the words you describe for such a state of awareness describe more our daily crests and troughs of comparisons of emotions from happiness and exaltation to sadness and despair. Is it a matter of holding this awareness long enough? A matter of putting aside all our egos? Finding a sensation outside the realm of emotional experience is somewhat a paradox and while I know it is something to go through do you have any words of advice or comments on this? I realize it is always very difficult for someone with awareness to talk to those without it or seeking it. Can we strive to bridge the gap so we have a better sense of communication and connection with our words and experience?
Hi Jeff,
I acknowledge your point. There is a tendency to glorify presence.
I remember that when I first read Eckhart Tolle, people I know often said how blissful it was to be present–it was wonderful, glorious, opening. I was confused because in my experience, presence felt rather boring.
The mind jumps in and says, is this it? Is this all there is? Is this what people are really talking about?
Perhaps a guided meditation can help. I suggest Adyanshanti’s “True Meditation” and a sample of that is here: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Adyashantis-Meditation-Allowing-Everything-to-Be-As-It-Is.
It’s best not look for high or blissful state. Simply just allow. Be aware, and let go, and allow, and be honest with yourself, and be patient–and a different level of consciousness, which feels like a long lost friend, seeps in.
Thanks for making a very important point!
I hope you are well.
love and peace,
k
There is so much energy in this post, Kaushik! Thanks! Jodi
Hi Jodi,
It’s been a long time! Thanks for visiting. I hope you are well!
love and peace,
k
Immerse yourself totally into a thing; an activity; a moment, and you will find awareness and flow. Immersion — “being” rather than seeing; experiential knowledge — is the way to enter the power that resides just beneath the veneer of everyday life.
Smiles,
John
Hi John,
Yes, complete immersion in an activity, or just presence, is a good way to find flow. This often happens during a sports or artistic or skilled activity. Thanks for the pointer.
I hope you’re well!
love and peace,
k
The experience of awareness releases a person from the illusions of misery and suffering. Some people are so deluded by illusions that they do not sense escape or salvation are possible.
Those who desire things move away from the awareness that is present, and into the abyss of the imagined future. Desires are unreal and through the unreal, it is not possible to align with the real.
Liara Covert´s last blog ..Practice the Middle Way
Yes, Awareness releases a person from the delusions of fear and sadness, but this is not immediately clear to the mind. The mind jumps in and says: is this all there is? This feels empty and boring. We have to stay with it.
Thanks for the insight.
love and peace,
k
I agree lots of energy in this post.
Thanks, Sarah.
What you’ve written here is so helpful. I sense that in all your posts, a genuine desire to be helpful. Thanks for caring so much about sharing a path to inner peace.
Hi Brenda,
It’s nice to hear from you, my friend. I hope all is well!
love and peace,
k
Namaste Kaushikbhai,
You are doing excellent job to give same food(message) in different menu.
As long as awareness doesn’t became desire to full fill the ego, then it’s a way/path/Tao to be present in now in natural form.
Nowhere……….Rather…….” Now Here”
Cheers
Nitin
Namaste Nitinbhai,
Yes, excellent point, our quest for freedom from the ego can be co-opted with the ego. It’s good to keep in mind that every intention is suffused with the ego. Leonard Jacobson calls this a “spiritualized ego.”
I hope you are well.
Love and peace,
k
Dear Mr. K.,
I totally understand this statement you said to Liara……
The mind jumps in and says: is this all there is? This feels empty and boring. We have to stay with it.
Sometimes when I am fortunate enough to have some Awareness and I get that empty feeling. I say, Wow, where are the rainbows and unicorns? right? How come this feels like nothing. Sometimes it is almost too sad to feel that empty. Okay, why are we supposed to stay with it?
Also, another thing, be glad I have not be bugging you lately because I just read that Awareness, Awakening is not a linear process. IF that infomration is correct I am going to bed with no plans of getting up. I cannot handle any process that is not in a straight format.
I don’t do random and I don’t do willy nilly.
Love & Light,
Janice
Hi Janice,
In the middle stages of awakening there is nothing to hold on to. Our delusion is that we identify very closely with our thoughts and beliefs and embodied patterns, and as this identification dissolves we have nothing else to hold onto, and we are used to holding on. And so it may feel empty and desolate and confusing and frustrating. Is this all there is? Where are the freaking unicorns and bliss and oneness? I am just as confused as ever, even more so now, so why I get on this path?
Some people will even go so far as create other identities–spiritual identities, and they hang to spiritual concepts, but this is delusional as well, what Leonard Jacobson calls a “spiritualized ego.”
This when heart techniques can become very important. We try to be present, to be aware. We continue to release. We continue to be honest with ourselves. We persist, we allow, we continue to be patient, we practice compassion, we love, we love ourselves, we forgive, we try to remain engaged, we cherish, we accept, we give, we continue with our obligations and our lives. We recognize that the ego is fighting back.
Awakening in my experience is not linear–that is, we cannot say that this will happen because of that, and we cannot say how much time or space it takes, or what events can have profound effects. It is not about revelations, though we will have many. It is not about spiritual advancement, though many people will consider themselves very advanced because they have learned this or that, but the same people will be humiliated and humbled just like the rest of us. It is good news that it is not linear. You allow and be. I lived in delusion for over 40 years, and then when I recognized that I was in delusion, I didn’t get out of delusion, I just recognized that what I take myself to be is false.
Once we have the first insight, there really is no turning back. What else are you going to do? You cannot live in delusion when you know you are in delusion. You want Truth. You want what you already know is possible and it is your natural birthright. You want ease and peace and intuition and joy in the present moment.
The discomfort does pass. It does get better. You are able to let of expectations. You are able to see that the discomfort is a form of resisting the discomfort.
I hope this helps.
love and peace,
k
Dear Mr. K.,
Please don’t tell me my emptiness is me resisting discomfort. Because you and I both know that resistance is my specialty. I can resist until I pass out or hang on till my fingernails crack. I was born to resist discomfort. I eat when I cannot think anymore, I sleep when I am sad and I work like a manic when someone hurts my feelings. Except, (and you already know this) none of that works anymore.
this resistance thing has become a squatter in my body. Resistance thinks it can live in me rent free. But, what’s my pay off for resistance to live, uninvited, hogging all my strength, buried inside my chest?
I hope you know that you help me in a profound way.
Love & Light,
Janice
Hi Janice,
You sent me the very illuminating interview of Schwartz in The Sun, and I take this quotation from him
“Disliking feelings or making them wrong never solves problems. The reason we dislike them in the first place is because we’ve been taught to. There is nothing in the feeling to dislike. It is a movement in the body, a flow of something, maybe a hurt or a woundedness, which we assume to be weak, neurotic, or wrong. All those labels are made up.”
You’re right, resistance is a strange thing. It shouldn’t exist when we don’t want it to exist, but it does, and the way to release resistance is to allow.
Allow, be patient, allow in love.
love and peace,
k
Dear Mr. K.,
You slay me.
Janice
Janice, it’s a process of destruction.
that’s so relaxing , thank you for the post
Farouk´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
Thanks, Farouk. Good to see you here.