Your ability to be aware is one of the greatest skills you can develop in life. At the very root of all that you experience, is the awareness of your experience. If there was one thing I would recommend above all else, it would be the development of your awareness. Let’s get into it.
The development of this skill is paramount. By developing your awareness, you will find yourself rising to a plane higher than which you currently stand. Like a bird taking flight, seeing the ground beneath with a larger perspective, your every breath through the day can, and will, evolve.
There are many other discussions we could have, and other topics I could speak about, however none whatsoever can be discussed unless this is being worked on concurrently.
This article is one I pray you refer back to as you continue your journey. Yes, journey, for when you begin to develop your awareness, each day brings an expansiveness to life, a curiosity, an exploration.
It is like you have been given a puzzle-set of your life. You are excited to begin this puzzle-set, it’s about you. You may never reach the end of the puzzle-set, but that does not matter, for it is in putting the set together that the greatest joy is found, not in it’s completion.
For this to work, I will need to present some theory. Without the theory, you would not have some intellectual foundation to begin a fruitful practice. Is it necessary? Think of it like this – If someone gave you a fruit and said it would be poisonous, you wouldn’t eat it. If they gave it to you and said you need to eat it for benefits, you would eat it as you felt. If they said to eat it daily for 30 days, you would eat it daily for 30 days as you felt. If they then said eat it daily, for 30 days, first thing in the morning and just before you sleep, while on an empty stomach, then you are even clearer about how to use the fruit. So yes, intellectual foundation can be fruitful.
For this theory, I will first establish how awareness is a constant throughout your life. A fish that has lived in the sea has no understanding that it actually is inside a medium called water. That how it simply has been, from birth to death. Gaining greater awareness is much like this, it’s not much of a learning, but rather a realization. Realizations are not taught, they are experienced. It’s when you piece things together and sit with it that you have an ‘aha’ moment.
Then, I need to get into what the development of awareness can look like. How exactly will you know you are developing, or what benefits will you reap by doing this?
I will go into structures and awareness next. The flow of life, the connections we have with people, the choices we make and the directions we can choose are all important points to go through, since awareness leads to changes in everything. Some understanding of this can improve your movement through the world.
Finally I will get to the discussion on how to develop your awareness. What can you do, practical directions and some common pitfalls will be elaborated on.
So the structure will be –
1. Who are we? An examination of the I Am.
2. Development of Awareness. Why to develop awareness, and what happens.
3. Structures and Awareness. Seeing the currents of life with greater clarity.
4. How to develop your Awareness. A simple method to begin.
BONUS: Before we begin, I’ll share one day of increased awareness that stood out to me. You might like this. Sometimes, just communicating theory without a description of what it might do is not enough for many to begin a journey. I too first read a book, The Mayan Ouoroborous, that peeked my interest in meditation. So I share this, in the same vane. Might it peek your interest.
A Strangely Aware Day
My eyes sprung open, as I lied down in bed reflecting on what I needed to do that day. I sat up on my bed with my legs crossed ready to do my morning meditation. As the barrage of thoughts slowly subsided, I become aware of a rising sensation throughout my body. It felt as though every sensation in my body was more turned up, like a heart beat that had increased with a strong pump against my chest. Tingling sensations ran through my arms and legs, tickling me along the way. I was suddenly aware of how clear I felt, in my mind and in my body.
As I went about my day, something was different. My usual 15 minute walk to campus felt surreal. The light from the sky glittered the land, making everything sparkle kaleidoscopically. The sound from the wind through the trees resonated in my mind as though the wind was moving through me. The grass waved at me in unison as though bidding me good day. I felt a warmth inside of me growing with every breath I experienced in nature. Strings from my heart connected to everything around me. Everything was brighter and more alive.
Reaching campus became even more unreal. The movement of people through the area felt all predetermined, as though I knew exactly what they were going to do. The conversations of people 100’s of meters away became apparent to me through a sense of knowing. Impossible by normal standards, yet I could sense what was transpiring, even though I could barely see their faces. Their footsteps moved through me like a repeating symphony, as visceral as the drops of rain against a window. Everything I placed my awareness on expanded like the sensation of falling, and yet it never ended, there was more and more becoming realized from the moment. Zooming into a picture of space held no candle to the depth I was noticing. It was overwhelming to receive so much input from the world, yet I could control where I placed my attention, where I received the input from.
I was connected to myself. In the classroom, every word uttered in the classroom made me more aware of all the connections I had to that word, and what it meant to me. I was sensing even the slightest of emotions that emerged from the classroom, like the fluctuations of sound patterns displayed as bars on a sound system. Speaking with another took me down a rabbit hole of myself – each subconscious movement, sound and eye direction they made reflected back the experience we were sharing. I was feeling effervescent. Sensations that were too small to notice before were vivid and real.
I wondered when the experience would end. The day was starkly different from the day before, almost as though someone dialed up the volume of the speakers down the street, and the sound was vibrating in my room now. The contrast helped me become clearer about what a heightened sense of awareness was. I couldn’t fathom another level, the experience was breathtaking. Yet I knew, the levels never end.
The experience continued until I took a nap mid-afternoon. I couldn’t sustain the information input and I felt sleepier than usual. Going to sleep, I wondered if I would still have this level of awareness when I awake. It wasn’t meant to be. Upon waking up from my nap I realized I was out, like alcohol that seemed to vanish from your system after you passed out. Though, unlike a hang-over, I was left with the taste of euphoria and an enlightening perspective. A breadcrumb for the rest of my journey.
I share this experience for the purpose of inspiring you. These experiences are beautiful and wonderful, though they are one, in a myriad of days where nothing would ever happen. They are not representations of what I can do, they are a representation of what anyone can do or reach. I had this experience about a month and half after beginning my meditation, and after becoming very involved in the process of discovery.
With that said, and with a little breadcrumb to get you motivated, let us begin the theory 🙂
1. Who are we?
With some rationality I will help you first get a sense of who you are, and what awareness is. Please do not raise your fist at me with the thought, “I know who I am! I’ll teach this schmuck a thing or two!”.
I only mean to help you see, like the fish in water, a picture you might not have seen. By hearing these words you might get a feel for what I mean.
From the moment of birth, to death, we are aware. We go through life experiencing through our five senses. In the beginning, we have no developed understanding of the world, and much like a child, we use these five senses to see, touch, taste, hear and smell everything around us with the utmost curiousity.
Our choices are limited at the young age. We take in information from our senses. We then have emotions or feelings about these external situations. As a baby, we definitely do not have much in the way of these thoughts or ideas, however we do have emotions, and internal feelings based on biological structures. Hungry? Wanting attention? Let us make a sound! Gradually as we grow older, we become more sophisticated in how we express.
The above graph begins a look into how we operate. The center circle is us, and the inputs and outputs from us are evident by the arrows.Thoughts, Imagination, Feeling, Emotion, Ideas and Knowing are all self-evident. Creative Power is that which helps you exert influence on the world, Structures are patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving and acting that either a person or group adheres to. If you’ve not read my earlier article, this would be a good time to do so. Uniquness is that which makes you, you.
What? You’d like a more thorough description of uniqueness?
Here’s a simple one. The universe has come together, over a course of billions of years, to construct a galaxy, and then a solar system on the fringes of it’s rotation, which led to the perfect circumstances to construct life on a planet. That life has also evolved over billions of years, from single-celled algae to a multi-complex organism that has gone through consistent elimination of unhealthy strains, by enacting primal instincts over hundred’s of thousands of years, to optimize the genetic pool for survival, resulting in the functioning life form that is you, reading this paragraph. You are a walking, talking and living culmination of 14.6 billion years. And that’s just the tip of the ice berg.
You are an expression of love, truth and joy. We often see that babies and young children are bundles of happiness. They are this. This is the natural state of all of us, to be loving, playful and happy. It’s only as we age and experience the world that we change from this state. We transition from our natural, unique state into world representations of how to be. Each child has a difference in expression, even slight, that highlights the unique method of expressing themselves through love, truth and joy. This is you as well.
This is your uniqueness, in short.
Moving on then, shall we? We are still discussing who we are.
So we take in information from our inputs. After a while, we start to know what an input is, we come to have a formed opinion on the input. This formed opinion becomes a pattern, or structure. Quite often, we get instructed from those around us what something is, why something is the way it is and even how to think. We get told that an object is a tree, and that it’s properties are so and so, and we make a box labelled “tree” and put an image or idea of tree in it. We are aware through our sense-data, and then associate meaning to it to better understand our world. This is useful, since we can’t constantly be attempting to make meaning of the world. Though it does have a side-effect – we begin to identify with the memories and patterns. Let me get into the side-effects now.
To speak about the side-effect, I need to speak this in terms of the outer world and inner world. It is through this lens we see the identifications we build from patterns.
Outer world and Inner world – Identifications
I interchange pattern and structure throughout our discussion, since pattern is more readily understood as a way of behaving or thinking.
What I’m going to do here is begin developing contrasts, as contrasts help us understand what is, now. Recall my experience of heightened awareness? If I didn’t have a stark different one day from the next, then I wouldn’t have been able to tell the differences of my experiences.
Now, this separation between the inner and outer world is paramount for developing contrasts. You can be aware of the outer world, namely what is being taken in by you, or emitted by you, however we cannot identify with it. By this I mean we do not say, “I am sight, or smell”. We can often close our eyes and come to a realization that there is something that exists beyond sight. By that I mean, one moment I see tree, another I do not, therefore I cannot be the tree, I just see it, it is not me. The contrast helps us understand we are more than just sight. Then, what about the inner world? Here it becomes a bit more difficult.
The inner world is seductive, as it is with us all the time. We can’t just move away from an external object and realize we are not the object. With the inner world, the thought or emotion can quickly become a pattern/structure, repeating itself over and over. Thoughts and emotions can often come and go. Others may stay.
Emotions can be difficult to identify from. Should we begin experiencing sadness consistently, daily, due to some circumstance in our life, we gradually move towards identifying as the sadness. Similarly, if come forward to the world emotional and open, and are constantly hurt, we become more and more closed off. By becoming closed off, we begin to identify as someone who is not open or emotional, thinking that it is who we are. I always come back to children for these examples. Observe the evolution of a child from a young age as they grow, and notice what patterns are they identifying as, and how that alters their representation to the world. Or, think through some friends, or family, who have experienced circumstance and changed. Quite often, they become locked into a structure. Children have a vibrant emotional range. Do we experience the highs of childhood emotions today? Do we designate those emotions to just children? Something to ponder on.
This is not to say that all patterns or structures are bad, just that if we lock onto patterns of joy, happiness and love, inherent qualities of who we are, this would be ideal. The world we live in is often not that kind to such positivity, and we get shaped at a young age, well before we are aware that we are being shaped.
Thoughts are even more insidious as things we may identify as. In our fast-paced world, with the barrage of information thrown at us like tennis balls from a dozen automated machines simultaneously, we hardly have time to observe the thoughts coming forward from the information we are receiving before the next set of information has arrived. We cannot hit ten tennis balls at the same time, and so naturally become overwhelmed, and can no longer give our undivided attention on a single ball, to get the appropriate swing. With the constant stream of thoughts, we are much more likely to identify with the thoughts themselves. With no contrasting scenario, that is, with it being constantly present, we that the thoughts are who we are. “I Think, therefore I am” by Descartes, is very much a representation of this identification.
Structures of thought also exist. Politics, religion, education, beliefs, ideas or relationships, all of which create form identifications when we remain in them for too long, or if they are imprinted on us from a young age, when we were none the wiser. These structures are powerful mechanisms, that are re-enforced by the people around us who are also in the same structure, therefore releasing ourselves from them may require more dedication.
Basically, our thoughts, emotions, ideas and structures become so commonplace within our inner world, that we no longer see contrasts anymore. With no contrasts, we identify with them. The identification with unhealthy patterns or structures has an overall detrimental effect on us – they dull away our uniqueness and passions which no longer have space to be expressed.
Alright, we are not our senses, we are not our actions, we are not our thoughts, our feelings, emotions, or the structures we abide to. Then what are we? Are we our uniqueness? Our uniqueness may have brought forward a passion about one subject two years ago, and then another subject yesterday. It changes, or at least, the expression of who we are is changing, ever so slightly. Your uniqueness is a wonderful aspect to identify with, since it brings forward your natural state and passions. There is something deeper than this too. For us to observe uniqueness, or our passion, we need to first observe them. Something must be doing the observing! This something is awareness.
We can finally answer our question then.
Who are we? If we closed our eyes, stopped all inner world processes, and just sat still, something else will blossom over time. The ground, or root, of everything is that we are aware. We are simply aware. We are aware of the things we see, the sounds we hear, the thoughts we have, the emotions we experience, the passions that arise, the structures we associate with and the ideas we generate. We are none of these things, they are temporary. Our awareness is what is constant, from birth to death.
We are aware.
From time to time, we may associate with any of the temporary aspects I mentioned in the earlier paragraph. Like a flower that has bloomed and has shared it’s sweet fragrance with the world, only for it’s petals to fall off as the seasons pass, may we find ourselves becoming detached with that which is not us, and find joy and peace in the fragrance of our lives.
We then come to the last diagram on who we are.
With awareness lies everything else. Everything in our life can only first come forward through being aware that it is coming forward. By the very nature that we see, we are aware that we are seeing. By the very nature that you think, you are aware that you are thinking.
The earlier quote, “I think, therefore I am”, really becomes “I am, therefore I think”. The statement, I am, is the most fundamental statement you can make about yourself. All of our lives are lived by suffixing something to that statement. I am so and so, I am a writer, I am happy, I am committed, I am strong, I am alive, I am seeing.
Try it yourself.
Stop.
Take a deep breath.
Now, be aware of yourself.
How does that feel?
If a thought arises, I am thinking. If a feeling arises, I am feeling.
Lovely.
A small summary –
You are not your senses, you are not the things you see, or hear, you touch, taste or smell.
You are not your thoughts, or even your feelings, or your ideas, structures, patterns or even your uniqueness.
You are fundamentally awareness, and from that all else appears to stem.
By holding this notion, everything else you encounter will naturally be known to you as being temporary, and not you, therefore saving you much trouble.
So now that we know our foundation, or the root of who we are is awareness, we need to develop it.
2. The Development of Awareness
Why develop our awareness?
The development of awareness has an impact on every area of your life. By creating a space within yourself that is cultivated, consistently, to be aware of your self and the world around you, you move through the world with greater skill, capability and balance. The development of awareness is integral to being connected to who you truly are and then bringing that unique you to the world.
We often see meme’s saying, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken” and beautiful as they are, being yourself is a task in and of itself with the world we live in.
It is incredibly easy to be lost in the moment to some emotion or expression that is not aligned with who you are. You get a phone call that makes you feel uneasy, and then you carry than uneasiness through the conversation, causing friction between you and the other. Someone cuts you on the road, and you get angry and release energy by shouting or screaming. These are not necessarily ways we need to operate. We could experience the uneasiness and see it as a tool for growth, and allow the other person to either communicate openly helping us with our uneasiness, rather than causing friction. We can see the person cutting in front of us on the road, and pause, notice the anger, and balance it out without expression.
When I was young, I very much disliked my parents dropping me to school. It was not a fun experience. My dad would be constantly angry with everyone on the road, making me feel uncomfortable. My mom would be constantly annoyed with everyone on the road, also making me feel uncomfortable. With a little awareness from their side, my childhood trips to school could have been better. Obviously, I was a wee-lad, so the idea of me being equanimos was not even something I thought of.
Developing our awareness has an effect in more ways than we can think, and I believe it to be the greatest skill we can develop.
To summarize – The development of your awareness can take center stage. Since it is the roots of who you are, when you develop it, you dial up every area of your life connected to it. In other words, everything in your life is enhanced.
Fair warning – even attempts to become unaware, through perhaps the beverage known as alcohol, will also become difficult. I still recall how I was quite aware and functional, even with alcohol in my system, compared to the time when I was not developing my awareness.
Here’s a diagram of what it can look like.
As you begin to develop your awareness, all attributes become larger. An attribute means anything that you can be aware of. If you are seeing something, you are able to take in more information from it. Should you be thinking about a memory, you can go deeper into the memory and pull more information from it. If you are to be aware of the joy in your life, you can be more focused on the joy, and further experience it with greater intensity. The attribute circles are really only present for illustrative purposes; the awareness circle is actually completely black, or filled.
Two examples from the natural world that help illustrate awareness expanding. A balloon is quite small before it is blown up. If you were to draw a dot on some area of it, and then blow it up, the dot will expand. The dot is obviously arbitrary, we have no meaning for it. It shows how the balloon expands. Our awareness is much like this, everything is always present, it just expands. Small dots that usually go unnoticed are observed upon the development. The second example is of the universe. The planets, stars, galaxy are all drifting away from one another. They are not just moving away; the space between them is expanding. That means that new space is formed from the expansion of the space. The universe is much like the balloon in this regard, if you were to draw two dots a distance apart on the balloon and then blow the balloon up, the dots will be further apart. This is due to the space between them expanding.
I would like to illustrate some examples of having an expanded awareness in the world, or during day to day activities.
Some benefits of an expanded awareness
- You are at work, instead of just focusing on the person presenting in a meeting, you are aware of all the other people in the meeting room. This helps you assess how each of them is taking the information provided during the meeting, and you make mental notes about who to collaborate with after the meeting ends since you have a sense who connected with one part of the presentation rather than another.
- You are at home, you are eating with your family and your new awareness helps you be more present in the conversation. You gauge the receptivity of the people at the table while conversing so you can create a more loving, harmonious vibe.
- You are feeling stuck, and are not sure abut what. Many of us are not even sure we are feeling stuck! You go into the feeling, and get ideas and creative solutions to the issue sooner rather than later.
- You are learning something new in a classroom. By being more aware of yourself and the teacher, or of the words you are reading, you are less distracted and able to take in more information. You can formulate and develop an understanding faster, all the while cementing the memory in your mind for much longer. NOTE – You must actually enjoy the classroom. If you do not, awareness will make you realize how much you dislike being in the class, and may result in you learning less.
- You experience anger towards someone due to their words. You become aware of the anger, and instead of acting it out and causing damage to a relationship or property, you cool down and come from a more centered emotional place.
- You are having negative thoughts. These negative thoughts have been playing out with your knowledge. By being more aware, you can observe the negative thought and take action, or think differently, to be more positive.
- Your wife tells you to buy milk at the grocery shop. Since you were more aware when she said it, you remember at the shop, resulting in brownie points for you, instead of utter disappointment.
- And most importantly, Heightened awareness helps you reconnect with who you truly are. It helps you become more aware of your own uniqueness, and supports you in finding greater passion, meaning and joy in life.
These are just some general benefits. All areas of life expand when you develop your awareness. In the different areas that I discuss in future writings, I will highlight how greater awareness is useful.
All these check marks must make this page look like a landing page. Fear not, dear reader, there is nothing to be sold at the end of the page. There is only goodness to be found. So keep reading.
One last point on this section. The development of your awareness has no end. Certainly many skills in the world can be said to have no limit either, however awareness is one that truly has no limit.
Alright. We established that the foundation of who we are is awareness.
Then, we looked at how developing your awareness is a highly beneficial trait on a general level.
I have not gotten into how you can develop your awareness. I’m sure somewhere you know it has do with meditation. Spot on! If you wish to rush to that section, it’s at the bottom.
Though, I still have one more section to talk about that is the key reason why I’m talking about all of this, and why I believe that the time we live in is a beautiful time.
Getting into the next section will require an understanding of the previous article, Cycles and Structures, I wrote. I will summarize and then get into it.
3. Awareness and Structures
In the previous article, about cycles and structures, I mentioned how we live in a world of structures, many of these structures are man-made. We have associated ourselves with many of these man-made structures since birth. These structures are both not serving our best interest and they are damaging the world we live in.
I then went on to state how the times we live in are destabilizing the structures we have adhered to for so long. This is resulting in an opportunity being birthed to re-evalute what we are giving our power to. Do we continue to give our power to aspects of thinking, behaving, or living that are not aligned with who we truly are, or do we choose a life, and a world, that is more aligned with greater joy and prosperity to all?
That’s the short recap.
There is a key point I didn’t make earlier, you might have caught on to it.
Earlier, it was the world that had changed and resulted in all of us experiencing this type of life re-evaluation. In that scenario, we are at the mercy of the changes in the world, and then are on the receiving end of whatever occurs. This is useful, but not empowering; we don’t know what is going to happen in the world, and when!
The key point in this article is that we can, regardless of external circumstances, observe and release adherence’s to old structures, thereby freeing up power for our own uniqueness and its expression.
Great. These are pretty important points. The foundation, if you will, for much of the later writings.
How does it look like when we develop our awareness in this frame of understand? That’s what I’m about to get into now.
Okay, I’m just going to remind you that awareness is being aware of your outer reality, through your five senses, and your inner reality, thoughts, feelings, ideas and patterns/structures. It helps. So going forward then.
When we are inside the flow of a structure, we are quite lost in it, or unaware that we are in such a flow at times. When the structure slows down, or stops, the contrast between being in it and then not in it, helps us become aware.We might be in a relationship that we feel is everything. Without the relationship, existence would be very difficult, or even impossible. Then, when it ends, we inevitably suffer. However, given enough time, we tend to bounce back and find ourselves on our feet again. While in the structure of a relationship, we are lost in it.
By being aware, we can observe ourselves as we move into and out of a structure. If we stay aware, we can navigate a relationship smoothly, and be aware of other possibilities that may exist. We can also become aware of the reason we are being lost in the relationship. Are we afraid of being alone? Afraid of dying? Maybe we just want to be accepted by someone? Through this type of inquiry, we can even eliminate negative emotions within the relationship, and just ride out the connection in positivity.
Let us take a look at the structures of our lives and combine it with our uniqueness and expanding awareness.
Observe Uniqueness as the central line. Throughout life, your natural expression always exists. It never disappears. The cycles/structures you adhere to are flowing with you as you move through time. Awareness, when developed, is constantly expanding, and therefore you have greater knowledge of uniqueness, it’s expression, and the structures/cycles you are within.
Through an expansion of awareness, you begin to choose how to come forward to the structures you abide to. Remember, a structure can be family, friends, groups, society, community, culture, work, religion, social media, what have you. It can also be an idea, such as material gain, that underpins the aforementioned structures. Instead of being lost in the flow, you can observe the qualities of yourself that make you feel positive and in your natural state, and then bring them forward to the structure. This occurs through your creative power(your ability to affect structures) which is also enhanced through an expansion of your awareness. You are in a group of friends, and usually there is a method of conduct in this friend group. Often times, we may wish to say something or express our own opinions in a certain way which may not be completely accepted by the group. We may even take an action as part of the group that is not to our liking, e.g. drinking alcohol with your friends. By becoming aware, accepting the structure for what it is we begin noticing any issues or fears that are stopping us from making decisions more aligned with ourselves. Then, by applying our creative power we can affect the group structure so we could stop drinking and it will not affect the group dynamic.
In another scenario, the structure may be built with drinking at it’s core. If we were to stop drinking, then we would not match with the group structure and would have to leave it.
By becoming aware, you can notice the structures you are in and observe if they are aligned with your uniqueness. Through this practice of awareness, you can decide which structures to leave, to continue, or which new structures to create.
Here we have the structures from earlier, now becoming deconstructed. After deconstruction, and a moment of pause, we can begin constructing new structures. Your friends and you are now no longer drinking together, since drinking is not in your best interest. Gradually, your friends may stop calling you, or you may end up rejecting offers to spend time with them. Overtime, the structure fades away from your life, and the friends become more distant.
Some points on deconstruction need to be made here.
1. The moment of pause.
2. Quality of ending a structure.
Let’s begin with the moment of pause.
1. Moment of Pause
The moment of pause is incredibly beneficial, it helps you clear emotions from the last structure you are in, and become more aware of your uniqueness and what will be best for you going forward. From this place of wisdom and awareness, you can use creative power to formulate new structure. Often times, to fill the void that exists in your life now that you no longer have that group of friends, you may immediately look for another friend structure that is may serve you to fulfill that emotion of emptiness, but will not be beneficial in the longer run. The immediate friend structure you latch on to may have other actions that you is not appropriate for you such as listening to music that doesn’t appeal to you and going to certain hangout places you dislike. In an effort to connect, you makes sacrifices that can hinder your own progression.
Therefore, by taking a moment of pause the emotions from past structures can be contended with, while being aware of what you desire, can subside allowing for greater mastery in constructing a new structure.
2. Quality of ending a structure.
Often times, the reason we are in a structure with another person ,or group, is because of underlining emotions. These emotions come from structures placed upon us from a younger age. Some phrases that resemble what I am mean are childhood abuse, lack of love from a parental figure, rejection from school activities for any reason, trauma from difficult experiences, etc… We often were not too aware at earlier time to deal with the emotion, and therefore we adhere to new structures that resemble, or bring forward, the earlier emotions, assuming that they are “right”. This is not the case, for we are naturally love, truth and joy. These positive emotions are natural and us. The other emotions from negative experiences arose and we assumed they are us, due to the longevity of the emotions stay.
In whatever structure we are in now, by observing the emotions we feel throughout (by being aware, am I sounding like a broken record?), we can heal them, release them, and allow ourselves to be in our natural state once again within the structure. A negative emotion that is fully been made aware allows it to be healed, and increases our creative power. By then being in the natural state, and ending the structure, a similar structure is not needed to heal past emotions. We can then continue progressing with our lives with wisdom and joy.
Let us look at the previous example of being in the friend group that you do not wish to be a part of anymore. On the one hand, it may be the case that a family member when you were young drank alcohol, and therefore you felt that friends who drink alcohol would best represent connection, or give a sense of belonging. If your friends did not drink alcohol, you may feel uneasy, since it would be a new experience. In this case, you realize the roots of the emotion and it is healed. In another case, you simply wished for a certain lifestyle, and now that the emotional desire is over, you can end the friend group. In either case, you can speak to the group collectively and inform them of your choice, and why you choose to leave the group. You can speak openly and lovingly. Further, resolving any individual conflicts between certain members of the group is helpful. Complete structures thoroughly and fully, for anything unresolved will come forward inevitably.
Often times, the open, loving conversation does not happen. You could attempt to do so, though they may not be receptive. In this case, your ability to sit with your own emotion, and accept the reality, will suffice in releasing the structure from a positive place. In my experience, this takes longer, though it does not need to for you.
This is vast topic, and I have only touched a small part of it. Just know that ending a structure from a place of true positive emotion is key. Only through positivity can a structure not be re-created in another form by us being unaware of the underlining emotion that may have started it all.
Let me share with you two examples from my own life, of me deconstructing structures and what happened.
Two examples of breaking from a structure
1. Leaving a friend group.
When I first began college, one of my motive’s was to be more social and explore. I had a group of friends who were ideal for this purpose. However, as I began to meditate and cut-away, this group of friends were serving less and less of a purpose. Soon, they became a structure that was no longer serving me. Although I felt the emotion of this, I didn’t act on it since I had a counter emotion, the fear of being alone.
It was not until I spent several days with them, during a spring break, that the feeling became too loud to ignore. It was a jarring experience, and by the final day it was clear the friendship with the circle had to end. I sat quietly with the group after the realization, without speaking much, on the final day to not add more energy to the structure from my end. I then later informed the group I will not be spending time with them any more. A select friend from the group was still close to me, and I had a healthy structure with him outside of the friend group. I continued to be close friends with him throughout college.
2. Leaving a work place.
Just after college, I moved to Taos, New Mexico to work with Earthships. While working in the company, I kept getting messages that the company would not work for me, that the place was not ideal for my development or capabilities.These messages I refer to are a mixture of sense-data(data received from the 5 senses) and inner-data(thoughts, feelings in response to the sense-data from meditation). Even though I was becoming aware that the structure is not appropriate for me, I remained, because I had just moved a long distance to get there and was not sure what to do after. I had certain fears and emotions about leaving.
Finally, after a month, due to an email that that again highlighted the mis-match between I and the company, I replied that I will be leaving by the end of the month. The shift in leaving caused a ripple to form between my direct supervisor and I, who I was quite close to. Even though the company and I left on healthy terms, and we continued to work together in different ways after I left, my supervisor and I had an unhealthy end. Due to it being unhealthy, the structure was not complete, and had to be resolved. It took me another two months to meet up with her and and communicate freely about what happened, from a positive, natural place. The structure had ended peacefully, and therefore it had truly ended.
In the first example, the process of releasing from a structure happened gradually. In the second, it was a much more abrupt release. In both cases, the aftermath was not easy. I felt empty, lonely and afraid. Though with enough time, the aforementioned emotions disappeared, and I was left with the jewels of [[Wisdom]] and the joy of the experience.
A month at a workplace can sound like a short time to gauge a location, however should we develop our creative power, awareness and come forward with a level of truth, we alter the structures quickly, and accept the feedback openly, resulting in quick construction/deconstructions and learning.
I must note here. The development of awareness helped me first notice there is a mis-aligned structure, and then moved me towards a release from it. Many of us may have chosen to remain in the comfort of what is, rather than become uncomfortable. At times, we choose comfort over our uniqueness, or self-expression, or what is best because of the fear of the unknown. In the past, we would live to a ripe old age, and only then realize that we did not choose the path we truly wanted to. We are not in the past though, we are in the now: now is a beautiful time with the amount of unsettling going on. In these beautiful times, choose You.
I am called to present another metaphor for understanding the development of awareness, that ties in with an example from the cycles/structures article. We are flowing down a rapid river. As we move through this river, we move in twists and turns, seeing objects along the river and are a little caught up in the flow. We also see the junctions and pathways that lead to other rivers. Usually, we are so caught up in the flow of the river, that we do not pay attention to the other details of what is going on. We do not see that there is a branch up ahead, or an area where the water is flowing slowly, giving us some space for reflection. We are not aware of what our body is experiencing, nor that there is a possibility to move to another river that is better for us. By having greater awareness, we have more mastery over the flow of the river, it’s quality, it’s effect on us, where it is taking us, and where we came from. Through this mastery, we can navigate with ease, poise and a level of joy or happiness. The ability for us to choose another river, more to our liking, also becomes easier.
We can also use our greater awareness to observe our fellow river-mates. The others on the river may not be that aware of what is occurring. By your ability to become aware, you can then also assist others in their flow. You can notice where they are headed, where they came from, and what they require at that moment to move through their flow with greater happiness and joy. This is a beautiful gift to offer to your fellow river-mates, and it can bring joy to yourself as well. We are all in the river together, and the ride is best enjoyed with one another.
There is power to being aware in the river, which is a metaphor for the flow of our lives. There is mastery for yourself, and also there is power to assist others. I share a small note on this subject – With power comes responsibility.
I’ve completed the basic theoretical explanation now. There has been a reasonable amount of theory here. The theory is essential, because without it, you can meditate using one of the popular meditation apps, hit your 20 minute a day quota, get a 10-day streak achievement and tell your friends about your latest accomplishments, with literally no major benefit received. You can, with theory, still use a meditation app for a structured routine. #Nohatingonmeditationapps
I’m really not going to stress the importance of the theory much more. It’s vital. I’m going to summarize now.
Summary
1. You are awareness.
You have come to discover that you are not the things you say you are or the things you do. Those are temporary. You are uniqueness, and more so, the awareness that can observe that uniqueness. This change in identification has rippling benefits in your life, and is the root to developing yourself.
2. You can develop the awareness.
By developing your roots, every area of your life can improve through heightened observation and self-understanding. Like a tree that requires strong, deep and widespread roots to grow and expand in incredible ways, the development of your own awareness helps you develop your own roots, allowing your expression to be ever more holistic and expansive.
3. You can navigate the world with greater ease.
By developing your awareness, you can come forward into the world with greater mastery. This mastery means you have greater creative power and awareness of where to use that power. You can choose wisely the path you wish for, and be supporting to others as well. You can choose with greater ease a path of joy, happiness and love.
Finally, we can get into the how to develop your awareness.
4. How to Develop your Awareness
How to develop our awareness? We meditate!
Through the act of meditation, we begin to develop an understanding of our inner world with greater finesse. All that flows from the outer world into our awareness, and that which flows out from us through our action or sound, can be better noticed.
When we behave a certain way for a long period of time, we often find that we enter habitual ways of behaving. If we learn to drive, after a period of time we can drive without giving it much thought. Similarly, we have habitually focused on the outer world. We don’t even realize we are doing this. The grooves in our mind are incredibly skewed towards the outer world. Only by breaking out of the pattern of behaving are we going to realize this.
So meditation it is. I’m sure you knew it was going to come to this. Here’s what needs to be done –
How to meditate
1. Sit in a comfortable position. Sit up straight, or on a cushion, or on a chair with your feet on the floor. What is comfortable for you? Do it. Don’t lie down though, we don’t want you to pass out.
2. Close your eyes. Be sure to feel safe, since if you are in a situation where you deem a threat of any kind nearby, you will stay distracted.
3. Focus on your breath. Breath from your stomach. Notice your stomach rise and fall as you breath. Just notice this breathing mechanism, which is often automatic, occurring. When you breath out, let your body relax.
4. Gently bring yourself from your breath into your body. Notice. Whatever it is, just notice. What comes to your awareness? Is it a pain? Is it an emotion? Is it a thought? An Idea? A passion? A memory? A fantasy? Are you seeing something? You may not even be able to define it. Whatever is occurring is just occurring. Let it happen.
5. Just observe the flow of what is. If you are having many thoughts, just be with them. be aware that they are emerging. Notice any emotions you have with those thoughts. No right or wrong here, there is just what you experience. If you get distracted and you forget that you aware, just return to awareness peacefully. No judgement.
For those of you who would like to be guided along, to get a feel for it, I’ve made a small guided meditation voice clip at the bottom. I find an initiation into an experience is more powerful for many people, rather than just embarking on something on their own.
That is it. That’s the long and short of it really. The moment you embark on the path of becoming aware, and you consistently work on it, daily, you will naturally find yourself becoming more and more aware, of everything in your life, both inside and outside meditation.
Meditating for 5-30 minutes, morning and night, everyday, will help you with everything I have mentioned, and everything I am going to mention in the future. Since we notice awareness as that which we truly are, the development of it is the backdoor to the development of everything in your life.
Repeated practice produces miracles. When you do physical exercise, you develop your body. This development naturally occurs over a period of time. You go consistently and you see the results. The physical exercise also helps with anything else you need to do in life. It’s like training, and the rest of your life portrays that training. This is the same with meditation. Though you don’t see physical evidence of your practice, the benefits will yield dividends far more than you can imagine.
Some other applications
Now that you are becoming aware, you can start inquiring into the nature of who you are. This is a beautiful pathway that results in discovering more of the gem of yourself.
You can observe your emotions towards certain situations, and choose with greater wisdom what you wish to partake in.
You can become clear on the sensations in your body, and work to develop/heal any pains you might encounter.
You can observe the structures you are in, and more consciously choose how you operate within them.
You can notice your passions that will bring you the greatest joy and happiness, and become aware of pathways for them to find expression.
Remember, always come back to being aware, first, then into any other application.
Roadblocks to your development
Naturally we have ideas about what meditation is, based on the culture, country, family and information we have received throughout our lives. This is our greatest road block; our past ideas about something. Let us observe some questions regarding meditation, and become clearer about what we think of it as.
“If I meditate, then that means I’m affiliated with a certain religion”
Meditation, in the way presented here, is nothing other than the observation of who we are. We are not practicing meditation from due to an idea based out of a religion. Nor are we practicing because someone is forcing us, because our society is telling us to, or because a saint, mystic or prophet did it. We are doing it for ourselves, much like we decide to go for a walk because it is healthy. We sleep when we are sleepy, we eat when we are hungry, and we meditate to develop our inner capabilities.
Some people go to the gym to get lean, some go to get muscle, some go to lose their belly fat and some others go to become a certain image to be accepted in some circle of people. Similarly, some meditate as part of a religion, some don’t. We don’t have to be associated with anything.
All other activities are compatible with meditation.
“If I meditate, then my friends and close family will look at me differently”
Is the development of ourselves a healthy, beneficial situation? In nearly all cases, it is. The only scenario it is not, is in the scenario where we need to be less developed in a certain way to fit in. Us growing is natural. If we feel called to do it, and our friends and family really care about us and our growth, then it shouldn’t matter.
“If I meditate, I’m going to become like a yogi and fly away”
Through meditation, we don’t lose our connection to reality. We actually have the ability to build our connection with reality. Earlier we couldn’t see reality as it truly is, now by meditating and becoming more aware, we see reality with greater depth. We are in control of the intention and way we use meditation. Further, if it feels natural for us, or is a passion of ours, to develop as a yogi, then it would be a joyful experience either way.
“Meditation doesn’t work for me, I have too many thoughts and too much going on”
It’s natural for the backlog of inner world information to come pouring out when we begin something. It’s almost unstoppable. Though, like a dam that has stored water for a long time, at some point the dam will run out. Patience, and consistency will bring results.
“I’ve tried to meditate before, it didn’t help”
Sometimes when we learn a new skill, such as learning to speak in public, it’s only after much practice and many attempts that we realize that we are doing a good job. There’s a key moment when we get recognized for our development. Physical development is easier to identify, awareness development is not as easy. With consistent practice, it is inevitable.
Any other thoughts on the subject? I would love to hear from you. I learn through you. If there is something else that you feel is blocking you from going forward, let me know and I will get back to you, and update this page as well.
In Conclusion
It’s been 7 years since I started meditating. The journey of meditation has been profound, vivid, beautiful and immersive. It all started in a small frat house room, waking up 30 minutes earlier to meditate, and meditating before I slept in the night. It began very much with this practice, becoming aware of my breath and myself. I even meditated through the drunken brawl of music and people that happened every night, right below my feet.
I didn’t really understand what I was doing, just that I had an interest in it, and so I began, with no second thought. I dedicated to it daily, as my first and last activity of the day, and a natural change occurred in my life for the better.
If what I’m sharing peeks your interest, take the theory I’ve presented, internalize it and allow it to guide your meditation subtly.
Whatever arises for you, whatever presents itself is fine, as it’s your path. Embrace it and flow with it.
This is the foundation. The backdrop of all else in our lives. If all you take with you is the information in this article, you already have enough. Everything else is just the cream of the cake.
So, now, you have the cake. Enjoy the cake.
How to Meditate
A short, guided meditation for those who would like to be initiated into an experience through the energy of another.
I go into a bit more detail about this aspect during the later parts of my sound clip, at the bottom of the page.
Other Notes
I have simplified awareness, and even simplified it as an awareness of the outer and inner, displayed as a circle of awareness, within which the outer and inner world exist. This helps with distinguishing the different worlds, as categorization for rational thought and discussion, though in truth, all awareness is truly inside.
Take for instance this example – You hear a sound outside. Say the sound is to your left. Where exactly is this sound? Of course, I just stated it is outside. Though, where exactly did you hear it? You know the sound existed the moment it came in contact with your ears, travelled through the ear canal, translated by the organ in your ear into a vibration that was perceived by the brain as what we call sound. The sound is perceived, first, inside your brain. We then unconsciously use the autonomous, gyroscopic function of the brain to distribute the location of the sound within a 360 degree spacial awareness outside of our body.
Musical Inspiration
There were many sounds that inspired this article, as this has been in the works for a while now. One track that came to me in the later parts of this writing was that by Merrin Karras. It’s his first mix. I find the initial worldly sounds that then transition into a more expansive, open soundscape to be a powerful representation of our own passage from the monotony of the mundane into the deep endlessness of our own inner worlds.
I further enjoy how the sounds do not dwell incessantly on one type of expansive sound, but rather bridge seamlessly, and also mercurially, to other sound types, be it fast/slow, melodic/repetitive or emotional/mechanical. This again is representative of our movements in meditation – the smooth, sudden changes in our state and the uniqueness of new states that emerge. Finally, the last track crests and falls like a wave, thematically beautiful.
Auditory Personality
In this recording, I go over a few points :-
- How awareness benefits our lives as a foundational skill.
- An experience with awareness and noticing who I am not.
- A bit about how our creative power is built, and then enhances our awareness through an observation of the internal
- An example of me initiating someone into meditation.
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