The factor that causes most suffering in our life is “fear”. The mind being a survival machine can easily tap into the dimension of fear and when one’s awareness is not strong, it’s easy to get pulled into fueling the fears of the mind through identification with it. Awareness is the only force that can truly liberate you from the hold of fear and allow you to align with your natural expression without being inhibited by the resistance of fear-based thoughts. The crippling effect of fear is that it tends to cloud all the other dimensions of your mind very easily – it can come so strongly into the fore-ground that you forget about the other dimensions in your mind. I mentioned in the post – the 6 dimensions of the mind – that the dimension of love is pushed into irrelevance when the mind is fearful. A fearful mind has no space for allowing the dimension of love in it, because fear is construed in the mind as a deep threat to its survival and hence it always takes priority over other dimensions like love, joy or sexuality.
Confidence is basically a state of being where you are not controlled by the psychological fears of the mind. True confidence always comes from a place of awareness, when you use your awareness to dis-identify from a fear. It’s easy to project a fake confidence, which is easily destroyed, or seen through, as soon as a challenge arises. The truth is that challenges, or growth opportunities, will keep arising in our life and it’s about constantly attaining “confidence” about every situation that arises by bringing awareness to the fears that are triggered in the mind, and thus dis-identifying from them. Life is an eternal journey of growth, because every reality allows for an expansion into a new reality, and when we have the power of awareness in our being, it’s easy to keep dissolving fears that naturally arise with every change, or every challenge or every transition in life – and thus constantly move from a place of confidence.
It’s natural for fears to arise
If you are living in a hope that one day your mind will be fully free of fear, it just means you don’t have a clear understanding of what the mind is about. The dimension of fear is hard-wired in the mind, not only as a primordial survival mechanism but also as an aspect of wisdom. If you remove this dimension from the mind, you are not very likely to survive for long. So it’s first important to understand the huge value that the dimension of fear serves in your physicality. It’s also important to understand that a lot of your desires, or thoughts of expansion, arise from this dimension of fear, and the very juice of life is the birthing of new desires that creates movement/growth in its life-stream – desire is what gives life to the life energy, it’s what creates the movement, the aliveness. So fear has a role to play in this game of physicality, it’s not about getting rid of fear “permanently” but to be able to transcend it every time it arises in response to life situations. Fear is not the problem, the problem is “unconscious” identification with it, and hence not going with the opportunity of expansion/growth that it creates.
Some people, under the influence of misunderstood spiritual teachings, start assuming that awakening/enlightenment is a state where one’s mind becomes permanently free of fear. This deluded assumption causes them to be in an futile, endless, seeking process which basically makes them a “drop out” from life because their whole pursuit gets rooted in trying to run way from fear, which causes them to take up “escapist” strategies. Some people learn quickly that escapist strategies don’t work, and that you are not here to permanently get rid of any dimension in the mind. Awakening is not about getting rid of the dark natures of the mind (such as fear & hatred), it’s about being conscious of them and not letting them “influence” your natural expression negatively.
In an awakened state, you are not trying to “escape” fear, you simply transcend it through “awareness”, every time it arises in response to a life situation – this journey is one of eternal growth, to have a delusion that you will permanently end a certain dimension in your mind makes you become a person who is an “escapist” rather than being “growth oriented”. When you really understand the dynamics of life (what I call being enlightened about life), you become a “growth oriented” person, and stop being an escapist – you are no longer fearing your fears, you are open to fears arising in your mind and keep growing by transcending them as they arise. Anyone who allows fear to dominate their being ends up in a stagnant life, anyone who keeps transcending fears as they arises, keeps moving into new, fresh, realities at a smooth pace.
Fear can only cripple you when you are lost in it
People who say that they lack “confidence” are basically saying that they are lost in a certain fear in their mind which is crippling their physical life, in other words they lack the power of awareness to transcend that fear. In many cases, people start using all forms of strategies, ranging from meditation to medication, in a bid to “bypass” their fears and it never seems to work for long – this is because you can’t ever bypass a fear, you have to pass through it. And the only way you can pass through a fear is by bringing it to your awareness, and seeing through its influence – the simple logic is when you “see” a fear in your mind, in clear awareness, you stop being lost in it. When you bring awareness to a fear, in you, a few times, in a fearless/open manner, it starts losing its hold on you. It’s just like when you see a horror movie the first time it can scare the daylights out of you, but when you see it the second time it’s far less scary, and by the time you see it the 10th time you hardly feel any sense of fear – in other words, you become confident of watching this movie though it is the same one that scared you so badly initially. This is the power of awareness, it always brings you to a place of confidence.
Through my interactions with people, I’ve seen how the onset of awareness has brought huge shifts in their life as they start becoming free of some fears that had been crippling their life’s expression for so long. And I see this constantly in my personal life. Once you’ve grown strong in the power of awareness, no fear can ever have a hold on you for long, and this is what makes you “confident” of enjoying your physical life. People who live in insecurity are the ones who are not confident that they can face a fear when it arises. People who are secure are the ones who don’t fear fear, they’ve “not” gotten rid of dimension of fear in their mind, they’ve just developed the understanding that they can transcend any fear that arises through the power of their awareness. This is what it means to be confident in life.
Hi everyone, first-able my english is not great i apologize for that. I have been fallowing this blog since beginning, I was the first person who made comment and chat with Sen. I was desperate and also suicidal thinking began in my mind. Then one day there was no hope anymore, i discover this blog and met with Sen. I have been so many doctors,pills,drugs and nothing changed even got worse.Then i met Sen we had long chat since beginning of this blog, let say almost 6 months. My life totally changed.my mind now is more calm and is not anxious anymore as used to be. No more pills,no doctors,no junkies let say good feeling junkies anymore.Totaly i reborned again.During the period of chat with Sen, long hours in the late night with his patient and understanding i finally realize who i am.Amazing changes happening in my life, now i have a beautiful daughter and beautiful wife that i love,i found the job that give me a satisfaction. My vision totally changed. Is not a miracle is just time and be patient,being courages and willing jump the fire and burning fully until realizing who you are. Thank you Sen
I really wanted this moment share with every one.
Cihan
Cihan! it is awesome to hear the great change that took place in you because of this website and sens limitless wisdom. My question to you is how long did your transformation take? What was it that made the transformation so effective, relaxed awareness?
Cihan, Thanks for sharing your experience of alignment. I still remember your’s was the first comment on this blog.
The logic to this article is completely undeniable. I see all your articles and they give me so much inspiration to reach that point of full awareness. Everyday i try to get myself into that state. Why is the process so difficult? Am i doing something wrong?
Awareness is basically the light through which you clear up the negative patterns, and inner conflicts, riding in your mind. The state of being that comes forth once you’ve cleared up the patterns of resistance is one of alignment with your natural expression as this human being. This process takes time mostly depending on the amount of negative momentum that’s present in your mind owing to past unconsciousness. You will need to be patient with yourself and make a daily progress towards alignment. Also the power of your awareness keeps growing gradually, until there comes a time where you feel very stable in it – you will need to give yourself at-least 6-8 months to really start seeing a stability in your being, as you move through this process of alignment with your life-stream.
Hi Sen, I am trying to understand “Awareness”. I have gone through different article of yours and all are very informative and inspiring but I am not able to understand “Awareness” completely.
What is awareness? Is it knowingness of what is it going in our mind (watching thoughts and fear) or awareness is our life stream consciousness?
Also, how to dis-identify with negativity?
Thank You
Awareness is simply to have a space of consciousness which is not totally lost in the mind’s pull, this space allows for wisdom to operate in your life and allow for dis-identification with the pull of negativity in the mind. The fact that you can observe the negativity of mind means that you are “aware” – nothing more, it’s not something dramatic. When you start recognizing the negativity of the mind, you start dis-identifying from it automatically – is it not logical that when you find out that a particular food is making you sick, you stop eating it? To have this ability to observe the mind (which is what awareness means) ensures that you are not lost in the negativity but now have the choice to not fuel it. The more stable you become in your awareness the more you are able to see through the negativity in the mind.
I love this blog. I’ve read some of the articles. they’re amazing.
thank you Sen for sharing your experiences with us. and Cihan it’s so nice to hear that someone changed in this way!
Hi Robert, my transformation took almost 6 months, my awareness got very strong. But some people takes longer then others, i know some friends took a years. But the results amazing changes happening after that. Ones, you know the truth about yourself who you are, everything starts to collapse( negativity). Relax awareness very effective and the only way
you can dis-identify from negativity when they arise. In the beginning i was trying to be relax awareness but it was not very effective then i realize that( Sen taught me) everything you “try” to do there is always resistance there. It is a natural movement comes naturally by the time once your awareness gets strong enough. Robert, trust me, i had a very hard life since childhood, i never believed i will be free of negativity, anxiety and depression. But now i am strong enough. Enlightenment is not about you will be free of fear, negativity, it is all about align with joy and with your desires. Don t think that now fear or negativity is not there waiting for me anymore, our mind will always have fear, it is a machine as Sen says every article he writes,it will have always fear,i still have some fear or negativity arise some moment but they don t effect my space anymore, because bottom line once you become “fearless” you are free.
Thank you Elham, this is a wonderful place to meet and share our experiences.
Hi Sen,
I just wanted to let you know that I am very grateful for the wisdom you share on your website, and for making it freely accessible to the general public. I have learned a great many things here and have experienced many benefits.
I’m not sure if you pray, but if you do, please pray for me. I’m Catholic, and will keep you in my prayers!
With much gratitude!
I love this blog too : )
Hi Sen,
I have reached a point when by trying to become aware, I have become self-concious. I monitor everything I do, say, etc. It’s like I have developed an outside eye who is constantly watching me. I feel like my awareness is in a state of restlessness now.
What am I doing wrong?
David, self-awareness is powerful because it’s the light that you can use for transformation and alignment. Your awareness is not in a state of restlessness, it’s just that you are becoming aware of the restlessness in you. Your awareness as grown to a good extent now, and you can now drop any “effort” to try to be aware, and just be more focused on being more relaxed. Allow yourself to use your awareness to consciously relax, and start allowing the release of the restless energy within you. You may get some insights from this post – a place of total allowing