It’s important to have the right understanding of a pointer like “awareness” because it’s the foundation of how to start coming out the dysfunction of negativity. In this post, I would like to give a clear description of what I really mean when I use the pointer of “awareness”.
Where does awareness originate from?
Look back on your life and think about how aware you were of your existence when you were 6 months old, 1 year old, 3 years old, 5 years old, 10 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old and 25 years old (I am assuming majority readers are above 25). If you are like most, you wouldn’t have much awareness of your first 10 years in this body – in fact you may not recall anything of your first 3 years. Also, if you are like most, your life mostly felt like a daze till at-least 20 years if not more. The reason for this is simple, till the first 10 years of your life your brain is not very developed in the faculty of awareness.
If someone had slapped you when you were 1 year old, you would have no recollection of it. In fact, my parents tell me I poured boiling water on myself (by upsetting the tea kettle) when I was 3 years old and had injured my hands, whereas I have no recollection of this incident or of the pain. The simple reason for this is that my brain had extremely low awareness when I was 3 years old, so it looked as if I was moving around – eating, crying, talking – but in reality I had no real awareness, I was as good as a zombie. In fact, I would say my brain’s awareness was pretty low even till I was 20 or 25 for that matter – I was living life in an unconscious manner, mostly in a daze, just living out some external conditioning and deriving all my sense of identity from the ego structure.
Actually, it was only after I read the book “The power of Now” by Eckhart tolle, that I realized how unconsciously I was living because this was the first time I was introduced to the pointer of “awareness”. In simple terms, awareness is your ability to observe without needing thoughts. We automatically feel the need to label everything we observe and hence awareness gets mixed with thoughts. But, you will realize that you can be aware of the thoughts, of the feelings and of your surroundings as a pure observer without judgments/interpretations – basically awareness is this power of pure observation. Thoughts create interpretations, feelings create emotions and events are again created by thoughts in the mind – all of this can be observed in pure awareness.
Your power of awareness can be very low, and underdeveloped, if you never exercise it enough. So does awareness arise out of the brain? Well, the brain has a center for awareness and this center is what needs to be developed to deepen your experience of physical life. As I mentioned, in a 3 year old child this awareness center is poorly developed and it keeps becoming more developed with age. The brain is inherently connected with the wholeness of life, it’s not isolated, and life-energy is also an “aware energy” – so in that sense the awareness of your brain is connected with the awareness of the wholeness of life-energy, this is how you connect with wisdom, instinct, intuition and inner-guidance. The stronger the awareness in your brain the more receptive you are to the intelligence of life, because when your brain is more aware it connects more firmly with the awareness of the wholeness of life.
So when I talk about developing the power of awareness, I am purely taking about developing the awareness faculty in your brain. Like everything, it takes time to grow when activated, but the more you activate it the faster it grows. How do you activate it? The simplest way is to stay aware of your mind movements and your feelings, you can also do some practices like being aware of your surroundings/environment in a keener manner – but mostly just being aware of your inner space is enough to allow a strong growth of awareness power.
Do all brains have the same capacity for awareness?
The obvious answer is No. Not all brains have the same capacity for awareness, though an average human brain has to have the highest capacity for awareness among all other species on earth – the level of awareness of birds, insects and animals is far lower than humans simply because their brain is not so highly developed in this center – why should there be such a discrepancy? Simply because it’s not life’s intention to create brains with highly awareness in these living beings, they are meant for different intention. Of course, there are many humans whose level of awareness is no different than an animal – in some cases their brain does not have the faculty to develop awareness and in some cases they’ve never developed their ability for awareness. If a human’s brain does not have the capacity for awareness, it’s not a problem (it’s not like something went wrong), it’s just the way their brain is – it syncs with the intention of their creation, they are not lesser to any other humans, they fit in this world just as much and have their own intention to live out.
The deal would be to develop your capacity for awareness to the extent possible – it’s “personal” to your brain. There are people who have strong awareness center in their brain, even in their childhood, this leads them to feel a high sensitivity, and in the absence of an emotional maturity, and understanding of life, it can be a source of suffering. Just because you have high awareness does not mean you have a good understanding of life. Understanding of life needs to be developed through introspection, reasoning, maturity and looking at things in a deeper manner. The advantage of this era is that there is so much information and knowledge available (especially due to the internet) that one can easily have access to a lot of understanding in short time.
Some drugs strongly activate the center of awareness in the brain, sometimes taking it to an unnaturally high level. Too much awareness (usually activated in an unnatural manner) is also not a good thing because it amplifies your senses so much that it overwhelms your brain and body. People who take such drugs can suddenly feel very alive because their awareness become very keen, they start seeing beauty in the most ordinary things around them, like a plain tea cup or a drab wall. Though it’s an unnaturally amplified awareness, it can still give you a glimpse of how your experience of life can deepen when your awareness is high. The only deal is that when your awareness is unnaturally high (as induced by drugs), you are so overwhelmed by your sense perceptions that you lose your ability for wisdom because you lose touch with your inner guidance.
In fact, a lot of people who start developing the power of awareness in their brain, initially feel a bit overwhelmed by their increased “sensitivity” to their body and mind – it’s as if they suddenly got plugged into a higher voltage of everything, including the force of their negativity, causing them to feel overwhelmed for a while. But soon you adjust to this high level of awareness and your body adapts to this increase. The benefit of higher awareness is that you can be more strongly aware of your negativity, even subtle patterns of them and thus can start letting go more easily. It’s easy to be lost in negativity when one has low awareness, because there is no space to even see one’s own negativity. Once you start developing awareness, it’s like upgrading your room lights from a 40 watts bulb to a high wattage flood light, it just makes things more clearer and vivid, so that you can identify negative patterns more easily.
How does awareness work with “letting go”?
Awareness is the light using which you identify negativity, and letting go is the attitude which allows you to dissolve this negativity. Letting go simply means to stay in a space of allowing, letting the negativity to run out of the momentum and fizzle away in force. Letting go is similar to the pointer of “do nothing”, just stay as space, and the negativity will soon dissolve. The science behind this is simple – life is a space of pure positive vibration and hence it does not support low vibrational states, the only way to sustain a low vibration state is for you to give energy to it by your belief/attention/focus, so if you simply stay in an “open awareness” the negativity will automatically dissolve since it’s not supported by life.
So, awareness and letting go need to work hand in hand in order to dissolve negativity. Without the power of awareness you may not be able to detect resistances and negativity in you, in a clear manner. In the absence of the attitude of letting go, and staying open, you cannot release the negativity because you will continue to stay latched on to it by trying to suppress it or fight it. For example, when a negativity arises in the mind and you feel negative about it (like when you fear it or hate it) you are basically fueling the negativity; this is one reason why techniques don’t work because all techniques stem from the base that you fear/hate the negativity, and the truth is that anything you hate/fear will keep sticking around because you are indirectly fueling it. If you just stay as a space of openness, the negativity will have nothing to hold onto and it will soon just fizzle away on its own, as it’s not supported by the vibration of life.
The attitude of allowing what arises to arise fully (which is what letting go means) comes from a place of love, not from a place of fear or hatred. Allowing is just another name for unconditional love. So when you simply stay allowing/surrendered/open when the negativity arises, it will soon lose its hold on you and will dissolve – yes, it’s unpleasant for a while to allow the negative energy, but as a grown up you have the capacity to handle this discomfort for a bit. Only love/openness can dissolve negativity because love does not fuel negativity. If you fear/hate negativity, you are indirectly fueling it – it’s a simple logic. By love, here, I just means openness – not the emotional love that your mind imagines. So when I say stay as open awareness or relaxed awareness, it just means stay allowing, don’t look for escapist strategies, don’t try to hide from what arises, even the strongest fear/negativity is not as overwhelming as you think because all thoughts/emotions have a limit to their intensity and they are all temporary/fleeting. The more allowing you, the more easily they dissolve.
Hi Sen,
Been reading your articles for a while and find a lot of wisdom in it. Thank you for that.
However i feel that this particular article doesn t resonate with me as being truth. U say awareness is a part of the brain. I think a lot of so called enlightened people will disagree with u on that. I also feel awareness goes beyond the brain. For example u had a article a while ago talking about a woman that had a after dead experience which are fearly common it seems. While there is no activity in the brain whatsa ever anymore. Awareness didn t seem to be gone. With other words awareness doesn t need the brain can be a conclusion taken from that. Also u say when u are young there isn t much awareness. But isn t it so awareness is always there. otherwise no experience can be there noticed even. It just isn t noticed because it is formless so can not be identified. Because we are cought up with all the ego thoughts etc, u just don t notice there is something behind the thoughts etc. I don t wanna go into all the non dual discussions. And everyone has a different viewpoint offcourse. But interested to know how u came to the conclusion awarenesss is situated in the brain while it seems open for discussion.
Again love ur articles as a long time Eckhart reader and they also give me some clarity in moments of doubts and negativity. Just wanted your viewpoint on this.
All the best
I am not sure if you did not read this particular passage in the post – “The brain is inherently connected with the wholeness of life, it’s not isolated, and life-energy is also an aware energy – so in that sense the awareness of your brain is connected with the awareness of the wholeness of life-energy, this is how you connect with wisdom, instinct, intuition and inner-guidance. The stronger the awareness in your brain the more receptive you are to the intelligence of life, because when your brain is more aware it connects more firmly with the awareness of the wholeness of life.”
Life is an aware energy, and it’s self aware, and you are this life-energy so you continue to be self-aware even when the body drops. But the body obviously has a brain that has an awareness center also – I mean when you say someone is “unconscious” you know that their brain is no longer aware. When someone is brain dead you know that that the brain is no longer aware – you can pinch the body and the brain will not feel anything in that body. When someone gives you a drug, or you drink too much alcohol, you may talk to people without having much awareness of it – this is what I mean by low awareness of the brain. Just look at it scientifically. You are the aware life-energy, but you are also the brain right now in the waking state. It’s the brain that’s reading these words, and it’s the awareness in your brain that dictates how deeply you sense these words. People how have a low awareness in their brain cannot comprehend a lot of depth in life, they just lead a surface-level life. So when I say increase the power of your awareness, I am talking about the awareness faculty in your brain, so that it can connect more deeply with the awareness of your life-energy. A low awareness brain cannot be receptive to the intelligence of life in many ways.
When you are 3 year old child, your brain has no awareness and hence does not record anything. Your brain does determine your physical experience, and if you have a low level of awareness in the brain you obviously have a low awareness of your life as this physical body. When you develop the capacity for awareness in your brain, you have a deeper experience of physical life. As you can notice, awareness grows in the brain, the awareness your brain had when you were 3 years old is different from the awareness it has when you are 30 years old. There is awareness in life energy, and there is awareness in the brain of the body. Just ask yourself what changes when you drug a brain or when you take too much alcohol? Does not the awareness in your brain reduce?
Hi Sen,
I am a mental health worker, and I find these articles and other theories very useful in my work with clients, particularly in order to understand what is happening for myself and them. What I struggle with however, is being able to explain this to people. A book that I have recently read that really seems to compliment what you are talking about is ‘The Happiness Trap’- by Russ Harris. This book goes into descriptions of ways to practice using awareness or your ‘observing self’ and I feel that it could be useful for people to read if they are wanting a more practicle explanation.
Have you come accross this book Sen? Just thought it would be good to mention it, to add to your resources.
🙂
Jess, I’ve not read this book but I checked out its website and found this description in its foreword – “Note: this book steers well clear of popular but non-scientific approaches, such as ‘positive thinking’, ‘positive affirmations’ and ‘self-hypnosis’; although such techniques may make you feel good in the short term, they simply do not work in the long term.” and I gather that it talks about awareness, so it should definitely be a good book giving a deeper understanding of the mind and alignment.
Dear Sen! It seems to me that in total awareness we feel pain, sadness and etc. In the state of unconcsious or less awareness, like when we were kids, they are more joy and more happiness. so why would you say we have to look for total awareness.
Paddy, Awareness is what gives you a “choice” towards letting go of negativity, in the absence of awareness you have no choice. When you are aware, you can make the choice to let go of negativity by seeing through it, when you are unconscious you can become a prisoner to negativity (a good example of unconscious behavior is abuse and violence), when one has awareness one has wisdom and depth. When we are unconscious, during our childhood, we may be joyful now and then, but we are also totally “dependent” on the outside influence, plus we are at the mercy of the circumstances and we don’t have the capacity to choose our own alignment – we just feel forced into whatever others feel is right for us.
To say that you would prefer being unconscious is like saying you would like to “sleep” through all your life. If I actually gave you the option of having your awareness removed, I don’t think you will choose it. Of course, as awareness grows for a while you become aware of the reality of life around you in a deep away, that includes becoming aware of the negativity which is in you and around you, but this awareness helps you become a more mature person to handle the reality while also allowing you the freedom to consciously let go of negativity by not identifying with it. Your brain presently might have a lot of momentum of negativity, and the only reason it gathered so much negativity is because you were unconsciously lost in fueling it for so many years – so as you can see, unconsciousness is at the root of fueling negativity.
Awareness is the power through which you can consciously choose to let go of negativity and become free of its influence on you. I understand that you are feeling overwhelmed by the negativity of the mind and hence want to switch off your awareness, but instead of thinking in this manner you can see how the power your awareness in facing the negativity without fear. When you are unconscious you are at the mercy of fear.
Negative thoughts and racing thought enter my mind all day long. Having trouble staying focused on anything. Have tried meditation but unable to keep thoughts at bay for more than a few seconds, even while trying to focus on my breathing. Had trouble with anxiety this past summer and the excessive thoughts have been hindering me since. The negative thoughts have really destroyed my self confidence. I’m trying to be we more aware of my surroundings with out much success. Would love to be able to let go of all the negativity. Grew up in that kind of situation with very little positive reinforcement and anxiety disorders and OCD run in the family. Would love to be able to “let go” and find peace of mind and happiness.
Ken
I am also interested to receive a copy of Sen respond to Ken question dated Feb. 10 at 9:48pm about Negative thoughts and racing thoughts. specially regarding OCD run in the family.
Ken, your whole approach to your mind is rooted in fear, no wonder the mind seems to dominate you. To try to focus on breathing to find an escape from the mind is a sure sign that you are highly afraid of the mind. The ostrich has this tendency of putting its head into the sand anytime it sees something fearful coming towards it, and techniques like focusing on breath are like that, it’s a bid to escape through hiding, and it evidently doesn’t work in the long run.
What happened to you as a child was not really in your conscious control because you did not have much awareness back then. Childhood is a phase of unconsciousness, and this means that you blindly take on a lot of negative influences that they are around you. But now, you are an adult, childhood is done with, but the negativity that you accumulated during your childhood phase obviously still remains in the mind (as negative thought patterns) and in the body (as negative energy) – I call this the momentum of past negativity. Before you can get aligned you first need to let go of this past negativity and there is no “short cut” to it, the only way to let go of the accumulated negativity is to “pass through” it consciously. When your awareness touches a negativity, it starts bringing dissolution to it. By awareness I mean “open awareness”, not your habitual interest/belief/attention to negativity. After so many years, you have just developed a habit of reinforcing negativity by either running away from it or fueling it with belief/attention – when you are running away from the negativity, it’s still fear and hence it just keeps reinforcing the negativity.
The deal now for you is to understand that the peace that you desire is below the cloud of negativity, and the only way to get to it is by dissolving this cloud by passing through it – you can’t dissolve this cloud by trying to ignore it or trying to escape it. The way to pass through this cloud is to consciously become “open” and allow it all to come up. It’s like opening the lid on a high pressure bottle, for while the steam has intensity but soon it gets released and there is just space. It’s like what happens when you release a “spring”, for a while it jumps around and then it comes to a stable state. So when you let go and release the suppression, the negative energy will come up for a while (sometimes intensely) but soon it fizzles out and then there is no more intensity. When you understand that there is no shortcut, you finally become ready to be fully allowing in your being – I agree that initially its unpleasant when all the negative energy is getting released, but you an adult, not a child, and you can allow for this discomfort for a while. You don’t have to do anything, if you just stay relaxed all the negative energy will come up on its own and be released – it’s a simple state of letting be, of allowing fully, of just being for a while and letting the past negativity to dissolve.
Sen,
How come as a child life seemed to be more fun and full of magic? Is it because kids are always more in the moment, and don’t really care about what other people think?
Luka, childhood is a phase of physical life and it has its flavor of experiences. Adulthood is another phase of physical life with it’s own brand of experiences, the only problem is most of us, in own mind, keep clinging to our child identity not allowing ourselves to live out our full potential as a adult human being. Childhood is a phase were the brain has low awareness, you don’t know much beyond your own little space and you are fully dependent on the adults for your existence, if the adults provide a sense of security the child feels happy, if the adults create an environment of hostility, the child feels anxious/sad – basically the child has no sense of conscious choice and is totally at the mercy of the outside influence. Of course, children are innocent in the sense that they are “naive” about the world in terms of their understanding of it, and though this ignorance allows them to be unconsciously joy, it also means that they can get exploited at any point due to their lack of awareness.
Adulthood is a different phase, the brain has more awareness and hence is more aware of physical life and of world around it. Adulthood also brings the experience of being self-sustained for many, it brings the experience of responsibility, of contribution and creative expression that adds value to the world. This phase also allows you the independence to choose your life (like choosing to align with your heart’s calling) rather than following the dictates of other adults, but very few of us actually exercise this power of choice because in our minds we are still holding our “child identity” which makes us want to constant meet expectations and seek approval of the outside. When we fail to make the choice to align with ourselves, and start living according to an outside influence, that’s when life starts feeling dull, stuck, stagnant and monotonous – it loses its magic. The fact that you have the power of awareness as an adult means you can consciously align with yourself and lead a life aligned with your natural expression, which makes you feel joyful, connected with the well-being of your life-stream – this is what is truly fun, because now you are awake and enjoying, as a child you were mostly asleep, in a daze due to low awareness in brain.
I do understand however, that lot of people are not using their awareness to become free of the mind, because they are not willing to explore the power of awareness, they still hold on to their child-identity shrinking away from the fearful thoughts of the mind instead of allowing the fear and becoming free of its influence on you. So it’s important as an adult to let go of child-identity and be a full adult who is not sitting in fear but gets into a place of feeling free of any negative influences.
I read your article on awareness, it was really informative and practical. But one doubt i have , when i am aware of what is going in my mind, i have no clue of what to do when a lot of agitation occurs in my mind, and due to this i lost interest in whatever activities i am doing. So , how to deal with agitations of mind.
Parsuram, before you can even indulge in life fully you need to have a balanced/stable mind, which is free of agitation and restlessness. So the first priority for you is to allow the momentum of negativity in the mind to slow down and ebb away in intensity – the only way to do that is to just stay in a space of relaxed awareness and allow the mind to run out of its momentum. Of course, it takes time and this time depends on how much momentum your mind has from your past attention to its negativity. There is no short cut, to just make the mind stop its momentum, you need to allow it to dissolve with time by staying as a space of awareness – anything you try to suppress it or silence it, will only fuel the negativity further because suppression inherently comes from fear, and fear fuels fear. To stay as open awareness is like staying in a place of love and allowing the mind’s momentum to ebb away. Once the mind’s intensity ebbs away, it won’t have this energy of agitation, and thus you focus on the activities you enjoy without the mind being a source of disturbance.
Thanks for the explanation. From now onwards i will start to observe my mind without indulging in the -ve thoughts or destructive thoughts . Now i understood that it is all because of the fact that i am suppressing particular thought without consciously being aware of it or sometimes i am indulging in that thought an taking action on that thought and thereby giving life to that thought and allowing it to dominate in my mind. Thanks again for the beautiful explanation, i have completely understood what you have said.
Sen
I have a question regarding awareness. There are moments when we can stay as a space of awareness and observe our mind in movement. However, as you have mentioned in one of your posts, many times it does happen that we are lost in thought by being totally identified with it but when we collect ourselves we recollect the thoughts we were lost in. So as you say awareness is always their in the background, which enables us to recollect the thoughts we were lost in. If then we introspsect on the kind of thoughts, we can then come to conclusions about the nature of mind and its attachements, negativity, etc. My question to you then is this:
What is the difference between this after the fact knowing (which I think is rooted in the ever present now of our awarness) about the thoughts that have coursed through the mind and the knowing that would attend to us when we our awareness is actually aware of the action when it is taking place (i.e when we are actually aware of thoughts in the mind at the moment they are coursing through our mind).
Thanks!
Sanjay
Sanjay, the brain is machine designed for physical living and it executes the job well until it starts holding on to negativity, or when it starts opposing its natural calling/expression – this usually happens when one is unconsciously lost in the brain without any space of awareness. The brain references itself as the “I”, and this what the ego structure is. The ego structure is a necessity for physical living, but the problem arises when the ego becomes a source of resistance when it becomes imbued with patterns of fear, hatred and lack, and when your awareness is totally lost in the ego’s pull.
When awareness is completely lost in the ego, there is no space available to see through the negativity present in the ego – this is what unconscious living is. Awakening simply means to wake up from the trance of being lost fully in the ego or brain, and have a space through which you can see through the negativity present in the ego/brain. If you realize that you have a space of awareness, that means you’ve woken up from total identification with the mind/ego. This space of awareness keeps growing steadily, until it feels very stable – that does not mean that you will be acutely aware all the time, it just means that you will not be fully lost in the mind all the time, you will always keep becoming aware – and the periods between being lost in the mind keep reducing. In simple words the space of awareness keeps coming in more and more, ensuring that you are not totally lost in any unwise egoic perspective because awareness by itself is a field of wisdom.
It’s not required to be aware all the time, some activities need that the brain is totally involved and its fine for the brain to be lost in thoughts now and then. As long as awareness keeps coming in, its enough, because this ensures that you don’t end up in the grip of negativity for long. With time the periods when you are totally lost in the mind, will keep reducing, with spaces of awareness coming in regularly, ensuring that wisdom is dominant in your life.
Sen
Thanks for the reply. Another point I wish to bring to your notice is this. You have mentioned that we should be fully allowing of our negativity. I think many times we have no choice but to be allowing of whatever arises albeit unconsciously. By that I mean, there are times when an emotion like say anger comes up and we are totally overwhelmed by it. We could be all by ourself when this emotion arises and overwhelms us and might even act it out in words or action coz there is no one around us to check or judge our beahviour. Sometimes this ends up in people throwing or hitting an object. So wouldn’t you say in this instance we are fully allowing the emotion. In fact we are the emotion. I know you have mentioned that we are to allow the emotions in our consciousness but not in our actions but in this case no harm is done even when we play it out in our actions since no one is around at that time. The emotion remains for its natural duration and then ebbs away. Is this a good way of working out the unresolved emotions? We are in no way suppresing it in this case. In fact we can’t suppress or control it. If the point is that we have to be aware of our anger then it might not be possible all the time. I would like to draw an analogy to drive home my point about the difficulty of being aware though I concede analogies are not always approrpriate. But to get my point across, let’s say someone practices being aware for 1/2 hr day. They set time aside and watch their mind and not try to suppress anything. However, when a real time situation arises when one is engaged in an activity and the emotions arise, the same person might not be able to bring his or her awareness to what is happening inside them – atleast not immediately. This is like people going through a fire-drill. In a fire-drill, people are told how to keep their cool in case of an emergency resulting in a fire break-out in the premises. They are told to assemble at a nearby designated location immediately without panic and instructed to find their way out of the premises by taking the nearest staircase. Elevators are to be avoided. During a fire – drill people are relaxed and do follow the instructions to safety. However, when a real fire breaks out, not many would follow such safe protocol. Sometimes they cannot even follow it even if they want to. They might be in a hopeless situation. You can expect people to run helter skelter, do whatever it takes to gather their key belongings and even run over other people to their own safety. Some might even risk jumping from great heights to save their lives. People might forget helping others. All this based on their survival instinct, which is natural. They can’t be blamed for acting this way. So I sometimes feel the same way regarding the practise of awareness that when I am putting time aside to stay as a place of relaxed awareness it can work but when a situations arises outside of the time I have set aside for this kind of practise it does not necessarily come to my aid atleast not immediately. It could take sometime before I become aware of the situation andwhat is happening inside of me as a response to that situation. May be with a dedicated practise everday, the stability of awareness will seep through to the rest of the day and in all activities. Please do not think that I am making intellectual excuses for not wanting to do the practise of staying aware. I just had this question come up in me. Again I apologize for using the analogy of a fire – drill since it might not be appropriate and fair to answer to but it was possibly the closest I could think of about pointing to my predicament.
Thanks!
Sanjay
Sanjay, during the initial stages, as you start opening up, when you let go of suppression and control, a lot of suppressed energy starts coming up and also the momentum of the mind goes high for while (since you have released your hold on it) and all this can seem a bit overwhelming. The fact that you are consciously letting go means that you are have some stability in your awareness, and hence there is wisdom, so if there are some expressions like throwing a tantrum on your own it’s totally fine. Soon the intensity of the release will come down and you will feel a lot of stability in your being. Right now you may feel as if the stability that you feel when you are practicing relaxed awareness is not present when you are engaged in your activities, but this is because you are in early stages of developing a depth/stability in your inner space. Soon your inner space will keep clearing out the negative energy and start feeling more spacious/light/open on a permanent basis – it’s not something you need to keep practicing. Relaxed awareness is only a “temporary” practice to allow for the growth of awareness and the release of past negativity – it’s not something you will keep doing forever. The very mark of “stability” is that its permanent, but one comes to stability through dissolving the instability, and this takes time.
Great question Sanjay, not really sure I understood question but the explanation of spaces of awareness not needing to be there constantly was very timely for me!
Thanks Sen!
Sen,
During initial stages of awareness(phase where negative thoughts losing its intensity), I somehow feel i can’t be aware all the time.. its like in a vulnerable state… when I come to this site and read your blogs, i will be all charged up and feels good and motivated within.
As our daily activities starts and if mind start sensing few negative thoughts( predominantly from past memories), again will come to kind of back to square 1 state. Is it natural to feel this way in early stages? Once we attain the complete awareness, is this venerability factor go away completely or it will be still there but powerless?
Sat, vulnerability to the thoughts of the mind is basically just a sign of lack of stability and depth in your inner space – and this stability comes in gradually as awareness keeps growing in you and as the momentum of past negativity keeps ebbing away as you keep letting go. There will come a point where you don’t feel vulnerable to the mind movements in any way, just like the depth of an ocean is not affects by the ripples of waves on the surface.
Sen,
Having trouble with staying in the present, along with the negative thoughts. How do I become more aware when most of my awaking hours my mind drifts into the past or the future? When I catch myself being not in the present what should I do or not do? Having a hard time preforming even the simplest tasks because of this lack of concentration.
Thanks,
Ken
Hi sen. im not sure if im really aware or not. Ive been observing my mind for over two months now and i feel the momentum is still very high. Ive been following this blog for a few weeks.I(m noticing two things about my mind. Firstly the thoughts. I cant actually observe them as they are playing. Mine tends to be like past or future conversations or scenarios where i am in them. I become aware of this and feel a snap out of it. I dont get shocked as much as i used to but the thoughts stop as soon as im aware. What happens next is the feelings associated with it linger in my body.Even an image without thought gives me body rushes. Sometimes its quite euforic and other times like a knot in my gut. About this time my mind wants to analize the thought, answer it figure it out etc. Its a different part of my mind doing this and im guessing its the “me” identity you talk about. I can observe this part of my mind easily now, occasionally it gets me answering or solving the thought/dream but most times lately i let go of it.This voice now quotes from your blog and tells me to just be aware etc, can you believe that haha. Its not only during meditation but all the time, its like ive opened up something that wont stop.I want to get to know these thoughts but to do so i have to deliberately go back to it but isnt that focusing on it and giving it more energy.Im feeling the urge to really let go of everything but when i do i find myself lost in the thought, snap out of it, want to analize it over and over, its a pattern that goes on all day. I get moments of no thought occasionally and find myself snap out of that in the same way. What do you think might be going on here. It makes me very tired by the end of the day, also very frustrated. I feel sometimes im just playing a game with my mind here and its going no where. Im getting really tempted to do some cbt or positive thinking exercises as friends including my ex are doing this and seem to be enjoying life more than me at the moment. But something keeps me here, the truths you speak i cant deny and you ask for nothing in return.
stonez, you are seeing some progress in your growth in awareness, and it will continue to grow in stability with time. You need to be patient with the process, after all it’s not a “quick fix” but a permanent freedom from the mind momentum. Positive thinking can work when you have a lower awareness (when you can be blissfully ignorant of the depth of life), and it can work for your friends, the question is does it work for you? If it does, then use it – it’s about what works for you. Don’t try to keep that as an option that you are denying yourself of. You will notice that you have to work with “your” mind and your awareness, and you can’t simply copy what works for someone else – basically, feel free to try any techniques that you feel can work for you. It’s just that one eventually reaches a point where none of the mind games work well enough – that’s usually the right point to enter the state of allowing. The state of allowing brings you to a place of being free of the mind’s pull, which means that you no longer need the support of positive thinking because you are no influenced by its negative thinking – it’s a place of conscious freedom.
For a while awareness will keep growing in intensity, and it can be exhausting because you become more and more aware of the mind’s thinking, and emotional surges in you. It’s part of the process. You would just need to ride it out, be allowing of it all.
Thanks heaps sen, u are really helping me.
Im finding when im on my own i can allow my mind to do its thing, somedays better than others but im getting familiar with it. There are times now when i do it for the curiosity or to feel my spaciousness, but still there is an underlying intention to escape the pain to be honest. Im coming to accept it will take time. My troubles mainly occur in social places. I get triggered by seeing my ex everywhere and get pulled in hard. It feels like its setting me back everytime. I have expressed too much anger and victim behaviour to my friends and im a bit embarrased by it. Some are pulling away from me and spending time with her. I tried again the other day to face it and went to a social thing. My mind was flying with thoughts of her and how im acting. Im good for about an hour then it overwhelms me. I dont want to be that guy in the corner who looks miserable. i dont think its helping me to be out socially. Is it ok to take tine away to find stability on my own or is this running and not facing fear.I have a high mind momentum atm which i accept so following what feels like joy in the moment i dont trust yet.eg. An offer to go out, it can feel bad but is that because its not in my life strean or is it out of fear. Something feels good is it for me or am i doing it as a feel good junkie. What u think?
Stonez, don’t concern yourself too much with all the “symptoms” of a high mind/emotional momentum that you are observing in you right now – like anxiety around your ex, anxiety in social situations, your tendency to complain/crib around your friends, etc. These are all just “symptoms” of a high mind momentum. Just continue to work on the state of allowing and with time these symptoms will get erased on their own as the momentum of your mind ebbs away – it’s takes time, you need to give yourself that time, and during this time you have to allow the symptoms of your imbalanced momentum to have their place in your life, it can’t be helped. The best pointer would be that you let go of clinging to the “good feelings”, along with the “low feelings”, for now – you can of course allow the good feelings along with the low feelings, without overly identifying with either. As the mind momentum ebbs away you will sense the “wholeness” which feels like a permanent state of “good feeling” because there is no resistance, and there is no fluctuation between the highs and lows, this stability is the natural state of being. For now just practice the state of allowing (possibly for 30-40 mins a day) until you start sensing a deeper connection with your space of being.
Thank you so much for simple yet clear and straight explanation to a difficult questions. Sen, after reading one can make out that awareness can increase to great extent. More the awareness less the problems/attachment. If we have more & more awareness as I have experienced (I do not call myself very aware but have been able to openly accept my fears & anxiety which has come down over years) that it becomes a kind of monitoring on self & self thoughts. I would love to get rid of this state of mind.
Specially, when going to sleep, I am still aware that I am not getting sleep, I am still thinking etc. Is this not over awareness ? or is this another fear ? How do I get rid of this so that I can easily sleep ? Can you throw some light on this?
Andy, your main problem is the overreaction to the over thinking, if your mind is going 100 miles a minute, just let it do that. There have been times in these past 4 months or so of release where my mind does that and its’ momentum is insanely high and rapid, but when I don’t react to it, it calms down in about 20 minutes and I can actually feel the momentum dissolve. So, all in all, just don’t pay so much attention to it.
Thanks Michael. Perhaps, the only way out is not to be part of the noise. You are too meaning the same. The difficulty is in its implementation. Anyway need to practice.
After reading the above article from Sen, I got to know about the book “The power of Now” by Eckhart tolle and have started reading. It seems, its going to help a lot.