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Posted on February 8, 2012 by Sen. Powered by Translate

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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 Search

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 MOST VIEWED ARTICLES

“awareness”.
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Where does awareness originate from? Law of Attraction

Look back on your life and think about how aware you were of your Understanding What Ego Really
existence when you were 6 months old, 1 year old, 3 years old, 5 years Is

old, 10 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old and 25 years old (I am Integrating Your Light and Dark
assuming majority readers are above 25). If you are like most, you Nature
wouldn’t have much awareness of your rst 10 years in this body – in
Dissolving the Negative Ego
fact you may not recall anything of your rst 3 years. Also, if you are like
most, your life mostly felt like a daze till at-least 20 years if not more. The Ego Always Finds a Way to
The reason for this is simple, till the rst 10 years of your life your brain Be Unhappy

is not very developed in the faculty of awareness.

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CATEGORIES
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 Effortless Creation (15)
on myself (by upsetting the tea kettle) when I was 3 years old and had
Enlightenment (35)
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 Law of Attraction (10)
awareness when I was 3 years old, so it looked as if I was moving
Living Abundance (53)
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 Living in the Now (7)
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 Power of Thoughts (18)
conditioning and deriving all my sense of identity from the ego
Pure Consciousness (24)
structure.
Relationships (7)
Actually, it was only after I read the book “The power of Now” by
The Mystery of Life (41)
Eckhart tolle, that I realized how unconsciously I was living because this
was the rst time I was introduced to the pointer of “awareness”. In Understanding the Mind (125)
simple terms, awareness is your ability to observe without needing
thoughts. We automatically feel the need to label everything we Wisdom in Daily Life (57)

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 ABOUT
your surroundings as a pure observer without
About Sen
judgments/interpretations – basically awareness is this power of pure
observation. Thoughts create interpretations, feelings create emotions Contact
and events are again created by thoughts in the mind – all of this can
be observed in pure awareness. Donate

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 rmly 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.

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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 di erent intention. Of course, there are many
humans whose level of awareness is no di erent 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 t 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 su ering. 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 ampli es 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 ampli ed 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 bene t 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
ood 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 zzle 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 ght 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 zzle 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/ eeting. The more allowing you, the more easily they
dissolve.

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29 Comments

bk
February 8, 2012 at 10:59 pm

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

Sen Post author

February 8, 2012 at 11:30 pm

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?

Jess
February 9, 2012 at 12:29 am

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.
 Sen Post author

February 9, 2012 at 12:57 pm

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.

Paddy Nikbin
February 9, 2012 at 8:26 am

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.

Sen Post author

February 9, 2012 at 11:40 am

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.

Ken
February 10, 2012 at 9:48 pm

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

Paddy
February 11, 2012 at 7:44 am

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.

Sen Post author

February 11, 2012 at 10:36 am

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.

Luka
February 11, 2012 at 7:42 am

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?

Sen Post author

February 11, 2012 at 10:17 am

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.

Parsuram Samal
February 11, 2012 at 10:06 am

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.

Sen Post author

February 11, 2012 at 4:15 pm

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.

Parsuram
February 11, 2012 at 8:45 pm

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.

Sanjay
February 12, 2012 at 4:35 am

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

Sen Post author

 February 12, 2012 at 11:57 am

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.

Sanjay
February 12, 2012 at 6:00 pm

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

Sen Post author

February 13, 2012 at 11:12 am

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.

Treeter
February 12, 2012 at 11:23 pm

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!

SAT
February 13, 2012 at 7:53 am

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?

Sen Post author

February 13, 2012 at 10:57 am

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.

Ken
February 13, 2012 at 9:36 pm

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

stonez
July 26, 2012 at 9:02 am

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.

Sen Post author

July 31, 2012 at 2:32 pm

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.

stonez
August 14, 2012 at 4:03 am

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?

Sen Post author

August 20, 2012 at 12:45 am

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,