Experiencing Awareness of Awareness

     A very short, powerful guidance to recognize & directly experience - fleetingly at first - who you truly are. You will experience a wonderful difference in your day-to-day life as you learn to stabilize in, see things from, & act from your authenticity, rather than your past conditioning.
    This is NOT a math problem to solve, so relax, feel into this with gentle curiosity as if you were approaching a 1-year old relative or a wild baby rabbit you wished to befriend.
    Read along if it helps and / or listen to Louise Kay's skillful guidance 3:20-7:25 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSxygwMsHU

    “Right now, bring all your attention, fully present, into this moment, and just notice your body breathing, and notice the experience of the body of sensations. You’re already here – right? So, just recognize that you’re here, you’re aware, and let go – this is the paradox – let go of any idea that you need to awaken; that you need to open your third eye; that you need to experience Oneness. Those ideas come from a seeking, from the conceptual me – and they’re also authentic, it’s also incredibly beautiful – but this is the paradox. It’s when you surrender it, and recognize I’m already here, that which is here now is Pure Consciousness. You already are it.
    Now it’s not an experience, because any experience will come and it will be beautiful and amazing but then it will go. So what this is about is recognizing what’s here that’s deeper than any experience. And to recognize that, you simply witness the experiences that appear in the moment. So right now, you observe any thought that comes, so maybe that you’re just being here, present, and then the thought comes like ‘I want to experience full spiritual awakening.’ Okay, then that’s a thought, and then it goes. But you, the witness, were here before the thought appeared, during the thought when it was present you witnessed it, and after it was gone, you’re still here. Now you keep your attention like that, every single moment, of every single day.

    The more you can be with it, the faster the transformation will happen on the level of the human expression. So it’s really a paradox. It’s not about faster or getting somewhere, because it’s only here now, in this moment, and the now is the gateway by stopping and recognizing yourself as the aware witness, and when you live like that every moment, transformation does happen in time on the human level.
    So now you’re recognizing what that feels like, and you just bring your attention back there again, and again, and again, and again, until you don’t even have to remember it – it’s just your natural state. It will start to happen more and more and more when you make this prayer in your heart to life, to the Universe, to God, to the Divine, whatever you want to call it, ‘Yeah, I’m available for this. This is what I want. This is the most important thing in my life. I want to surrender everything to this.’
    Life will support you fully in this. And it already is.”
    Louise Kay “How Can I Speed up my Spiritual Awakening?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSxygwMsHU (below 3:20-7:25)

Of Two Minds

     When feeling 'torn between' two very different yet seemingly valid choices, we might realize that "we are of two minds." We might have difficulty deciding between buying a nicer car for ourself - vs - help our adult child pay for much-needed renovations to their already heavily-mortgaged house.

    We operate at 2 very different but complimentary levels of consciousness:
        1) The common, default, symbolic egoic level (discursive rationality, personal-verbal processing):
            - ideal for: basic self-preservation, practical & scientific matters, manipulating the material world
            - our basic DOING mode – filled with talk & action
            - symbols = language (regular & “self-talk”) & images (real & imagined)
            - egoic = self-referential – centered around a separate “me, myself & I”
                (A quiet ego {“hypo-egoic”} is healthy & necessary; a “noisy ego” is problematic)

        2) A post-symbolic transpersonal level - known to meditators as “awareness”:
            - ideal for: life's most fundamental concerns: love, meaning, depth, values, aesthetics, constant change, aging, sickness & death
            - BEING mode – characterized by silence & stillness
            - post-symbolic = does not use language & images - these get in the way
            - transpersonal = having shifted from primarily egocentric separateness to primarily hypo-egoic, allo- & ecocentric (oneness) way of relating to life

    A healthy, balanced, meaningful life clearly requires that we learn to shift effortlessly between either level of consciousness, to most appropriately serve the needs of the present moment. This is an important skill we learn - directly, experientially - during meditation practice. https://jglovas.wixsite.com/awarenessnow/single-post/2016/03/22/two-levels-of-consciousness

     Our practice (formal sitting meditation AND informal normal daily life) is basically remember-ing to be intimate with our self, others, life itself. And we do this by learning to "let go of patterns in our mind & heart that violate love & violate openness.
    ... if we sit in meditative silence infused with love, the state of wonder, we intimately taste directly for ourselves for which no words can be found. That’s why we long for the experience to which our words are alluding to, and how to stabilize in it, and how to share it with people.” James Finley PhD https://batgap.com/james-finley/

    • Many fear & rigidly resist change, resolutely clinging to their egoic (illusion of) control. It's very easy to identify completely with ego, misinterpreting any shift from this as life-threatening.
    • Some evolve / mature to high levels without any apparent formal practice.
    • Many are helped by meditation practice - watch Louise Kay's video below.
    • Some “break down to break through” via severe trauma followed by post-traumatic growth. Severe trauma, particularly when it involves "moral injury", can also result in PTSD.
    • Some experience severe psychiatric (existential) difficulties requiring therapeutically-administered entheogens - watch: "How to Change Your Mind" Michael Pollan’s 4-part documentary on Netflix.
    Taking these medicines under optimal conditions (“set & settings”) as illustrated in this documentary, helps “lift the veil” between our ordinary egoic mind & how things actually are (“ultimate reality”). At the same time, these medicines also diminish or eliminate fearful resistance to this fundamental shift in consciousness. Of course the patients with OCD, existential terror, etc in the film felt the urgent need to transcend their current troubled state, which certainly encourages bravery & curiosity.
    I have no personal experience with any of these medicines (entheogens), but recognize that they can provide access to the same path that serious meditators have patiently traveled for thousands of years.

Louise Kay's wonderfully gentle, skillful, very practical approach: 

 

Playing Small Does Not Serve the World

    One of the world's foremost experts in PTSD wrote: “If you feel safe & loved, your brain (is) specialized in exploration, play, & cooperation; if you are frightened & unwanted, it (is) specialized in managing feelings of fear & abandonment." Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.

    We immediately (incorrectly) assume that we're in the first "normal" group, and only a few war veterans & perhaps some severely traumatized first responders fit in the second "damaged" group. What proportion of your day do you feel anxious, needy, alone, uncomfortable COMPARED TO feeling light-hearted, carefree, adventurous, excitedly participating in group adventures? We can EITHER be afraid (hurt child) OR loving (wise elder) - our two basic 'ways of being' or 'operating systems,' - only ONE of which can be running at a time.

    Van Der Kolk writes that all of us have been exposed to a wide variety of traumas. The degree to which traumas have impacted our lives will clearly show by our dominant attitudes & moods. In Westernized societies like ours, I suspect very few of us grow up retaining a young child's innocent trust, feeling safe & loved, playing care-free and exploring the world with an open-hearted attitude towards all. 

    So most of us have endured sufficient direct & secondary trauma to have developed defenses against further injury: physical defenses - contracted, tight, stiff, tender muscles; emotional defenses - walled-off hardened heart, cynicism, suspiciousness, pessimism, fatalism, nihilism, anger, disgust; & mental defenses - left-hemisphere dominant, self-centered, narcissism, materialism. 

    Many of us are locked into this very constricted bleak worldview, so much so that it forms a sense of a very small 'self.' We're so emotionally bonded to this small sense of 'self' that when we're shown that we're so much more, it just makes us angrily defensive. This dark worldview draws our attention to, & magnifies everything that confirms, and away from, & trivializes anything that contradicts our dark, small worldview & self-concept.  

    As Anais Nin & others have said, we see things as we are. Our ego / left-hemisphere craves 'being right,' consistency & certainty, even if that means being stuck in misery. So it's incredibly easy to get stuck in despair & disgust - one just needs to become a CNN news junky. 

 

    It’s essential to remember that our disgust about past & ongoing human atrocities, no matter how justified our anger may feel, is nothing more than transient thoughts & emotions that are best “held lightly” with huge helpings of self-compassion & compassion for ALL. 

    One way to make some sense of this: A wise elder may disapprove of & be deeply saddened by her grandchild's criminal behavior, BUT nevertheless holds the child in safety & unconditional love (instead of hatred & vengeance) trusting that nurturing will bring about even his evolution (instead of giving up on a 'hopeless case' & 'throwing away the keys'). Our justice & prison system clearly need to evolve.

 

    “So long as one is merely on the surface of things, they are always imperfect, unsatisfactory, incomplete. Penetrate into the substance & everything is perfect, complete, whole.” Philip Kapleau. “The Zen of Living and Dying. A Practical and Spiritual Guide.” Shambhala, 1998.

 

    With practice, we can all gradually grow out of the fearful hurt child "fight, flight, freeze reaction" phase of life, and remember to mature back into, & re-assume our true nature the wise loving elder "tend & befriend" & "nurturing" phase. We progressively widen our circle of intimacy & nurturing, which happens naturally as we remember to reconnect with our true nature.

    And the practice boils down to simply noticing when we're once again in a dark place (mentally, emotionally, physically - usually in some combination), and 'sense' our way back to the light by 'deeply listening' (metaphorically speaking) for that within us that is always there, but is very, very subtle, with the characteristics of silence, stillness & peace. So effective meditation is very different than most of us imagined when we started.

    “As we sit quietly without any intention to change things or to have any particular experience we will begin to feel a sense of relaxation that deepens into a peaceful state as we progress. By letting go of wanting peace we begin to see that it is already here. It will be seen in time that all our attempts to get something simply clouds our awareness of what is already here.” Helen Hamilton. “Dissolving the Ego.” Balboa Press, 2021.

    There are excellent current guides to help us shift from chronic existential angst, frozen in anxiety, dread, sadness, hopelessness & meaninglessness into the process of awakening to our true nature. They all have many free youtube videos, as well as books & trainings programs:

    Helen Hamilton : www.helenhamilton.org

    Louise Kay : www.louisekay.net

    Eckhart Tolle : eckharttolle.com

    Adyashanti : adyashanti.opengatesangha.org

    Judith Blackstone : realizationprocess.org

    Stephan Bodian : www.stephanbodian.org

    Dorothy Hunt : www.dorothyhunt.org

    Mooji : mooji.org

 
    Be prepared to meet resistance to attempting this all-important shift, because our dominant ego/left-hemisphere interprets it as an attack on our life! Much like when we were kids & someone called us a "bad name" & we felt as if we'd been seriously physically wounded. Especially at a "mature" stage in life, psychological rigidity tends to dominate - “Can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” BUT if we're interested in maturing / evolving, we know that we have to learn to become psychological flexible. 

    Be very kind & patient with yourself, as when teaching a 2-year old child or a 2-month old puppy. When training yourself, as with little children & puppies, our primary responsibility is to hold the 'student' in safety & unconditional love. 'Success' is the student feeling safe & loved, regardless of whether learning seems to be occurring at all, slowly or quickly. As per the top of the page, the absolute essential conditions for exploration, play, & cooperation are feeling safe & loved.

 

“In this choiceless, never ending flow of life
There is an infinite array of choices.
One alone brings happiness -
To love what is.” Dorothy Hunt 

 

COLIBRI, art by Martina Hoffman

Artist website: www.martinahoffmann.com