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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Being Consciously Aware

By Pamela J. Wells

When you are consciously aware, you are 100% present and consciously aware of your thoughts, what you are doing, what you see, hear, smell, feel. You are fully present and not off somewhere else in your mind. You are not thinking about the past or the future. You are mentally present and aware of what you are doing at that moment. If you are washing dishes, you are 100% present and consciously aware of washing the dishes. You are not mentally distracted by something else. When someone is talking to you, you are 100% present, consciously aware of what they are saying to you. You are listening to every word that they are saying and not thinking about something else. Conscious awareness involves the mind and being alert, being aware of what you are doing or thinking or seeing in the present moment. Awareness, by itself, does not involve the mind and thinking. What I am talking about is conscious awareness. I will discuss awareness in another article.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk, teaches the Art of Mindful Living, which is being awake and aware to the present moment—what you are doing and who you are with—whether you are washing dishes or driving your car, you are mindful of what you are doing. You are mindful of even the smallest tasks: walking, sitting, eating, and brushing your teeth. Being consciously aware or mindful of what you are doing at any given moment is a great way to relax and calm your mind and be fully present in what you are doing. Thinking about other things, such as dwelling on things that you need to do, or thinking about something that happened in the past, or worrying about the future, only causes stress. 

Copyright © 2012 Pamela J. Wells. All Rights Reserved

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Love of One & Love of All Merge Together in Love

~Excerpt from I Am That: Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj




Questioner: In order to find the reality, one should discard all that stands in the way. On the other hand, the need to survive within a given society compels one to do and endure many things. Does one need to abandon one's profession and one's social standing in order to find reality?

Maharaj: Do your work. When you have a moment free, look within. What is important is not to miss the opportunity when it presents itself. If you are earnest you will use your leisure fully. That is enough.

Q: In my search for the essential and discarding the unessential, is there any scope for creative living? For instance, I love painting. Will it help me if I give my leisure hours to painting?

M: Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else.

Your difficulty lies in your wanting reality and being afraid of it at the same time. You are afraid of it because you do not know it. The familiar things are known, you feel secure with them. The unknown is uncertain and therefore dangerous. But to know reality is to be in harmony with it. And in harmony there is no place for fear.

An infant knows its body, but not the body-based distinctions. It is just conscious and happy. After all, that was the purpose for which it was born. The pleasure to be is the simplest form of self-love, which later grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing standing between the body and the self. The constant noise of the psychic life is absent. In deep silence the self contemplates the body. It is like the white paper on which nothing is written yet. Be like that infant, instead of trying to be this or that, be happy to be. You will be a fully awakened witness of the field of consciousness. But there should be no feelings and ideas to stand between you and the field.

Q: To be content with mere being seems to be a most selfish way of passing time.

M: A most worthy way of being selfish! By all means be selfish by foregoing everything but the Self. When you love the Self and nothing else, you go beyond the selfish and the unselfish. All distinctions lose their meaning. Love of one and love of all merge together in love, pure and simple, addressed to none, denied to none. Stay in that love, go deeper and deeper into it, investigate yourself and love the investigation and you will solve not only your own problems but also the problems of humanity. You will know what to do. Do not ask superficial questions; apply yourself to fundamentals, to the very roots of your being.

Image: The Artist 2 by Fran Hogan at publicdomainpictures.net