Awareness Throughout the Day

A Course in Tranquility Lesson 13 of 14– Awareness Throughout the Day

The weather bothers many people.  You may have noticed, that sometimes it is too cold, or too hot, or too humid or too dry. No matter what state the weather is in, someone can complain about it. The weather patterns are caused by a multitude of factors, such as time of year, solar activity, the movement of tectonic plates, the flapping of a sparrow’s wings, your car ride to work, etc.

Our life experiences are like those weather patterns. Sometimes it rains when we want to play outside. Sometimes the sun shines beautifully when we are stuck at a desk finishing a report. Sometimes it’s fifty degrees and all the snow has melted, on the weekend of our ski trip.  Sometimes our weddings have the perfect breeze and bluest skies. Sometimes our fishing trips couldn’t be more crisp and temperate.

Our minds are like those weather patterns. Some days we are struck with motivation and courage. Other days, we are despondent and don’t see the point. Some days we are in love, and not a thing can go wrong. Other days, our anger comes out at the drop of a hat.

Just like the weather patterns, our life experiences and mental states are often the result of an infinite number of factors. Our past choices influence our future experiences. Our collection of negative experiences, turns our mind darker. An abundance of luck and opportunity, keeps us thinking positively. The planets, past lives, any thing we can imagine, can have an effect on our experiences and our mind.

These are all external factors. A child sees thunder and lightning and rain outside, and says, and protests, “But I don’t want to go outside!  I don’t want to get wet!”. An adult sees the same weather patterns, and reaches for her rain coat, umbrella and rain boots. She goes about her day, and still doesn’t get wet. A child sees ice and snow across the the land, and says, “But I don’t want to get cold!  Don’t make me go out there.”  The adult puts on his winter jacket, wool hat, gloves and insulated boots. He goes about his day, warm.  Note, how it didn’t matter the cause of the weather.  What mattered was the response.

As we grow in wisdom, we learn that we do not necessarily need to be overly influenced by the weather patterns of life situations or mental states, just as we do not need to be unduly influenced by the weather patterns of nature. Now, it is obvious that some “severe weather” needs to be respected, no matter what the case, but all-in-all, with wisdom we learn how to move through life and take the necessary and useful actions to prevent the weather from slowing down our lives.
Meditation

On numerous occasions, I have experienced the power of meditation to change my state of consciousness.  I may have been experiencing a passing sadness, frustration, or confusion. Not knowing what else to do, I meditated. I used the techniques I know, with intention, and really gave my self to the process. After completing the techniques I sat in the silence, with my attention in the higher brain centers (The Spiritual Eye and Crown of the Head). Almost like magic, I felt the mood lift.  I felt my confusion replaced with an inspiration to take action in some way. The very act of sitting, meditating, and waiting, cleared away what ever temporary storm cloud was blinding me at present.

Waiting in the silence is where the transformation occurs. You practice the technique to reign in your scattered awareness. Your awareness has lost its power because it is focused on too many “what if’s” or “could be’s”. From here, the moods can settle in, because the awareness is not concentrated or light enough to move through or rise above them. Once the awareness is concentrated by the practice, it has risen above the influence of the difficulties you perceive. From this “higher” vantage point, your much vaster Self, with connections to the wholeness and wisdom of life, can send a breeze of inspiration, to get your ship back on course. Your inner tranquility resumes its rightful place as the center of your awareness.

Short Term Spiritual Memory – Long Term Spiritual Memory

Have you ever been in a physical situation you did not like? Have you ever been ill or injured?  Have you ever found your self in a relationship that was draining and debilitating? Have you ever been in an unsafe environment? What did you do in these situations? Hopefully, you acknowledged your present circumstance, and then looked for a way out or a solution to your circumstance.

I’ve noticed that in situations like this, when there is difficulty in the external world, most healthy minded people seem to remember that before the difficulty arose, there was a peacefulness and happiness in their life, and they do what is necessary to return their experience to that natural state of ease. If they are sick, they go to the doctor. If they are in an unsafe environment, they leave. If relationships are harmful, they cut the relationship off, and find more pleasant people. There is a sense of memory here. By remembering that there was a time when things were comfortable and good, we do what is necessary to restore that equilibrium.

I have also noticed, that, even in seemingly healthy minded people, there can be a disconnect in this process, when it comes to their mental/emotional/spiritual states. Let us say that a mood comes upon a person. All of the sudden, the person cannot even imagine what it was like to be happy and calm. Their minds sink into quick sand, and they are paralyzed. They forget that just an hour before they were happily moving through life. Now they are in darkness, and they do nothing to move through it. They sit in the darkness.

Even from a spiritual perspective, there are times when our minds are filled with light and wisdom, and our intuition is humming as we move spontaneously in the world. Then for whatever reason, our wisdom shuts down. Once again, we are stuck in mental patterns that cannot grasp or accept the wholeness of life as our very being. We start making decisions from a fearful, unbalanced point of view.

It is common to think that we have no control over these situations, and that we just have to ride them out. This thought creates that reality. Then we are helpless, and adrift on a sea of uncertainties with no tools or instruments to guide and steer our course. The reality is, that as we are embodied, we will be subject to cosmic weather patterns. The reality also is, that there have been countless awakened souls in this world, who have realized this. They created, for us, umbrellas, rain coats, winter jackets, scarves, gloves, boots, etc, for us to move through those weather patterns. These are in the forms of meditation techniques, and awareness practices, and scriptures, and wisdom.

A deeper factor of confusion, is identification with our STATES of consciousness, rather than identification with consciousness itself. When you are in a bad relationship, or in an unsafe environment, it is easier, to know, “Hey, this isn’t who I am. In fact, this is dangerous to my embodied self, so I am going to get out of here!”  Since our thoughts, emotions, and states of consciousness, seem to be internal, as if they are who we are, it is not so easy to shake those off, because why would you want to shake our ‘self’ off anyway?

Our emotional states, common thought patterns, and regular states of consciousness are the building blocks of what we call the personality. The personality is really just the organized pattern of behavioral characteristics that your ‘soul’ is expressing through. Yet, from a little kid, we are taught this is who we are, and that we have to defend and sustain this ‘character’. What happens after that is we go through life, trying to sustain this idea of our self. We come upon a situation where we need to act out of character, because it is appropriate, and we do not. We maintain our idea, at the expense of being inappropriate.

Imagine that you have been taught that you are a good person. You are nice and kind to everybody. You make everyone feel good and give them what they want. It is totally out of character for you to do anything to hurt someone else’s feelings. You have been accepting and reaffirming this personality for 35 years. Yet, one day, you meet a person who is cruel to you, and is about to cause you a lot of problems. Your personality is strong!  You feel dissonance, but I should be nice to everyone, you think. I should give this person what he wants, because to deny it, would make him feel bad. It’s five years later and you are now in a codependent relationship with someone who always professes they love you, yet by their actions often makes you feel bad, either through verbal or physical abuse. You can’t leave, because that would make them feel bad.  They love you after all, and you are not a personality that makes waves.

That is a bit of an extreme example, but it happens on more benign levels every day to every one. Because we are more interested in sustaining a consistent personality, we create more and more problems for our selves, and the world.

This occurs, because we have forgotten that we are not our thoughts, emotions, reactions, and states of consciousness. We have forgotten, that we are the consciousness, the space, in which all of these things manifest and then fade away.

By listening to an awakened person, or noting how they move through life, we can see that no matter the circumstance, it is possible to remain, balanced, poised, calm, and even peaceful. This is our natural state. We can pay close attention (closer than even our infatuation with discord) to those times in our lives when everything feels right and in harmony.  We can note how we feel after being with an even-minded person, or in a holy environment, or on top of a mountain with the quiet sun shining on us,  or how we feel after a deep meditation. We can remember, this is our natural state. We can reclaim it as our natural state.

When the cosmic weather patterns change, and we notice a frustration, anxiety, discord, anger, or despondency creeping across our awareness, we can acknowledge it.  We do not claim it for our selves, or even define our selves by it. We can say, “Ahh, here comes some rain and hail in the form of this state.” We simply acknowledge the weather pattern rolling in. Then we can ask, “Since I am familiar with this state, what might be a good thing for me to do, so I can go about my life naturally, without be unduly influenced by it?”  You pause to contemplate for a moment. You remember that the last time you felt a depression coming on, that it worked really well to go to the gym and work out. You noticed you felt one hundred times better after that. You may remember, that the last time you were feeling overwhelmed and confused, that you went into your meditation chamber, and meditated, and then prayed, and then asked for divine grace to flow through and assist. You remember, that after that, you were able to deal with your situation more easily.

The main point of all of this, is to start giving more attention to the times when you feel calm and collected and aware, remember those times, and then when your internal environment starts to develop some unpleasant weather patterns, you begin to acknowledge that those internal difficulties do not define you. From there you remember what helped you deal with those situations in the past, and then take action. Develop your long term spiritual memory.

Every Moment

Every moment there is awareness. Every moment, you are aware of something. That doesn’t mean that you remember everything from every moment, but know you are always there.

Within this manifesting world, change is the constant. Some experiences seem very repetitious and similar from day to day, but the fact is that no moments are exactly the same. Not even your personality, no matter how hard you hold on to it, is the same from day to day.

We can take this knowledge and accept it. Now our expectations will not be shattered. We know the truth. We know that trying to recreate anything from the past, is futile. We stop wasting our time in that way. We stop imagining, that if only we had the right combination of ingredients we could return to that state that was so wonderful before.

Now that our awareness is free of expectations and the wrong use of our imagination, it becomes empowered. It’s energy can be directed to what is actually happening around us. We can see with clear vision. We can respond to the changing world with confidence and precision.

Imagine someone on the ocean waiting to surf. They are out on the ocean waiting for a wave. Yet, their mind is absorbed in that one perfect wave they road three years ago. All of their thought is bent on feeling that slight warm breeze from the south that preceded that perfect wave. They are watching the horizon, waiting for the sun to hit that magic degree that brought about that beautiful experience. And as they wait for the recreation of this long past, now unreal experience, wave after lovely rolling wave passes them by. The surfer misses the thrill of thousands of waves that are actually there, all because of absorption in the past, a now unreal reality.

When we are identified with simple awareness of our consciousness we respond appropriately to every circumstance, and see clearly the current state of reality around us. Whatever you experience through out the day, let it flow through you. Do not latch on to it, or try to identify with it. If you are going to identify with anything, let it be the space in which all your experiences occur. This also applies to your internal experiences. Your thoughts, emotions, memories, and states of consciousness arise within you, yet you are the space in which they arise.

At first this can feel wrong or unnatural. That is only because you are used to identifying with circumstances and personality traits. I’m not saying its easy either. It takes practice. If it helps, remember those times when you were in deep sleep. There was no personality or thought there, yet YOU persisted. So you can survive this. You will not cease to exist. That is often the common fear. Your personality may change its state, into something more wholesome, and in tune with the infinite, and by that standard, the you you know will cease to exist. But the real you always remains.

(Note: You can say that you did not exist in deep sleep, but it’s not true. If you didn’t exist then, how you are still existing now? It’s more appropriate to say, that you don’t remember existing in deep sleep. If you think about three days ago, do you remember every second and every action that you took? Just because you don’t remember existing then, doesn’t mean you didn’t.)

Practicing a Single Truth

A useful tool we can use throughout our lives to move us into this state of awareness and tranquility is practicing a single truth.
According to Vasistha’s Yoga we can experience tranquility and an enlightened state by adopting one of two mental positions. The first mental position is, “I am nothing. Nothing I see, experience or do, is me.” The second mental position is, “I am everything. Every thought, action, person, God, Goddess, experience, creature, and thing is me.”

#1 “I Am Nothing”

According to Nisargadatta Maharaj, to hold to the mental position that I am nothing, is wisdom. You become the space in which all things occur, and then not even that. You are awareness itself. You are aware of everything that passes through your field, yet you know it is not you. No longer identifying with anything, when things change, you are not disturbed. You are free.

#2 “I AM Everything”

According to Nisargadatta Maharaj, to hold the mental position that I am everything, is love. Now there is nothing which you are not. No matter what anyone does to you, you are doing it to your self. No matter the weather patterns, it’s ok. It’s just you anyway. Every concept of the divine is your very self. The smallest atom, to the vastness of the universe is you. You are doing everything, because you are everything. Here your mind can expand beyond its small confines, and thought itself becomes unnecessary, because as you can see, everything is happening without thought anyway!

What does this do to the mind?

Our problems arise when the mind becomes engaged. We believe, we have to think about things, figure things out. We try, and sometimes our conclusions line up with experience, and sometimes they fall far from the mark, and often we notice that correlation between the two is random.
The mind is for storing information. It is for balancing your check book, writing a coherent letter, or planning a house, or calculating a physics equation. The mind is not meant for figuring things out beyond remembering and calculating.

If you hold the state that “I am nothing”, then you have nothing to think about. Your thinking doesn’t matter. You are in neutral, being nothing. You find that the world continues, even without your thoughts to validate it. Thoughts still arise. You still get up in the morning and make bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yet, none of this is you. You don’t have to think about it anymore. It happens.

If you hold the state that “I am everything”, then you don’t have to think about interacting with the world in particular ways. It’s all you. You continue to learn and grow and change, and yet your thoughts don’t matter, because it happens anyway. You still exist as everything. If someone gives you a million dollars, you don’t have to think about why you deserved it. You gave it to your self. If someone runs into your car, you don’t have to contemplate what karma led to this, it was just something you felt like doing at that time.

Now the mind will resist and rail against this. You may even think this is total crap, and a good way to get out of responsibility for your actions. Well, according to the Gita, you are not the doer of anything anyway. God is the doer. When you claim responsibility, you claim karma. Then you have to suffer the good and bad of your fate. If you are everything or nothing, then it doesn’t matter, you experience your self, as it is. No need for judgment, or reasons.

This does not indicate that you will become a base and vile person either. The natural impulse of consciousness is towards harmony and peace. When you give up identification with mind, through consistent practice of one of these truths, you will find that your actions are actually in accord with a higher process.

Think of nature. The flowers grow. The cows eat the grass. The lions eat the cows. The sun shines. The clouds rain. Sometimes those flowers are weeds, and sometimes they are roses. Sometimes the cows are clearing a field, and sometimes they are destroying it. Sometimes the lion is providing food for his young, and sometimes he is removing a sick or lame cow from the heard. Sometimes the sun shines and brings life to the marigolds, and sometimes the sun scorches the earth and kills people of heat stroke. Sometimes the rains water the gardens, and sometimes they swell the rivers and destroy villages. That is what happens.

If you want to burden your self with responsibility and karma, you are welcome to it. It is your mind that tricks you into thinking this little person is so important, that your responsibility will truly make a difference. By practicing a single truth, until you know it fully as reality, the mind cannot keep a hold on you. Then you move beyond the mind, and act with the same grace and naturalness as the natural world. You realize the “little you” is an expression of the wholeness of life and its cycles, and from this knowledge, your awareness expands until it is fully absorbed by the you that is the wholeness of life itself.

This may seem overwhelming, or far beyond your current scope of understanding. That’s fine. You have to start somewhere, and this is the starting point. Contemplate which one of those truths with which you feel you resonate most easily. Then write it down somewhere you will see it often. Put it in your meditation space too. Put it beside your bed. Put it anywhere you spend a lot of time.

Then, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, imagine your truth as a reality for you. Explore what you might feel like if it was true, right now. Dedicate your self to its practice. You will find as you ripen, the implication of the truth will dawn within your understanding. You will know its reality, just as assuredly as you know your self as a man or a woman. It won’t be a thought or a concept, but a direct experience.

In this way, every moment of your day becomes imbued with tranquility, and divine remembrance.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010

Practicing a Single Truth

A useful tool we can use throughout our lives to move us into this state of awareness and tranquility is practicing a single truth.

Vasistha's Yoga

According to Vasistha’s Yoga we can experience tranquility and an enlightened state by adopting one of two mental positions. The first mental position is, “I am nothing. Nothing I see, experience or do, is me.” The second mental position is, “I am everything. Every thought, action, person, God, Goddess, experience, creature, and thing is me.”

#1 “I Am Nothing”

According to Nisargadatta Maharaj, to hold to the mental position that I am nothing, is wisdom. You become the space in which all things occur, and then not even that. You are awareness itself. You are aware of everything that passes through your field, yet you know it is not you. No longer identifying with anything, when things change, you are not disturbed. You are free.

#2 “I Am Everything”

According to Nisargadatta Maharaj, to hold the mental position that I am everything, is love. Now there is nothing which you are not. No matter what anyone does to you, you are doing it to your self. No matter the weather patterns, it’s ok. It’s just you anyway. Every concept of the divine is your very self. The smallest atom, to the vastness of the universe is you. You are doing everything, because you are everything. Here your mind can expand beyond its small confines, and thought itself becomes unnecessary, because as you can see, everything is happening without thought anyway!

What does this do to the mind?

Our problems arise when the mind becomes engaged. We have to think about things, figure things out. We try, and sometimes our conclusions line up with experience, and sometimes they fall far from the mark, and often we notice that correlation between the two is random.
The mind is for storing information. It is for balancing your check book, writing a coherent letter, or planning a house, or calculating a physics equation. The mind is not meant for figuring things out beyond remembering and calculating.

If you hold the state that “I am nothing”, then you have nothing to think about. Your thinking doesn’t matter. You are in neutral, being nothing. You find that the world continues, even without your thoughts to validate it. Thoughts still arise. You still get up in the morning and make bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yet, none of this is you. You don’t have to think about it anymore.

If you hold the state that “I am everything”, then you don’t have to think about interacting with the world in particular ways. It’s all you. You continue to learn and grow and change, and yet your thoughts don’t matter, because it happens anyway. You still exist as everything. If someone gives you a million dollars, you don’t have to think about why you deserved it. You gave it to your self. If someone runs into your car, you don’t have to contemplate what karma led to this, it was just something you felt like doing at that time.

Now they mind will resist and rail against this. You may even think this is total crap, and a good way to get out of responsibility for your actions. Well, according to the Gita, you are not the doer of anything anyway. God is the doer. When you claim responsibility, you claim karma. Then you have to suffer the good and bad of your fate. If you are everything or nothing, then it doesn’t matter, you experience your self, as it is. No need for judgement, or reasons.
This does not indicate that you will become a base and vile person either. The natural impulse of consciousness is towards harmony and peace. When you give up identification with mind, through consistent practice of one of these truths, you will find that your actions are actually in accord with a higher process.

The Cycle of Life Continues Beyond the Mind

Think of nature. The flowers grow. The cows eat the grass. The lions eat the cows. The sun shines. The clouds rain. Sometimes those flowers areweeds, and sometimes they are roses. Sometimes the cows are clearing a field, and sometimes they are destroying it. Sometimes the lion is providing food for his young, and sometimes he is removing a sick or lame cow from the heard. Sometimes the sun shines and brings life to the marigolds, and sometimes the sun scorches the earth and kills people of heat stroke. Sometimes the rains water the gardens, and sometimes they swell the rivers and destroy villages. That is what happens.

If you want to burden your self with responsibility and karma, you are welcome to it. It is your mind that tricks you into thinking this little person is so important, that your responsibility will truly make a difference. By practicing a single truth, until you know it fully as reality, the mind cannot keep a hold on you. Then you move beyond the mind, and act with the same grace and naturalness as the natural world. You realize the “little you” is an expression of the wholeness of life and its cycles, and from this knowledge, your awareness expands until it is fully absorbed by the you that is the wholeness of life itself.

This may seem overwhelming, or so far beyond your current scope of understanding. That’s fine. You have to start somewhere, and this is the starting point. Contemplate which one of those truths with which you feel you resonate most easily. Then write it down somewhere you will see it often. Put it in your meditation space too. Put it beside your bed. Put it anywhere you spend a lot of time.

Then, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, imagine your truth as a reality for you. Explore what you might feel like if it was true, right now. Dedicate your self to its practice. You will find as you ripen, the implication of the truth will dawn within your understanding. You will know its reality, just as assuredly as you know your self as a man or a woman. It won’t be a thought or a concept, but a direct experience.

In this way, every moment of your day becomes imbued with tranquility, and divine remembrance.