Consciousness

Sunday, July 26, 2009 7:20 PM

Consciousness, you see, is evolution's answer to circumstances that change faster than our ability to adapt to those changes. -Donna Eden-

Nathan's notes: In the past our responses to situations became automatic or preprogrammed. Our beliefs reinforce that programming. We tend to automatically react to things based on the way we have always reacted to things. When things work well for us or at least serve a useful purpose, we tend to stay with that automatic way. Once our circumstances change however, our old ways of being may no longer provide results that are satisfactory to us. If we teach ourselves to be mindful, and we can ourselves off of automatic pilot ALL OF THE TIME, then we are beginning to live life consciously and can choose to live life in a non-reactive way. When we re-act to a circumstance, we are just acting in the same way we acted before. By becoming conscious of what we are doing, we can choose to act differently instead.
Also, when we react, other people's illusions and beliefs about life, are pulling our strings, just in the same way a puppeteer causes the puppet to react by pulling on its strings. The puppet may not have any choice but to react the same way it always acted because from one perspective it does not have the capacity for consciousness as we know it. On the other hand, a person does, but much of the time it chooses not to use it by falling asleep. Once we make the decision to use our capacity for consciousness througout our daily lives, the puppeteer may pull on our strings, but consciousness disconects the strings from us, so we do not react and are no longer controlled by the puppeteer. What we eventually learn is that in truth we never were. We were the ones who connected the strings to ourselves thereby allowing ourselves to be controlled by anyone who pulled on them. When one considers that even these strings are an illusion of the mind, we have the amusing situation of an illusion, having illusionary controls, and controlling another illusion (who we think we are)!!! Perhaps, it is our Higher Self who is bringing us into circumstances that change too rapidly to adapt to in the old ways, because by so doing we will have the incentive to become conscious of what it is that appears to controls us. Perhaps then we will realize that it is our very own mind who is the illusionary puppeteer who pulls the attached strings of fear and desire to get us to react and to move. In truth we are attached to an illusion of who we think we are. When we recognize by living life consciously, that we are not who we believe our self to be, then the strings as if by magic fall away and we no longer are affected adversely by changing circumstances. After all isn't this what adapting to changing circumstances means ?

To become more and more conscious in life, we must first look for the opportunities which are literally everywhere all the time. So if you simply get into the practice, of checking in during the day with your thoughts about situations you are in, then you are off to a good start. Also, intentionally start examining your habitual ways of doing things and DECIDE TO CHANGE THEM. Don't continue to do things in a certain way because you always did. Ask yourself, why should I do things differently? Also answer yourself: to become conscious, and experience being free, joyous and at peace. Choose consciousness to no longer be tied to strings rooted in the past or in the future. Recognize that what happened in the past is only a memory and doesn't exist nor does expectations based on those memories that we call the future. If the past doesn't exist nor does the future then reality and all that we know exist NOW. Becoming conscious, places our attention in the NOW. When we live our lives more fully present, in the NOW, we are not affected by situations of the past, or expectations of the future.
When you encounter a life situation that troubling, ask yourself: what is it that triggered your being
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When you encounter a life situation that troubling, ask yourself: what is it that triggered your being troubled? Have you encountered a situation that is similar to one in the past? If so recognize that the past is pulling your strings and your not living in the now but in the past memories of what you experienced and how you reacted. On the other hand if you encounter something that causes you to fear what might happen based on past memories of similar situations, then you are living both in the past and the future. The only thing you can be sure of that is that the doorway to the real and freedom from reaction EXISTS RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW! If you can stay focused on the simple awareness of 'I AM' without adding something, then you will have finally realized who you really are, and circumstance will adapt to you and not the other way around.

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