Awareness

The level, and the highest so far discussed, of consciousness known as awareness is unlike absorption or attention. When you are aware you know that you are in the moment. The question is how can you come into this moment of awareness? To come into the present moment, one of the best ways is to get "in touch" with your whole body; the outside as well as the inside, both at the same time. The feeling of the whole body is often referred to as "feeling presence." Once you have felt presence you have found the ultimate teacher and your awareness can expand to include the environment and everything around you. In other words, as your experience of being in the moment increases so will awareness.

When you understand the self and the ego you will realize they are not what you are. As I have mentioned several times, the self is who you think you are - your name, occupation, fears, desires and so on: in essence, all of your personal values and feelings.

Remember your mandala that you made in the previous posts? That represents your self. Don't forget to look at it from time to time. Your mandala will bring you closer and closer to knowing your self better than anything you can use. Learn to use your mandala often.

The ego is an extension of the self; an exaggeration of some or all of these values and feelings. The self is basically innocuous, but the ego becomes more and more pathological as it becomes larger. The relationship between the self and the ego can be likened to the deadly nightshade plant (belladonna). The purple flower of belladonna is harmless but the black seeds it produces can cause hallucinations and even death. The self, like belladonna's flower, is not dangerous while the ego, like belladonna's toxic seeds, can be deadly.

This discussion will be continued tomorrow.