Figuring out who you are

In figuring out who you really are, way down deep inside, you have to be truly honest with yourself while going through the following assessment. 

First of all, you will take a look at your way of being. This is an inherited characteristic that goes back many thousands of years. It is what you value being as a person in your day-to-day living. You cannot change your way of being but you can recognize it and understand it if you are willing to take an honest look at yourself.

Answer this question; who and what do you consider yourself to be: unique, special or important? These are the three different ways of being. Let's take a look at each one of these ways of being.

Unique means that you consider yourself to be one of a kind, with nobody in the world like you. You value being different and you look at yourself as being in a class all by yourself. You like being unique because you can be as carefree as you want, be whatever you want and to heck with what anybody else thinks. You may dress or wear your hair like no one else and that's okay because that is who you are. You may also drive a unique automobile or live in a unique house and that is okay too because these things make you feel good. 

If you don't see yourself as being unique then you might see yourself as special. As a special person, others make you feel like you really matter. If it weren't for the admiration that someone or some people have for you, you might feel worthless You may consider yourself a jewel - a person of high value and great worth because of what others say and think about you. As a special person you are indeed a diamond in the rough. 

Important means that all you need is to feel good about yourself. You take pride in accomplishing things, getting awards, trophies, plaques and so on that make you stand out or feel good about yourself. When you do something you do it for the satisfaction of pleasing yourself and not necessarily to please someone else. The fact that you can run faster or jump higher than someone else is all you need to feel good. You don't need to have others tell you that you are special or unique.

Can you see which one of the three ways of being you are?  If you can't, then take some time to contemplate the answer by observing yourself over the next few days. You might think that you are two or even all three of the ways, which is sometimes the case for some people. But, remember, only one is more dominant than the other two, so it might take some time to decide which one you are.

Which do you value the most; being unique, special or important?

In the next blog we will take a look at how you value relationships.

Know your self

The self is the "I," "Me," "Mine," etc. we call our self.  It is our thinking, our body, our emotions, our ego, and our feelings. The self is who we think we are. It is that person we see when we look in the mirror, the person whose emotions and pain we feel and the person whose thoughts keep us awake at night. 

Due to nature and nurture we all exhibit three major values. We value how we see ourselves (way of being), how we value our relationships with others, and how we manage our lives (doing). All three of these values are important to understand if we really and truly want to know our self. 

We are going to go through each one of these values, step-by-step, so we can truly understand our self. It is important that we be 100% honest and true to our self while studying these values. We must have the ability to "see" our self the way we actually are, not how we imagine our self to be, what we think we should be or want to be.

In the next post you will be able to figure out what your personal values are and by knowing your values, you will begin to see and understand who you truly are.

Factors that determine who you are

"Conscience is a state in which one cannot hide anything from oneself, and it must be developed." It is "buried very deep down in us and asleep." P.D. Ouspensky.

Who we are and why we do the things we do are basically hidden.  We have to look deep down inside the conscious mind and well as the subconscious. There are two factors that determine who we are  and why we do what we do.

One factor, is our inherited characteristics that have been determined thousands of years ago by our ancestors. The possibility of any one particular sperm fertilizing one particular egg calculates out to one in 800 million, and that's during just one sexual encounter. For example, you are who you are because of a one in a six billion chance from seven generations ago. Think of that. Think about how very, very unique you are. These are your innate (nature) characteristics.

In addition to genetics, the environment plays a large part in who you become over your lifetime. How you were taken care of as a child, your education, friends, foes, play, work, money, health, etc.; all play a big role in who you are. All of these, very important, influences play a big role in who you are. These are called nurture.

Combining nature with nurture gives you almost an infinite number of possibilities for one individual's characteristics.  Who you are is not only unique but a miracle as well. You are a miracle. 

Next:  How we get to truly know ourselves.

Self Observation

Self observation is the key to understanding yourself and that is why practicing mindful meditation is so very important.  Mindful meditation is "simply" the practice of being still and watching thoughts as they come and go; not trying to get rid of thoughts but just watching them. 

Watching the mind and your reactions to your thoughts is a good way to understand how your mind responds to different situations. By knowing how your mind works, you can then get in touch with your self. As you probably know by now, noticing feelings is easy once you get past the chattering mind. Sit and breathe slowly in and out. Simply notice any feelings, thoughts and sensations that may arise.

The longer you pursue your meditation practice, the better you will become at understanding the workings of your mind. Once you've opened up and have become genuine with yourself, you will begin to know who you are by paying attention to any emotion that happens to come up. Let the emotion be felt without resistance and if a thought appears, pay attention to it as well and just let it be. From emotions can come meaning and meaning is what you are after in order to get to know your self; the person you call "I." 

Next, we will take a look at the two factors that determine who you are and why you do what you do.

Observing yourself subjectively

To observe yourself subjectively means to notice, inquire and get in touch with the way your are - to understand why you do what you do - how you see yourself as a human being. This does not mean the way you want to be, imagine yourself to be or should be but rather, who you are in reality. Not many people can do this nor even want to.

To truly know yourself takes looking deep inside and understanding emotions, feelings, beliefs and thoughts. And in order to do that you have to learn how to impartially observe yourself. The process and practice of getting to know your self through self observation is the beginning of self transformation.

To self observe means to get in touch with how you react to different kinds of situations in everyday life. You know how you have reacted to certain situations in the past. When someone asked for help, did you try to help them or did you avoid them? Do you like to attend large gatherings or not? Do you like to be looked at? When someone on a side road wants to get in line in front of your car do you nudge forward or do you let them in? Do you feel annoyed when a baby cries or do you feel as if you should find out what is wrong with the baby? These are everyday occurrences which we all react to one way or another. The way you react can tell you a lot about yourself. Deep down inside we all know our feelings; most of us just haven't taken the time to look closely.

Next - How to observe the self.

Savasana

In the Yoga Sutra, written by Patanjali, there is little mention of doing yoga poses (asana). In fact, there are only three lines dedicated to doing asana. Patanjali suggests using a posture that is steady and comfortable and to focus on being totally relaxed. "Use an asana that is steady and comfortable. Focus your attention on being totally relaxed and you will have freedom from dualities" 2:46-48.

That was some 5,000 years ago. Today there are literally thousands of different asana from which we can choose to incorporate into our yoga practice. Let's begin by looking at the pose suggested by Patanjali - a steady and comfortable pose.

What may be steady and comfortable for one person may not be for another person. So, let's take a pose that most of us might agree on that is steady and comfortable - a supine position (lying on your back).  Savasana  (Shaa-vash-naa) or "corpse pose" is usually done between a series of poses (vinyasa) or as the last pose at the end of a yoga session. Savasana is also sometimes referred to as the resting pose.

Although savasana is a non-moving pose, one where you are lying on your back, is not easy to do because of the mind. Even with all great intentions of not having your mind wander; in a fairly short time it will take on a mind of it's own, hardly without you realizing it. "Oh, I forgot, I need to call Julie right now."  `

There are two things you can do when your thoughts encourage you to get up from savasana: 
  1) Recognize you are having a thought, dismiss it and stay in savasana.
  2) Act on the thought.

The whole idea of savasana is to see through the charade, let the thought go and stay in the pose. This practice gives you power over your thoughts and the more you practice the more powerful you become. The ability to recognize thoughts and decide to act on them or not is a very powerful tool for everyone. Staying connected and in control of your thoughts, your reactions, actions, and emotions improves the power of the Self - the ultimate mind. 

A New Mind

There is no way the thinking mind can perceive reality. It's difficult to go beyond the thinking mind because of the ego. The ego and the self are intertwined and when the mind expands into the universe with a flow of energy, the ego drags it back to the self like a bungee cord.

To go beyond thoughts one must go into the void, between thoughts. The void is the space of reality because it is a space of no thoughts and no ego. Within the space there is silence - a silence free of old way of thinking. It is necessary to go into the silence if you are to experience reality in its truest sense.

The thinking mind always has a question and always wants an answer.  In order to go beyond the conditioned mind you must develop another way of perceiving;  a higher sense you might say. 

The new perception comes from the complete understanding that you know nothing. The mind must be empty of all preconceived ideas, prejudices and desires. The new mind is formed on the void and opens to new perceptions and responses. Brand new pathways are formed in the brain leaving behind material embedded in the old memory. Being free from the past, the new mind is allowed to see beyond the confines of the imprisoned self that cannot go beyond the ego. 

By existing in the void and free from old thinking a new reality emerges. Simply exist in the new reality and relax into it for as long as you like.

The wall of tensions is the wall of my ego.  The impulse to look into the depth of oneself is an indispensable step in the evolution of consciousness.  Nothing is either certain or pure without this.
   - George Gurdjieff -

Deeper into Energy

To tell the truth I didn't know where this post was going when I started it. After the last post and meditating on it for some time, I've come to the conclusion that energy is not a single thing but a multitude of things; electrons, quarks, photons, feelings, vibrations, emotions, thoughts and so on. Looking at all the things that various people say about energy it looks like energy is what makes up the universe or is actually the universe.  

It is like trying to answer the questions - What is God? What happens when we die?  What is infinity? What is the mind? Energy is much greater than our ability to figure out what it is by trying to use the thinking process. Something small cannot understand something larger.  That is why the intellect can never understand what energy is exactly. It is just too large for the mind to understand.

All we can do is relax and enjoy it. 

I'm looking forward to the next blog post.  I wonder what it will be about.  Hmmmm.

The Presence of Energy

George Gurdjieff (1866-1949) was a Russian mystic, philosopher, and yogi that spent many years studying and teaching what has become known as The Fourth Way.  Gurdjieff was obsessed with finding a way to become permanently connected to a higher power or "force" as he often called it.  He said, "A new feeling must appear, the feeling of being. This is a new energy, a conscious force that needs to be present if I am not to be retaken by my automatism." 

Gurdjieff found himself wavering between being "asleep," as he called it, and "awakened," living momentarily with the higher power. This wavering put him on a path to find a way to stay awake and not fall back into the sleeping state of consciousness. His cohort and long-time follower, Jeanne de Salzmann, wrote a book that consisted of her notes while traveling with him over many years throughout Russia and Turkey. In her book The Reality of Being, Gurdjieff is quoted as saying, "It is only in and through the body that energy can act. In order to feel these vibrations, I must come to a real stillness of the body, a state without any tension where the thought is simply a witness."

Once the mind is still, the body will follow. In both qigong and yoga, energy can be felt when both body and mind are quiet. It begins as a tingling in the fingers and progresses into the arms.  If you are really still, very calm and totally aware you might feel the flow of something throughout the whole body. That something might be, could be, energy. In qigong it is called "qi" (che) and in yoga it is called "prana."  

Qi and prana are said to be the ever present and infinite energy of the universe; of which everything, everywhere is composed. But yet, these qigong and yoga practices, like modern-day science, don't say exactly what that energy is. Science refers to it as some kind of subatomic particle and esoteric mystics and philosophers call it a "force." 

Next, we will take a deeper look into this mysterious force called "energy."  Hope to see you on the next post. 

Energy II

When a person talks about energy there is usually a vague sense of what is meant by the word "energy."  For instance, if Sam says, "I feel really low on energy today," and Sally says, "There was a lot of energy on the dance floor last night," are they talking about the same kind of energy?  You could say that Sam is talking about internal energy and Sally is talking about external energy.  Or maybe Sam is talking about potential energy and Sally is talking about kinetic energy. Or, does it really make any difference what kind of energy they are talking about?  

In the last post we talked about energy as it relates to science. In science, energy is considered more of a material thing that can be measured such as gravitational energy, light energy, chemical energy and biological energy. On the other side of the coin there is an esoteric view of energy, where energy is understood to be an entity found everywhere and in every thing and not labeled as anything in particular.

Qigong and yoga are both an art and a science in that they have been studied and practiced over thousands of years and have developed into intellectual skills that take some time to master.  Also, they both deal with energy.  "Qi" is Chinese for energy and in yoga the word "prana" refers to a life force that surrounds and permeates all things both animate and inanimate. In the Western world prana is, more or less, understood to mean "life force." 

More to follow.

Energy

In the scientific world, energy is considered to be made up of subatomic particles - electrons, photons, and so on. These subatomic particles are said to be in constant motion and are seen, measured, and felt as material particles. 

In the science of biology, energy is considered to be electrons stored up mainly inside mitochondria, small organelles inside cells. Potentially, electrons are attached to various atoms and those atoms are attached to other atoms forming molecules such as water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, glucose, and so on. When these various molecules break apart, due to enzyme interactions, the electrons are set free and move as kinetic energy as in chemical reactions. These freely moving electrons are what produce heat, movement and also help build other molecules such as tissues (bone, muscle, tendons, etc.), enzymes, hormones, and life itself.  

In the field of physics, energy is defined as the ability to do work, which doesn't say a lot about what it actually is. Energy is considered to be a property of matter, space, objects and fields and cannot be created or destroyed.  Energy has something to do with gravity, electromagnetism, and electricity. Electricity is said to be the movement of electrons as in lightening and their movement trough wires.

In chemistry as in biology, energy is seen as moving electrons. When molecules, which are made up of atoms, break apart, electrons are set free and produce movement, heat, light and so on. All 118 elements (atoms) on the periodic table are depicted as having a nucleus, made up of neutrons and protons, orbited by electrons. The bigger the nucleus the more the atom weighs. Hydrogen having only one proton and one electron is the lightest and oganesson, a synthetic atom, the heaviest with 118 protons.

So, the common denominator in modern science, as far as energy goes, has to do with electrons. This, we might say, is the materialistic point of view, which is okay, but doesn't reach down deep enough into the aspect of exactly what energy is.

Let's leave modern science and go into the more esoteric fields of  qigong, yoga and tai chi and see what they say about energy.  Hope to see you in the next post.

Energy; what is it anyway?

Sometimes I'm full of energy and feel like I can run and jump forever and then there are times when I am so tired and have no energy.  What's up with that?  Where does this energy come from and where does it go? I wonder. Does it come from the food I eat, the air I breathe, or from somewhere else?  I wonder. 

Labeling the amount of energy we have from 0 to 10 we might say sometimes we are at a level of 10 and other times almost zero.  Energy, energy! It is such a strange thing, a phenomenon you might say.

Energy can be classified as inert, potential, kinetic, electrical, light, and on and on but the names don't say anything about what it is, really. 

I want to look deeper into this strange thing we call energy - deeper, much deeper. Come with me, if you will, and let's explore what it is and how we can get more of it.

In the next blog we will delve deeper into this phenomenon called ENERGY.

Cosmic Consciousness

We left off on the last post with using our imagination to view infinite smallness and infinite largeness. We did that by looking at them separately; one and then the other, but if you can imagine infinite smallness and infinite largeness at the same time, you are experiencing cosmic consciousness. 

Cosmic consciousness is the feeling and the realization that everything within you and outside of you is infinite. Your mental imaging can link you with the cosmic mind beyond space and time and allow you to experience something that five senses can never do.

As I practice cosmic consciousness I experience my mind expanding more and more into awakening to the universe.

Cosmic Consciousness

In my way of thinking, imagination is a good thing.  You don't have to agree, but stay with me for a little bit and let me show you the power of imagination.

Try using your imagination to view the vast universe in which you live as being not only outside your body but inside it as well. The ability to do this is called cosmic consciousness. Begin by focusing on the back of your hand and imagine one skin cell. Inside the skin cell is liquid plasma and a membrane-bound nucleus. Are you still with me?  Okay, let's go a little further.

Go inside the nucleus and there lay rope-like chromosomes; within the chromosomes are molecules of DNA that look like strands of coiled beads. Take one of those beads and imagine going inside it. Inside the bead are atoms that resemble miniature solar systems. You can see a nucleus with electrons orbiting around the nucleus. Inside the nucleus are protons and neutrons. Focus deeply on one neutron and go deep into it. See that it is made up of even smaller particles and they in turn are made up even smaller particles and on and on into smaller and smaller particles continuing indefinitely, never ending, smaller and smaller.

Wow!  That's what the imagination can do.  It is fantastic!  Let's keep going on and see where this ends.

Come back and look at your hand for a while. Now, look around the room and then look out a window or go outside and look up at the sky. Imagine going beyond the moon and sun, out into space and beyond the stars. Keep going beyond the stars into black empty space one hundred billion light years away - on and on. 

Continue going further and further out into the universe.  There is no end. The universe is infinite just like going down deeper and deeper into smallness of your hand.

We will continue with this magnificent imagination on the next post.

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View Mind as an Object - continued from last post

As suggested from the last post, if you were able to view your thoughts for three minutes or more you are above average.  The average person cannot watch his/her thoughts for more than two minutes without giving up. 

The brain is built to think and it does a very good job of it.  Sometimes too good of a job to the extent that it becomes over active causing all kinds of problems. 

So, it's important for all kinds of mental and physical reasons to practice quieting the mind by simply observing it. As time goes on, with practice, you can increase your time observing thoughts and with that your mental and physical well-being.  

Good luck and I wish you success in your practice.

View the Mind as an Object

The mind is what divides humans into different "I's" which are not connected with one another and they usually never meet.  One "I" knows one thing, another "I" knows something else, a third "I" yet another, and so on. Since they never meet, their knowledge cannot be brought together into any kind of meaningful way. This is the normal state of the average human.

I am a teacher for awhile, a student, a father, a husband, a friend, a painter and so on. I play different parts depending on the situation. When I am not playing any part, who am I? All of the "I's" that I play in everyday life disappear and then I become no one in particular. I become just me.

When you are just you, you may feel bored, irritated, tired or maybe even a little confused. This is the perfect time to become a scientist and view the mind. When you are playing parts you don't have time to be a scientist of the mind. Prepare yourself; take a warm bath, put on some comfortable clothes and relax. 

Sit in a comfortable chair and close your eyes. Breathe slowly in and out and allow your mind to wander and do whatever it wants to do. Don't try to control it, just let it do whatever it wants to do and simply observe it as though you are disconnected from the thoughts.

More to follow on the next post.

Continuing on from last post - What is the Mind?

Scientists use objectivity and not subjectivity to analyze nature. That is why they use double-blind studies. Scientists look at nature (the object), form a question and then an hypothesis, do an experiment, collect data, and come to a conclusion.  Judges at a beauty pageant, on the other hand, don't use objectivity. Each judge forms his/her own evaluation on each contestant based on the judge's values of what constitutes beauty. If they were to use objectivity in the beauty contest they would, for example, take into account each contestant's height, weight, bust size, waist and hip measurements, number of skin blemishes and so on. 

Usually in objective evaluations precise measurements are required. In both objective and subjective evaluations there has to be an object. If there is no object it is almost impossible to have any type of evaluation. The mind is an object in that it can be emotionally felt and seen as thoughts. When a person says that he is having a hard time making up his mind, what does he mean? Is he stupid for saying that about something that can't be seen or measured?  No.  He says it because the mind does exist. When a person says that he cannot wrap his mind around the idea of infinity is he out of his mind?  No.  He actually can't wrap his mind around the idea.

So, how do we separate ourselves from the mind and view it as an object?  That is the subject of my next post. 

What is the mind?

For someone to experience their mind they would have to do it subjectively. There is no way one can do it objectively. This is the beauty of the question and the beauty of the experience. It is strictly a personal experience, one that can be expressed verbally and in writing. However, it isn't easy because it requires the person to view his own mind. It requires the person to separate himself from his mind and view it as an object.

It is very important to understand that, although the mind cannot be seen, it can be experienced. Many people get caught up in the idea that material things are the only way to experience life. Material things are fine but not the final answer to what is reality. Light, gravity and sound are not material yet they are definitely real and can be experienced just like the mind.

To be continued on next post -