Continuing from the last entry, let’s look at
the Observer or Witness state of consciousness, Self-Awareness 2+ or 3:
If
conditioning is not too strong and there is an underlying urge for
self-discovery, we can see a new state of awareness arising. This may be
because of an inherent, deeply-felt experience of separateness from the Universe,
or produced by rejection of a mediocre life, or by traumas or disease or
frustrations finally forcing the person to question and analyse his or her
life.
What happens
is that there is an incipient realisation that neither the body nor the mind
itself is really all there is to “me”, and an occasional group of “I-sensations”
stand out from the rest and start to position themselves as the Observer, Witness
or Watcher of the actions of the mind.
We can represent
this state using the following diagram of Self-Awareness 2+ or 3:
With study
and knowledge, and perhaps outside support from sensible people, our bodily
urges are distinguished, our feelings and emotions are analysed and found to be
produced by our own wrong thinking, and our thoughts begin to be analysed and the basic
distinctions are made. Our “I-sensation” often sees how thoughts come, feelings
well up from thoughts, and bodily urges and desires are produced. We watch
these and struggle to “be aware” of them, and the initial separation in the
mind-stuff is made and a reordering is effected, if we are lucky!
In the
diagram above, Self-Awareness is still in a box of its own, on the left-hand
side, meaning it is not always accessible or available (as when we are “lost”
in the automatic flow of thoughts or feelings…) and in parenthesis, meaning it
is not a permanent tool we can use at all times. It is also lower down in the box,
as it is not necessarily our priority at all times, because it is difficult to
re-train the mind and “be aware” of every moment – it takes energy to do this, of
which we do not have enough.
Alone or
connected?
In both
cases, above in S-A 2+ and in the original S-A 1 covered in the last Diary Entry, the “mind box” has a crooked line and a question mark to the left.
This is an important part of the picture, although it is a question, because most
psychological or mental diagrams are shown as “self-contained”, or individual
units supposedly corresponding to a human being’s mind. This cannot correspond
to Reality, because the mind can only function if it has a source of power,
and this source of power is not simply derived from the body’s nutrition, but
comes from the “unknown source” behind or within the mind – which is basically what all religions point to, and yogic science purports to be true.
If not,
then no movement from the “physical” to the “spiritual” is possible, and
therefore Life only has meaning insofar as society provides it, which is an absurd
proposition and against all reason and logic.
We are
conjecturing that since there is a Universe to be known, we are already physically
and mentally (and spiritually) connected to it, but we do not realise this – our awareness is
not high enough or strong enough to perceive or "realise" this connection. But the connection does exist despite our ignorance of it. It
is called LIFE, and this is what fuels our machine from the inside. No Life or
source of power? No Existence, and hence no Awareness! The inner fuelling of
the mind comes from beyond our individual consciousness and seems to drive us forward
or inward to seek for this source.
More coming soon...
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