Why Awareness Leads To Self-Mastery

Why is awareness so important?

This question requires me to define what I mean by awareness, because our thinking mind can experience a lot of what we think is awareness. When someone says, “I’m aware of that,” it means they know. They have cognition of something.

This is not what we mean by awareness at The Awareness School.

Let me begin by telling you that it does not mean mental focus. It does not mean being cognizant of something. It doesn't even mean attention in this context.

Awareness requires all parts of us, our instincts, our bodies, our emotion, and our mind in a state of cohesion that produces the capability to take in something objective about ourselves.

In our school, we strive to develop this type of expanded awareness in order to grow our Being.

With expanded awareness, we can take in something that is not tainted by our automatic thinking, our habitual notions, or our conditioned behavior. It is called Self-Observation.

“Self-observation leads to self-knowledge, self-knowledge leads to self-mastery.” - Robert de Ropp (student of P.D. Ouspensky)

This takes practice and effort.

I invite you to question how you see the world and to contemplate how life can transform if we take in information about ourselves in this new way. To strive for objectivity through a strengthened awareness is the way of the mystic, the shaman, and the true seeker.

We gain glimpses of something true about ourselves and thus others. Life changes when we see ourselves objectively.

Imagine that it is not through realization or insight or intuition or outside substances that we gain self-knowledge, but through the ability to witness our own mechanicalness in a present moment. With this ability, we are able to choose from our conscience instead of reacting.

We don't want to think that we can’t see, but until we learn expanded awareness, we just don’t know what we are missing.

This requires us to admit that we live life asleep to our inner experience and to our connection with others.

If we are content to live life from only parts of ourselves, we will continue to bump into our false sense of self. It never adds up to our actual experience and so in comes lots of shame, guilt, and dysfunction.

If we can develop expanded awareness, we start to see that we assume a lot about our experience (self-observation). Through self-observation, we see that we are continually living life through conditioned response.

What does it feel like to see our own conditioning?

We acquire a kind of humility that allows the conditioning to be accepted and assimilated. It frees us from our self-importance and our justification for unskilful behavior. We start to have empathy for others because we catch glimpses of ourselves that are unpleasant, self-absorbed, and that do not serve us or our interactions with family, co-workers. and those around us. If we can see it in ourselves, only then can we recognize it in others.

Holding ourselves accountable, we don’t hold others accountable for our faults.

The only way to hold ourselves accountable, is to see ourselves objectively.

I realize these are hard things to see, but with practice over time, something starts to evolve. An energy becomes available to us that was not available before. We become strengthened in our Essence. The crust of personality can then crumble, thus making it easier to accept the reality that is us.

In our school, this is the main tenet of our practice.

If you are interested in learning the ways of the mystic through expanded awareness, join our 8 week course Practical Awareness as a foundation for living a way of life. You will be pleasantly surprised at how your life evolves.

Visit www.awarenessschool.com for more information about our courses and our community of seekers.

Molly Knight Forde is the founder of the Awareness School and author of Be Present: Reflections Along The Way.

If you are interested in meditation and practices of presence consider taking the Practical Awareness 8-Week Course offered twice a year. For information or current registration, visit: https://www.awarenessschool.com/practical-awareness-2

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