"The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural phenomena. The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it purifies his heart; for it touches his soul. The earth does not merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact is more than physical contact, it is a living presence. When a man does not realize his kinship with the world, he lives in a prison-house whose walls are alien to him. When he meets the eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony with the All is established." [Rabindranath Tagore]
Christ Returns - Speaks His Truth
The primary comprehensive nature of CONSCIOUSNESS is AWARENESS.
It is not possible to have consciousness without possessing awareness.
All that you see, all that you touch, hear, feel, know is
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS
made visible.
"What is the difference between the soul and psyche? I am now going to explain the difference which your earthly psychologists may dispute, but nonetheless, this is the truth. The Soul is the 'Divine Flame' - a metaphor used to describe the essence of Divine Life which is drawn into individual being at the moment of conception. LIFE FORCE takes on personal form and releases the energy of 'electrical force of activity' and the magnetic impulses of 'bonding - rejection' to embark on the intricate work of construction of the body.
"Therefore, you have, at the core of your being,
this is Divine Intelligence / Divine Love
Which is the powerful Divine Impulse to create, grow, nourish, nurture, heal, protect, fulfill every need, within a system of perfect law and order.
"This is the Reality which is your soul.
"Therefore, when you have overcome the ego impulses and invited the SOUL to hold dominion in your thoughts and feelings, you will be driven to express all of the Divine Impulses described above. You will be possessed by a desire to only promote the highest good of all living things and the universe itself. You will have become a true messenger from Divine Consciousness, expressing all Its qualities of Being.
"Until that time of soul re-unification with Divine Consciousness, the psyche occupies the deepest recesses of your human consciousness and draws its awareness from your soul. It is the hidden instinct within you which knows right from wrong." [Christ Returns - Speaks His Truth, Letter 7, page 166-167, (13)]
Jesus
How does this spiritual teaching relate to New Science? As John Keely alluded to, such clarification of the Heart energy is necessary to guide one on her/his path toward greater knowingness, and its application to good use. This should be the definition of Science: application of Universal wisdom to daily life’s challenges. An increasingly heightened awareness is necessary to deal with increasingly more powerful methods of applying remedies to earthly ills. For example, genetic engineering requires a raised consciousness and conscience about the ramifications and use of the technology. If the technology is developed, what assurance is there that it will be used in wisdom instead of with greed or other misplaced motives? Only the Good Heart can make such an assurance. [Jesus, Good Heart]
Osho
"ONCE YOU ARE CONSCIOUS, THERE ARE ONLY ROSES AND ROSES
LIFE IS A CURSE IF YOU ARE NOT AWARE. Then it is nothing but misery. It is only thorns, not a single rose.
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE there are hopes. And man goes on living because of those hopes - but they are never fulfilled. In the end there is only despair, hopelessness, anguish. That's our whole anguish. BUT THIS TRAGEDY HAPPENS ONLY BECAUSE WE ARE NOT AWARE.
AWARENESS FUNCTIONS LIKE MAGIC: it transforms everything into its opposite. Anger becomes compassion, greed becomes sharing, hate becomes love, the very darkness of life becomes light. And then suddenly one discovers that the thorns were not there outside; they were our projection of an unconscious state. ONCE YOU ARE CONSCIOUS, THERE ARE ONLY ROSES AND ROSES.
The person who coined the proverb that 'life is not a bed of roses' must have been unconscious, unaware, because all the awakened ones say just the opposite: LIFE IS A BED OF ROSES. Hence all that a sannyasin has to do is to SHIFT A GEAR inside himself FROM UNCONSCIOUS TO CONSCIOUSNESS.
AND THE PROCESS IS VERY SIMPLE. It cannot be simpler than it is. In fact because it is so simple, people go on missing it. If it was a little complicated, difficult, there would be a challenge for the ego. But there is no challenge for the ego. Ego is always interested in something difficult. The more difficult it is, the better. The ego is interested in going to the moon, to the Mars; it is not interested in going within oneself.
The process can be reduced into a simple formula: WHATSOEVER YOU DO, DO IT BUT REMAIN ALERT. Walking, watch your walking; eating, watch your eating - just don't go on stuffing yourself mechanically. The mind is somewhere else, you are thinking thousand-and-one things, and the hands go on stuffing and the mouth goes on chewing. That is a mechanical process. You are not aware what you are doing.
IF YOU ARE TOTALLY IN THE MOMENT - ONLY THEN CAN YOU BE AWARE. So forget the whole world while you are eating. Eating, just eat; walking, just walk; listening, just listen; talking, just talk - and remain totally in it, alert, aware of each gesture, each nuance. And slowly you will get the knack of it, the hang of it.
It is not a science, it is not even an art. IT IS ONLY A KNACK, LIKE SWIMMING - you have just to start throwing your hands. First start in shallow water so there is no fear, then go deeper. First begin with the body - that is the shallowest part of our being. Then go into the mind. Then watch your thoughts, desires, memories. Then go still deeper, dive still deeper - watch your emotions, your moods. And then the fundamental and the ultimate plunge, the fourth, where your center is. Then become aware of your awareness itself. The moment one is aware of awareness itself the circle is complete. And that is the moment we in the East have called Enlightenment.
MAN IS NOT IMPRISONED BY OUTSIDE FORCES. He is imprisoned by his own unconscious, by his own instincts, by his own biological past. So one can try to be politically free - that is not difficult - but it is not going to bring real freedom.
SO ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY IS POLITICALLY FREE BUT THE PEOPLE ARE IN THE SAME MISERY. One can try to be economically free. The moment you become rich you are economically free. You can purchase anything you want, you can have all the things of the world - there is no limitation. You can have the best house, the best of everything. Still, something will be missing; you will not feel contented. You will not really feel free. On the other hand, you will feel hampered by all your possessions.
THE RICHER A PERSON GETS, THE MORE AND MORE HE IS IMPRISONED IN HIS RICHNESS. He cannot even sleep well. He cannot live in a relaxed way - although he always wished that when the money would be there he would live in a relaxed way. Then life would be just a long holiday. He now has a house in the mountains, a house on the beach, a beautiful yacht in the sea, an aeroplane and everything, but he has no will to relax. In fact, in earning all this money he has learned one thing: how to remain constantly tense. He has been always on his tiptoes. Now it is too late to relax.
RELAXATION NEEDS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT KIND OF SKILL - THE RICH PERSON MISSES IT. Hence the rich person only appears rich. Really he is as poor as anybody else, maybe far poorer than the poor ones. Apparently he has all, but inside there is only nothingness. And the freedom that he was thinking would come through economic prosperity has not arrived.
Money can be earned, freedom CANNOT be earned. FREEDOM HAS TO GROW WITHIN YOU. It grows simultaneously AS A BY-PRODUCT OF AWARENESS. The more aware you are, the freer. The moment your awareness is at the peak, your freedom is also at the peak. So only a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra - these few people - have lived and known freedom.
And that is the goal of sannyas: ABSOLUTE FREEDOM. The method is AWARENESS.
OSHO
The Old Pond... Plop
Ch #6 (a darshan diary)
pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Krishnamurti
"Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, or what it should be, or what it should become? We are constantly escaping from what is, to transform or modify it...
Only when there is no awareness of exactly what is, then effort to transform takes place. So, effort is non-awareness. Awareness reveals the significance of what is, and the complete acceptance of the significance brings freedom. So, awareness is non-effort; awareness is the perception of what is without distortion. Distortion exists whenever there is effort."
[Krishnamurti; Madras, 7th Public Talk, November 30, 1947, Collected Works, Vol. IV, pp. 117-18]
"Questioner: Sir, if there is no effort, if there is no method, then any transition into the state of awareness, any shift into a new dimension, must be a completely random accident, and therefore unaffected by any thing you might say on the subject.
Krishnamurti: Ah, no, sir! I didn't say that. (Laughter) I said one has to be aware. By being aware, one discovers how one is conditioned (with belief). By being aware, I know I am conditioned as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, as a Christian; I am conditioned as a nationalist: British, German, Russian, Indian, American, Chinese - I am conditioned (with belief). We never tackle that. That's the garbage we are, and we hope something marvelous will grow out of it, but I am afraid it is not possible. Being aware doesn't mean a chance happening, something irresponsible and vague. If one understands the implications of awareness, one's body not only becomes highly sensitive, but the whole entity is activated; there is a new energy given to it. Do it, and you will see.
Don't sit on the bank and speculate about the river; jump in and follow the current of this awareness, and you will find out for yourself how extraordinarily limited our thoughts, our feelings, and our ideas are. Our projections of gods, saviors, and Masters - all that becomes so obvious, so infantile." [Krishnamurti; London, 5th Public Dialogue, May 6, 1965, Collected Works, Vol. XV, p. 138]
"You know, concentration is effort: focusing upon a particular page, an idea, image, symbol, and so on and so on. Concentration is a process of exclusion. You tell a student, "Don't look out of the window; pay attention to the book." He wants to look out, but he forces himself to look, look at the page; so there is a conflict. This constant effort to concentrate is a process of exclusion, which has nothing to do with awareness. Awareness takes place when one observes - you can do it; everybody can do it - observes not only what is the outer, the tree, what people say, what one thinks, and so on, outwardly, but also inwardly to be aware without choice, just to observe without choosing. For when you choose, when choice takes place, only then is there confusion, not when there is clarity."
[Krishnamurti; Ojai, 5th Public Talk, November 12, 1966, Collected Works, Vol. xvn. pp. 82-3]
"If you sit on the bank of a river after a storm, you see the stream going by, carrying a great deal of debris. Similarly, you have to watch the movement of yourself - following every Thought, every feeling, every intention, every motive - just watch it. That watching is also listening; it is being aware with your eyes, with your ears, with your insight, of all the values that human beings have created, and by which you are conditioned, and it is only this state of total awareness that will end all seeking.
Please do listen to this. Most of us think that awareness is a mysterious something to be practiced, and that we should get together day after day to talk about awareness. Now, you don't come to awareness that way at all. But if you are aware of outward things - the curve of a road, the shape of a tree, the color of another's dress, the outline of the mountains against a blue sky, the delicacy of a flower, the pain on the face of a passerby, the ignorance, the envy, the jealousy of others, the beauty of the earth - then, seeing all these outward things without condemnation, without choice, you can ride on the tide of inner awareness. Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies. From the outward awareness you come to the inward, but if you are not aware of the outer you cannot possibly come to the inner.
When there is inward awareness of every activity of your mind and your body, when you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, both secret and open, conscious and unconscious, then out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced, not put together by the (thinking) mind. And without that clarity you may do what you will, you may search the heavens and the earth and the deeps, but you will never find out what is true."
[Krishnamurti; Saanen, 10th Public Talk, August 1, 1965, Collected Works, Vol. XV, pp. 242-3]
"The what is is what you are, not what you would like to be; it is not the ideal because the ideal is fictitious, but it is actually what you are doing, thinking, and feeling from moment to moment. What is is the actual, and to understand the actual requires awareness, a very alert, swift mind." [Krishnamurti; Bangalore, 6th Public Talk, August 8,1948, Collected Works, Vol. V, p. 50]
"The beauty of listening lies in being highly sensitive to everything about you: to the ugliness, to the dirt, to the squalor, to the poverty about you, and also to the dirt, to the disorder, to the poverty of one's own being. When you are aware of both, then there is no effort, that is, when there is an awareness which is without choice, then there is no effort."
[Krishnamurti; Bombay, 2nd Public Talk, February 14, 1965, Collected Works, Vol. XV, p. 61]
Cayce
"In the fruits of that - as is given oft, as the fruits of the spirit - does man become aware of the infinite penetrating, or interpenetrating the activities of all forces of matter, or that which is a manifestation of the realm of the infinite into the finite - and the finite becomes conscious of same." Cayce (262-52)
"'Like begets like. As he sows, so shall he reap. As a man thinketh in the heart, so is he.' These are all but trite sayings to most of us, even the thinking man; but should the mind of an individual (the finite mind) turn within his own being for the law pertaining to these trite sayings, until the understanding arises, then there is the consciousness in the finite of the infinite moving upon and in the inner self." Cayce (262-52)
See Also
Awakening
Conscious
Good Heart
Knowing
Matter
Mind
Mind as Flow or Stream
Mind Force
Mind in Machines
Mind in Matter
Mind is the Builder
Mind Over Matter
Mind to Mind
UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Wisdom