Heightened Awareness (November 2017)

PULL QUOTE: no matter how small the drop of water it reflects the entire moon

From Heightened Awareness, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing.

Why The Need For Heightened Awareness

Bare attention,” or Mindfulness, is the first step in gaining a “heightened awareness.” But by itself, it is not enough. This bare attention to progress leads to a deeper awareness. Bare attention, by itself, means that every action is performed mindfully, in full conscious awareness, and that trends of thought are discerned and noted instead of becoming unconscious fantasies and stream of consciousness trends. Since we perform so many acts from habit, without even realizing we are doing them (shaving, combing the hair, washing the teeth, heating the water for tea), we become automatons in many areas, and this is the very opposite of “heightened awareness.”

To know that we have placed our shoes under the bed – to know it and not assume it – is a great step forward in achieving bare attention and the beginning of the way to a heightened awareness. To realize that our posture is a slumping one – without feeling the need to immediately correct it – is to observe the posture in complete attention. To be aware of the gradual aging of the lines in one’s face when looking in the mirror, and not to pretend the lines aren’t there, is true attention, and it can lead to understanding, the knowledge that nothing is permanent and that change is inevitable. This is not easy in the beginning and requires real effort.

It is said that habit is the enemy of old age, and this is true at several levels. First, we perform the same actions at the same time in the same way and are not fully alive in doing so. We run on automatic pilot. Second, these habits become deeply ingrained habit energies (vashanas in Sanskrit), and they shape our lives. When they develop into tendencies (samskaras), they may shape lives to come, and the person of that time may not know why he or she does certain things or feels certain urges. This is a form of slavery we have imposed upon ourselves. One may drink heavily without knowing why, or without even liking the taste of alcohol; this uncontrollable tendency is a samskara carried over from the habit energies we built in another lifetime. This is our Karma, and it shapes us and makes us what we are.

So, in going from bare attention to heightened awareness, we are countering these destructive trends. At one level we become more alive, more capable of real joy in everyday life; we become masters of ourselves. At the deeper level we begin to undo the strands of Karma we have woven for ourselves. To achieve heightened awareness would seem to be very desirable.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Foreword

In truth there is no such thing as higher consciousness. There is only consciousness. But in individuals, the pure consciousness is usually blocked in varying degrees, so we speak of higher or lower states of consciousness. The sun is always the same, but when we see it through heavy clouds, we speak of weak sunshine. In the same way, pure consciousness – which is everywhere, in every sentient and insentient thing and in every inch of the sky and empty space we see – is more latent than actual in most beings. It’s obscured by what the Indian people call tamas (lethargy, ignorance in the larger sense) and by the vashanas and samskaras (habit energies and tendencies) that make us what we are and make up our Karma.

When consciousness is dull and obscured, our awareness is extremely limited. As the clouds are brushed away (that is, the habit energies and other obscuring factors are weakened), awareness grows from the inside, and it always goes from the limited individual outlook to the far-reaching universal. The “choiceless awareness” that Krishnamurti speaks of is a good example of consciousness shining without obscuration, choiceless meaning the obscuring energies are not operating. Normally we operate in a pleasure-pain continuum, seeking those things that are pleasant to us and avoiding what is painful. This is the opposite of choiceless awareness and is the result of self-clinging. If we are aware only of what seems pleasant and unpleasant, this can hardly be called expanded awareness – rather, it is self-centered activity.

In India the people speak of four states of consciousness – waking, sleeping, dreaming, and the fourth, unchanging state that underlies the other three, the Turiya state. Just as the movie screen remains unchanged while we watch the rapidly moving figures that flash upon it, so the Turiya state (the Reality) is there underlying whatever condition we are in. Our limited awareness seldom makes it apparent to us, and for this reason, we perform certain disciplines so that we can become aware of it, sometimes for very short periods.

All of us have brief glimpses of the Turiya state, the Reality – perhaps just before falling asleep or when coming out of anesthesia. Sometimes, after intense periods of concentration or prayer, the mind becomes one-pointed, and we have an intuition of Reality. Those who practice* deep meditation of various kinds certainly have frequent short periods in the Turiya state, and these brief touches of Reality can be shattering. There are no words to describe them, as they are not truly experiences in the dualistic subject-object relationship. Something has happened, although nothing that can be remembered. When such experiences are strong or prolonged, these flashes can change our lives.

Heightened awareness always begins on the inside, not being merely a matter of tactile or sensory occurrence. We begin to be aware of the vast ocean of consciousness in which we swim (live and breathe and have our being). We note our breathing, the ringing in the right ear or vibration from ear to ear, even the coursing of blood through the arteries and veins. With the heightened circulation of the Chi (Vital Force or Intrinsic Energy), we begin to have disturbing physical manifestations; it seems that someone is pulling our hair or insects are crawling on the face. These are actually salutary signs that something constructive is happening; we are evolving rapidly. Heightened awareness is the result of this rapid evolving. Higher consciousness and heightened awareness are not two separate things.

One of the great drawbacks in helping ordinary, untrained people to experience an expanded awareness is their inclination toward delusion and illusion – they believe what they want to believe rather than following their own experience. Not too many years ago I asked Swami Krishnananda, one of the great saints of present-day India and almost the last of the Karma Yogis, whether he had ever seen a man fly through the air. He answered no. Then I asked him if he had ever heard of one doing so, or knew anyone who had heard. Again he answered no. Yet there are books filled with such allusions, and people take it for granted that the enlightened man can perform such feats. Actually, if a sage leans too far over a balcony railing, he will fall. The body is subject to the law of gravity. Nevertheless, people are eager to believe, read books by those who have no background themselves, having probably obtained their material from other books. They accept as gospel all that is written. This is prevalent in the psychic field as well as the spiritual realm.

Recently I attended, as a guest, the opening night of a three-day retreat being given by a European psychologist. He spoke vividly of deep religious experience (which he seemed to equate with psychosis) and mystical matters in general, using Sanskrit terms incorrectly and referring to matters about which he had no knowledge at all. When I asked him whether he had experienced deep religious or mystical states, the answer was negative. He spoke of bringing the students to a higher awareness, though it was obvious that his own awareness was decidedly limited and that he had serious problems of his own. This is a case of the blind leading the blind. When an elderly woman asked him about certain states of altered consciousness that she had experienced (usually in connection with coming out of anesthesia or from a traumatic incident), he showed no understanding of her questions, which were highly valid, and was unable to answer any of them. He seemed to have no means of bringing these people to the goal he had set; rather he seemed to look for some gimmick that would pass the time. Is this a way to speed up personal evolution and make higher states possible, if only temporarily?

We know that there are radio and television waves all around us, but we do not see or feel them. Emotion, breath, ultra-violet rays, speech and other similar manifestations cannot be seen, yet they are commonplace (though we seldom think of their deeper meanings). So it should not be startling to know that there are worlds within worlds of which we usually have no inkling at all. Each grain of dust may contain universes; many conjecture that outer space holds other worlds, but these are geographical. As the awareness grows, we sometimes become distinctly aware that there are other dimensions, happening at a different rate of vibration, right here and now.

When the great twentieth century sage of India, Ramana Maharshi, was asked where he would go when he died, he replied, “Where should I go? I’m here.” Such an answer is usually misunderstood, but it points to the fact that all life is here now – probably in the past and future as well as the present. Often we experience events from the past or the future, if we are the least bit advanced spiritually, but we talk ourselves out of the experience because the logical mind rejects it. It is surprising under the circumstances that we accept telegraphy, ultrasound and other non-sensory manifestations. A native of a completely isolated country might find it impossible to believe what is commonplace to us.

For one to follow the methods [in Heightened Awareness] in working toward heightened awareness – with the distinct possibility that psychic experiences will also intrude – it is necessary to empty the cup. A full cup will hold no more. Faithfully following these methods, one must suspend his likes and dislikes and be open to what occurs. Sometimes this is more difficult for the widely read intellectual than for the simpler person who has no literary background.