Saturday, February 27, 2021

Om! Mindfulness and Self-awareness ¬ Atman Nityananda


 Mindfulness and Self-awareness

Mindfulness is paying attention to and being aware of what is happening every moment while Self-awareness is being aware of what we really Are by paying attention to the silence within!

''To what is happening'', refers to the sensory inputs or impressions (including the body, since it is also an object of perception) and our psychological processes and expressions (vital, emotional, mental, intellectual).

''Self-awareness'' refers to the awareness of our true Self, the silent space of Consciousness which is our essential nature and our true identity!

To be mindful to what we perceive, what we do and what is manifesting in our heart and mind is fundamental to free ourselves from the psychological conditioning.

However, mindfulness is not the end but a stepping stone that enables us live consciously aware of our true Self. To experience the eternal freedom, fullness, peace and bliss we Are.

By paying fully attention to what we are not, that is to sensory inputs and our psychological formations we can get in touch with our divine essence which is the always silent present substratum of all our experiences. 

By being attentive we can gradually be more and more aware of the psychological expressions and the processes of identification, projection and superimposition and acquire a distance from them.  The more we become able avoid identifying with the mental and emotional expressions the more they lose power over us and the more apparent becomes the silent space of Consciousness. As a consequence, it becomes easier for us to be aware of the silence within and prevent identifying with the subconscious patterns and programming. It is a virtues cycle which becomes stronger and stronger by practice.

However, we can directly become aware of the silent presence of Self (Consciousness) by directly focusing our attention on it utilizing a method such as Self-enquiry or the meditation 'I am'.

By being aware of the silence within we can be mindful to what is happening and by being mindful we can get and maintain consciously contact with the silent presence of the Self.

To live free from ego's conditioning and the peace and fullness of our essence we must diligently  practice mindfulness and Self-awareness  moment to moment throughout the day.