IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT, YOU’RE IN IT

Going along in life, entering in everyday situations like seeing others in Menards, we automatically make judgements.  We see people and within a nanosecond, make a summary conclusion about their dress, their energy, their attitude and worth.  The trouble is that they are possibly none of that and we have rendered them a judgement based on a reaction.

What happened here was that our awareness was just not there.  It was overrun with reaction and self-indulgence.  We lost track of who we were.  The awareness piece gets an “F’ for nonattendance.  The mind/ego took over throwing judgements around like they were pizzas.  Our connection was down and we were feeding ourselves the stream of thoughts that had no direct reality to it.  We were basically out to lunch.  

When we are really seeing, we are really seeing ourselves.  If our focus changed to ‘others’ that should be an alarm that we may be on the slippery slope of judgement resulting in a dumbing down of awareness.  The moment we lose awareness, especially engaging in the la-la land lack of awareness, we become immediately uninformed and get compromised by the ego/mind, which is ready, willing, and able to take over.  

Awareness, at a basic level can be looked at in different levels of intensity.  Let’s say 3 intensities.  

The first being “cluelessness” which is when we find ourselves totally in left field, out of the game of life, indulging in some fantasy.  When people speak to us, we often do not hear them because the mind is so occupied.   La-la land here I come.

 The 2nd level is being alert and watching for something ‘big’.  So when a vasana (long-standing negative pattern of behavior) comes along, we melt and do the pattern.  Only after the completion of the ingrained behavior do we ‘see’ that we just blew it, again.  The vasana, the mind, and the emotions still dominate us.  

The 3rd basic piece of awareness shows up early like a reliable worker.  It sees the beginnings of the vasana and can preempt the acquiescence before the pattern gets full-blown.  The emotion, or grasping, or resisting, arrive as scheduled but the ‘witnessing’ changes things to the point of asking the self, the question of whether or not we should carry this through. We are charged with the ‘feeling’ and are ready to go through with it but we haven’t peaked yet and can pull it all back in.  The decision to ‘see’ is usually the outcome.  The futility of repeating the dumb-ass pattern is discerned.

Awareness levels of 100% can be achieved if we practice seeing every moment in the Moment, with consciousness.  We are this “Awareness”.

Hence, the reminder. ” If you can’t see it, you’re in it.”  And if we are stuck in it, increasing our awareness is the surefire way of getting out of it.  Accept your ‘stuckness’ and keep witnessing the play of life, every moment.  The practice is simple and does not have to be obsessively elaborate to work.  Look for the affirmations of good vision and the signposts of mismanagement of our own resources.  You already know, Daddy’O