Entries this day: next-step-in-my-conscious-evolution

next step in my conscious evolution

##05:40 Wednesday 30 May 2012

That's a weird title I think, but that's what came out through my fingers.

(TL;DR version at the bottom)

For a long time I have thought about what it means to be alive, why we are alive, etc.

At first, around high school age, I determined that emotions are an important part of why we're alive. For what other reason would emotions become "lodged" in our bodies until we experience them, unless they're important?

So I therefore determined "we are alive in order to feel our emotions."

When reading about meditation and doing meditation I cam to a slightly different realization that it's not just about feeling our emotions, but being conscious of everything: every motion, every thought, every step.

This can be best summarized through my rough memories of an exchange between a monk and a .. non-monk? a regular guy? is there a word for human that means not yet practicing awareness?

Anyway, the guy was like, "so yeah, what is it that you monks do?"

The monk goes, "we eat, we walk, we sleep."

The guy goes, "well I eat, and I walk, and I sleep! what's the difference?"

The monk explained, "when we eat, we know we are eating. When we walk, we know we are walking. And when we sleep, we know we are sleeping." (*)

When I read that, I was like, "o.O"

(*) I don't think the one I originally read included sleeping; maybe it was sit, eat, walk. Adding sleep in there is interesting because some people teach that this life is but a dream during which we are sleeping.

Okay, so the purpose of being alive is experiencing being alive.

On a parallel brain wave, I was thinking about God. If "God is everywhere" and "God is all powerful" then God talks to us all the time, if only we will listen. I thought this meant that God talks to us through the rustling of leaves, and a glance from a stranger, or the music we hear, etc, etc, etc.

I'm nearly finished with _A New Earth_ by Eckhart Tolle. But even before I finish, I want to capture this moment (in case I experience another step in the final few pages of the book) of how the text has tied together the above items in a neat little answer to the question, "yeah but why??"

Being alive is fine, and experiencing being alive is fine, but why experience being alive? Oh, this also ties together the suggestions of _The Artists Way_ by Julia Cameron. She's using some different exercises to get people "out of their brains" and into automatic writing/painting/living, allowing God to flow through our actions.

Being aware of our actions isn't quite it. Being aware of the space between our actions is closer. Being aware of consciousness is close.

God is everywhere = God is in this stapler + God is in this plant + God is in the air I breathe, etc. That's my ego slicing and dicing bits of things around me and saying "yes, God is in that too."

God is in me. Okay that's closer.

God is me, okay that's closer.

But God's not me; I'm a terrible sinner with a mortgage and debt etc etc! Okay, that's the ego talking; let's get back to awareness.

By being aware of the space within, we are becoming aware of God within. By placing great attention and care into each thing we do, we allow God to do each thing for us. Instead of our ego trying to put this here or put that there according to some set of perceived laws or best intentions, allowing awareness to do things allows God to do things through us.

Above is a great mess of words; I'm going to try again:

<- - - - tl;dr - - - - > (too long; didn't read)

Being aware while doing things allows God to guide our actions.

<- - - - ts;du - - - - > (too short; don't understand)

Go read _A New Earth_ by Eckhart Tolle.