Two weeks ago I started the practice of all day awareness
again more seriously. I have been doing this practice before as well, but
loosing track of it again and again. Basically starting all over again each
time. But this time I have been practicing it almost continuously in my waking
time for two weeks. And going this hardcore and committing to it fully has
resulted in some noticeable changes in my perception.
In this post I will explain to you, what I did exactly and
what the results have been.
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| How aware are other beings? - To me it looks like some deep thinking is going on here |
When I first started out with the practice of all day
awareness a few years ago, I focused on a maximum of three sensations at once.
Quickly this became an easy task to do. So my mind started running awareness of
the senses on auto pilot. And this time here I already noticed a difference.
This time, for two weeks I committed fully to it and tried to make it as
difficult as my mind could handle. Because the lesson #1 of the dream yoga
guide on dreamviews suggested you can hold many more object in conscious
awareness at once than only three. So I just tried to be fully present with as
much sensory input as possible. This caused me to have a remarkable insight. I
already knew from teachings that awareness is not the same as experience. But I
did not know how to understand this.
When I tried to focus on as many sensory impressions in parallel as possible, my mind was struggling so hard to divide the limited awareness on the different sensory streams, that it gave up and separated awareness from experience. In other words, I could feel my awareness hovering above the sensory input. And know it is easier for me to tap into this awareness. Before this insight, I could concentrate my awareness on only one particular sensation (the breath for example). And it felt like this sensory experience was needed to stay aware. But awareness is different. You can automate to concentrate on the breath with little awareness. But becoming aware of everything you experience is so incredibly complex and overwhelming, that is not possible with concentration. For that to happen you need to concentrate on awareness itself and let all experience flow through it without conscious interaction.
Basically those intense two weeks of staying present of the
senses showed me that awareness is not the same as experiences. Awareness is
also not the thoughts that occur. But we identify usually so much with our
thoughts that we think that is what we are. But at the core awareness is
something different. I am thrilled to explore it further.
From here on I will definitely continue and intensify this
practice. It is both challenging and incredibly rewarding. I will also train my
ability to become conscious of awareness itself. This is still difficult for me.
And when I need to be particularly focused, it is more difficult for me to feel
awareness.
My feeling is that whenever this practice does not yield the
results, you hope for, than you need to intensify it. There are always more
sensory input you can become consciously aware of at the same time. Just
becoming fully aware of all that you feel with your body is more than enough
for month of serious practice. Add to that all the sounds at a busy place or of
a multi-layered song and you have enough for a good year of practice.
Secondly to the feeling of having a separated awareness,
this practice improved my regular meditation. Coming out of meditation and
going into, already as much aware as you can, will lead to increased results.
Before it was my habit to feel relieve when the time of meditation was over and
drop down to a lower degree of awareness going about my day. But keeping the
meditation (awareness) up as much as possible all of the time, will make
results come much faster. This practice is at the same time rewarding because
it brings the good feeling of being in the moment to every day experiences. I will give you an example: Yesterday I was
sitting on the train and waiting at the train stations for a total time of 6 hours.
Usually this would have bothered me (to say the least, as I do not like
travelling that much). But the act of concentrating on every little sensation
and not allowing myself to slip out of the present moment for very long
resulted in a super clam and euphoric state. At end of the trip I existed the
train and walked a few hundred meters to my apartment. On this walk I almost
had to cry because of the beauty I experienced. Being super aware of my body
(every normal sensation already felt incredible), the wind on my skin was
blending in so beautifully with all the other sensations, it was a great.
And as I just started out with this practice, I can only
imagine where this practice can lead to in terms of becoming more present. At
first is counter intuitive and will require much conscious effort. But think
about, how your life (if you are like me) your education has pushed you out of
being and into analyzing, planning, focusing, thinking and operating. Your
whole life you are spending in the future or the past. And you might think this
is an exaggeration. But take some powerful psychedelics and find yourself
catapulted into the raw present moment without a conception of future our past
and you will appreciate how little you actually are in the present moment. And
with this practice you can feel your way back in the present moment. I would
guess it is a long way, but so are all other spiritual practices.
For my part, I can say this is the greatest practice I have
come about so far in terms of practicality and enjoyment. I struggle with formal
meditation for more than one hour in my regular schedule. But this practice I
can do almost always. I find it the most difficult in conversations with other
people. There I reduce it down to one sensation, to make sure I can also follow
the content of the conversation. But this I have found improves my listening
skills. I can fully listen, because I become instantly aware whenever I put my
own thoughts on top of what is being said.
On the other hand this practice becomes more challenging
during work, which requires being focused. But even then I sometimes find that
I have unused mental capacity to keep some awareness of the present moment.
Usually if my mind is let loose, then even during mental work, I tend to start
day-dreaming unconsciously on the side.
I highly recommend this practice of awareness of the senses
in addition to other spiritual practices. For lucid dreaming this practices has
yielded mixed results. I cannot say for sure if it has increased my number of
lucid dreams. But this is also not my main goal with this practice for the
moment. In the lucid dreams I did have, I was satisfied with the stability
though.