Elimination of Fear is the Beginning of Attention (Page 1 of 2)

Intresting.  Today as I was biking to work, and seeing how I didn't venture into town for the past 3-3 days, I was observing the busy city.  And wow, it was busy.  Traffic everywhere, people busy busy busy all over the place looking like they all just need a looooong break.  So anyways for some reason I had a thought along the lines of "If people aren't in control of their own lives, not paying attention, and are busy all the time, they aren't safe" and then no later than I thought that... I almost get hit by a car!  I was just biking on the sidewalk, and this guy was pulling out of the gas station.. and everytime I cross a place I always look at the person to see if they are looking BOTH WAYS!  But obvisouly this guy wasn't, and he hit my left foot, and somehow.. although it was a fairly hard collision.. I just keept on moving foward.  It didn't even move me come to think of it.. but he drove right into me. 

I may have attracted that incident with those thoughts.. but that is a quick manifestation

Thus, attention is a very useful tool if one wished to live - many "problems" could be avoided with this, not too meantion intuition that is coupled with attention.

Well, if we can be experiencing other dimensions or vibratory rates simultaneously, than maybe with a shift in our attention that brings you into a vibratory rate that the person next to you isnt percieving at that moment. Or am I just saying what you did visavis?  I think just a minor shift in attention can cause a different vibratory rate. 

Natural Mystic, I have been noticing over the past couple months that for me anyway, things are manifesting much faster.  I try to be real careful that I dont dwell on things too long.  Not easy for me to do, hehe.   *Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it*

Holding that non-thinking, non-labelling awareness (attention) is not an easy thing for me.  I've been practicing it since I read the concept in a self-help book over a decade ago.  One of the major steps I had to take was undoing the thought loops (programs) that ran through my head constantly.  This gave me more mental space to work with.

Another thing I did was practice with the most mundade of things.  For instance, walk to your kitchen and make a sandwich without thinking or labelling anything.  Instead, use only awareness.

Still another trick I've done is the 50% method.  Go make that sandwich at 50% your normal speed.  That includes each arm movement and footstep.  Catch and correct yourself if any movement goes normal speed.

The 50% method is profound (to me) in and of itself.  At 50% I notice the gravity, wind resistance, change in temperature, air flow, muscle contraction, etc.  Add in non-thinking/non-labelling and it's really an alien feeling of awareness.

Pouring a glass of water becomes a new experience.

See in 3d, mentally.  Normal awareness is a labelling of the surface world.  A 2-dimensional planar awareness.  Get a glass and pour some water.  But add the next dimension and get the essense back.  You feel the pull of gravity on the glass.  You feel the extra force as the billions of bounded hydrogen and oxygen atoms collide with a glass floor.  You feel the air being displaced from inside the glass.  And other nuances.  Do it without thinking and the awareness shift is rather pronounced.

The active non-thinking quiets the conscious mind so the subconscious can be felt.  The subconscious knowledge comes forth as just knowing.  The subconscious is still all about movement.  Movement of energy compared with the conscious's movement of matter.  Quiet the subconscious and you can tap the unconscious (I assume).

There does seem to be a few byproducts that come with the non-thinking/non-labelling essence-tial awareness.  For one, the ego doesn't do too well without the use of thoughts.  Another byproduct is the underlining joy of life seems to slip back through the muck of societal living that we allowed to cover our true natures.

these are a few more quotes i've gotten emailed to me since a couple of days ago - they relate to this topic:

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Awareness is that state of mind which observes something without any condemnation or acceptance, which merely faces the thing as it is. When you look at a flower nonbotanically, then you see the totality of the flower; but if your mind is completely taken up with the botanical knowledge of what the flower is, you are not totally looking at the flower. Though you may have knowledge of the flower, if that knowledge takes the whole ground of your mind, the whole field of your mind, then you are not looking totally at the flower.

So, to look at a fact is to be aware. In that awareness, there is no choice, no condemnation, no like or dislike. But most of us are incapable of doing this because traditionally, occupationally, in every way, we are not capable of facing the fact without the background. We have to be aware of the background. We have to be aware of our conditioning, and that conditioning shows itself when we observe a fact; and as you are concerned with the observation of the fact and not with the background, the background is pushed aside. When the main interest is to understand the fact only, and when you see that the background prevents you from understanding the fact, then the vital interest in the fact wipes away the background.

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Can humility be practiced? Surely, to be conscious that you are humble is not to be humble. You want to know that you have arrived. This indicates, does it not, that you are listening in order to achieve a particular state, a place where you will never be disturbed, where you will find everlasting happiness, permanent bliss. But as I said previously, there is no arriving, there is only the movement of learning–and that is the beauty of life. If you have arrived, there is nothing more. And all of you have arrived, or you want to arrive, not only in your business, but in everything you do; so you are dissatisfied, frustrated, miserable. Sirs, there is no place at which to arrive, there is just this movement of learning which becomes painful only when there is accumulation. A mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result because it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self, of a "me," which is seeking to achieve an end.

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In awareness there is only the present–that is, being aware, you see the past process of influence which controls the present and modifies the future. Awareness is an integral process, not a process of division. For example, if I ask the question, “Do I believe in God?” –in the very process of asking, I can observe, if I am aware, what it is that is making me ask that question; if I am aware I can perceive what have been and what are the forces at work that are compelling me to ask that question. Then I am aware of various forms of fear–those of my ancestors who have created a certain idea of God and have handed it down to me, and combining their idea with my present reactions, I have modified or changed the concept of God. If I am aware, I perceive this entire process of the past, its effect in the present and in the future, integrally, as a whole.

If one is aware, one sees how through fear one's concept of God arose; or perhaps there was a person who had an original experience of reality or of God and communicated it to another who in his greediness made it his own, and gave impetus to the process of imitation. Awareness is the process of completeness, and introspection is incomplete. The result of introspection is morbid, painful, whereas awareness is enthusiasm and joy.

J. Krishnamurti

Those are the quotations I found most profound.  And this reminds me of an article I read posted by Marcus on in2world.net

http://in2worlds.net/two-worlds

It talks about how children are always in this state of awarness, and how slowly - by conditioning -  we loose that awareness and begin thinking in terms of PAST and FUTURE, and stop living in the now.  We develope the concept of "I" "Me", "Mine" and "Own/Possesion" instead of being in the NOW and accepting each fluid moment. 

So how do we become aware?  How do we come back to our childlike imagination?

In a very real sense this is true.  However, it doesn't take into account the personality or the ego.  Yes, you gain the awareness without effort or practice.  But, to keep the awareness I, at least, had to get rid of the thought loops that played almost continuously.  I had to clear a path and prepare the ground so to speak.  'Practicing the awareness' was the intent and action of stopping the noise.  So in that sense, the effort or practice was not attached to the awareness but effort and practice were involved in the equation.

If others have the same sort of thought loops then I think this distinction is important.  Otherwise, those thought loops act as a magnet for the attention.  Only when I cleared the mental space of attention magnets was the awareness without effort or practice.

That's just my observations.  Has anyone else done this awareness thing?  How long can you stop thinking for?  If not, can someone else try it and report back.  I think it would be great to have more first hand observations on the usage of these types of teachings.