Inner Work

For the week of June 20, 2005

Entering Conscious Awareness

To enter the spacious stillness of consciousness that always awaits us, that underlies thought and emotion, sight and sound, that forms the timeless context of our life, is not so easy. Consciousness is so fundamental that we habitually overlook it, leaving it in the background while we remain distracted with the surface phenomena of our life. We can, however, take steps to enter consciousness.

But why bother? Why does it matter? Simply put: consciousness is the gateway to the higher worlds. To establish the capacity to open to the higher in anything more than a rare and haphazard fashion, one key factor lies in first recognizing true consciousness and developing an ability to enter it. Furthermore, because the vastness of consciousness so obviously supersedes any person and any personality, it mitigates the egoistic feeling of being special, another key factor on the way to the higher.

We begin with establishing a strong base of sensation in our whole body. This full body awareness provides a stable platform for our awareness in the here and now. Even this is not easy though. It requires persistent work on sensing the energy in our body, on relaxing our physical and emotional tensions so as not to waste the energy, and on methods like energy breathing and fasting to raise the level of our sensation and to consolidate it.

As an adjunct to this process of increasing and condensing the energy of sensation in our body, we practice non-clinging toward all the thoughts, emotions, and sensory perceptions streaming and cavorting through our awareness. Repeatedly letting go of all these inner events that seduce us into losing ourselves, we create the possibility of looking beyond them.

Then through a deeper act of relaxation, we open to the great silence of consciousness, the medium in which we can and do live, the stillness underneath thought and sensory perception. Entering consciousness is like entering an immense cathedral with high, arching, domed ceilings, vanishing in the distance. Sounds merge with the silence of the great space, just as our thoughts and perceptions fall off into the unboundedness of consciousness. Yet it wraps us in its comforting presence.

Consciousness is not beyond our reach. You can open to it at any time, at least briefly, by looking beyond your thoughts and relaxing into the clear awareness in which you are.

For this week work to gain a better taste of true consciousness. Find your way to enter here.

About Inner Frontier                                    Send us email 

Copyright © 2001-2024 Joseph Naft. All rights reserved.