The Ego-dominated mind plays its games in daily life, and creates the characters and scenarios necessary for the games. The content of such a scenario is determined by the individual’s environment and upbringing, that is, the culture in which we grow up. As a result, entirely different scenarios are created in the various cultures of our Earth.
At the beginning of our journey, we identify with these scenarios, which provide us with the sense of a solid identity, and the patterns of thoughts fixed in the scenarios are manifested in various mind games during our daily life. In the course of our journey leading to Consciousness, however, our objective becomes not creating a positive character, and thus a pleasant scenario, but finding the Existence behind every scenario. We realize that we do not need to become anything, because we are already in possession of the characteristics that we have been looking for so far, pursuing an image projected into the future. All we need to do is shift our focus of alert and conscious attention from the edge (Ego) to our center (witnessing Presence).
The first gift of conscious Alertness is when you discover that, instead of you, the it is largely the deep-programs of your conditioned Mind that are living your life. The society and culture in which you have grown up has programmed those fixed patterns of the mind into you, and your identity, who you are and what your job is in this world, are all based upon those conditioned patterns.
What do we need to know about these fixed, conditioned mental patterns?
1. The fixed patterns of your mind are individual, since they reflect the expectations of the particular environment in which you have been brought up. The expectations usually influence you unconsciously, almost like automatic deep programs of the mind.
2. These systematic patterns of thoughts, programmed into you by your parents and teachers are deeply embedded into your mind and subconscious by the psychological mechanisms of identification, and they automatically surface every now and then.
3. These patterns strive to be self-sustaining, and they generate the work of mind. The result is the cobweb of thoughts with which you identify and that is how you live your life.
4. As these in-depth conditioning have become a part of your mind in the course of your upbringing, a particular situation or person immediately activates them. You automatically put on the mask appropriate for the particular situation, tailored to the expectations of the situation or person.
5. The fixed operational methods of the mind cannot be defeated by the works of the mind itself, that is, by effort, practice or your willpower.
6. When a fixed mental pattern appears, all you need to do is watch how it works, what expectation activates it. But you do not need to fight it, you do not need to make any effort to neutralize it.
7. There is only one remedy against them, and that is Sight, nourished by the deeper dimensions of Alertness, and the Sight will bring recognition to you. The power of Sight is that it reduces your identification with your mind, and places you back into your original state of existence, that is, Oneness.
8. When you see and recognize how your fixed mental patterns work, the energy supply they receive gradually dries up, since the energy that formerly supplied these patterns now supply the emergence of the deeper dimensions of Alertness in you. In this way, conditioned mental patterns gradually lose their power and they vanish. As a result, the work of the mind that might have appeared chaotic to you before become increasingly transparent.
9. In this way, Consciousness and Presence will increasingly dominate your mind, and they will be manifested in longer and longer periods of silence. That is how the mind regains its original mission, and it will become a means by which Consciousness is able to express itself in the world of forms and shapes.
The Observing Consciousness
The mind is full of currents and streams: thoughts and emotions come and go all the time. Exploring the deeper dimensions of Alertness loosen the glue of your identification with the mind, so you will be able to gain more and more experience of the free spaces of the Consciousness, and you recognize that you are not an isolated, small self, but the Consciousness itself.
However, recognizing yourself as Consciousness is independent of all the activities of the mind. This recognition will only come if you have had some experience of the deeper dimensions of Alertness.
The deepest dimension of Alertness is a state of Consciousness, the most important characteristic feature of which is the presence of the observing Consciousness, the capability of Sight. In this state of the Consciousness we, as an external spectator, view what is happening inside and around us, and we do not allow these events to take us with them, to affect us deeper. There is a virtual space between you as the contemplating Consciousness and the experiences affecting you. This space enables you to avoid identification with your experience and to look at that experience as an external spectator. Alertness is, at the same time, Presence, which means that your are not only aware of your current actions, but you are also aware of yourself. It is only possible to talk about real Alertness when all three dimensions — Alertness, Consciousness and Presence — are present at the same time.
About the author:
Frank M. Wanderer, Ph.D is a professor of psychology, a consciousness researcher and writer. With a lifelong interest in the mystery of human existence, Frank’s work is to help others wake up from identification with our personal history and the illusory world of the forms and shapes, and to find our identity in what he calls “the Miracle”, the mystery of the Consciousness.
This article excerpted from the new book by Frank M. Wanderer, Ego – Alertness – Consciousness: The Path to Your Spiritual Home.
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