Seeking Self-Awareness: Mindfulness of Awareness of Self

We as practitioners who wish to become more must first look within to achieve complete and open knowledge of ourselves, to see all the good and all the bad, in order to achieve what one might call, "enlightenment or an enlightened state." In thinking of this aspect of training and practice I came across a quote in a book that describes the process well:

"In order to understand the larger truths, you must first accept the smaller truths about yourself. This requires sacrifice. We live our lives hiding from the things that displease and discomfort us. We reinvent ourselves and our history, constantly placing things in a light most favorable to us. It is the nature of mankind to do this. Mostly, our deceptions are small ones. But they gather weight through numbers, and having them revealed all at once can be crushing. As well, there are larger truths that, exposed, seem more than we can bear, and so we hide them most carefully.

Truth will assault you as surely as an ordinary metal blade. It will have impact and cutting edges. Knowledge and acceptance of what is coming are your best defense. You can do what you need to do to protect yourself and adapt."

I feel that this is true. I feel that we all tell ourselves stories and as we experience and/or retrieve memories our minds instinctively perceive those that may cause us pain and suffering so the mind "adjusts" our memories accordingly. My research into this tells me one thing, "This is normal human nature." It is not to be perceived as something "wrong" but should be accepted so we can grow and become more ... by acceptance and discovery we can meet these head on and by this remove them from affecting our intent and actions.

No comments:

Post a Comment