Awareness, the lens through which I perceive myself and, thus, the world, is the key to transcending the distortions of egoic thought identification (past) and desire (future), which create the illusion of psychological time. Awareness is perception beyond thought, non-judgmental observation that allows true understanding of what is happening to and around me in the present moment. This understanding arises when I liberate my true Self from the shackles of my past—the memories, traditions, concepts, or ideals that are my thoughts. When the limitations of my thinking—my ego self—are dissolved in awareness, the past no longer restricts me from engaging with the reality of life’s urgency in the now. To be aware is to observe the world without comparison or needing to change and control everything based on fear of losing what I know from past experiences by trying to repeat better versions in the future. It’s to recognize that my desires are not me but mere cravings for a different, better by comparison, more certain, and secure imaginary future.
Realizing that I am not my thoughts is a profound liberation from the illusion of psychological time. This awareness of the mind being trapped in thought is freedom from the burden of choice (time), from the turmoil of judging by comparison, comparing the falsehood of being identified by the past to the imaginary desire for better versions of the past projected into the future. With this freedom from time, there is not just a choiceless understanding but a profound clarity that arises from within as a spontaneous response to reality unfolding in the present moment. That is the right action of positive flowing energy-in-motion as emotional feelings of optimism, forgiveness, love, serenity, and bliss from a unified heart and mind—which comes from natural creative intelligence.
Intelligence, in its truest form, is not a product of the thinking mind but arises from the higher power of complete comprehension of the present moment. My unified, heartfelt feelings of understanding and awareness heal the division of comparison—duality—the resistance of the tormented ego mind that causes suffering. Suffering ends; it disappears into the flowing, peaceful, effortless action of choiceless observation, that is, meditation. When the ego disappears into heartfelt understanding, ignorance, and the fear of losing what “I” know as me in time disappears, all that remains is the creative intelligence of spontaneous action in a choiceless response—when thinking stops and life energy, Love, is allowed to flow unrestricted as part of the constant universal unknown happening now.
Staying aware of my thinking stops psychological time, and the mind transcends to a peaceful, blissful state as meditation happens. As J. Krishnamurti professed eighty years ago: “Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. It is not concentration. Meditation is the constant discernment of what is true in the actions, reactions, and provocations of life. To discern the true cause of struggle, cruelty, and misery is true meditation. This needs alertness, deep awareness. In this awareness of right values, there comes the comprehension of reality, bliss.”[1]
Without time, self-identification with the past and cravings to change how I feel and picture my past in the future—my thoughts—disappear. When thinking, the separate ego living in fear and trying to control psychological time disappears, and creative intelligence arises in the silent—without thought—present moment of active meditation. The Higher Power of universal Love flows freely through me into the world—unrestricted by the self.
There is no greater purpose in life than to awaken,
in meditation, that my Higher Power is self-Awareness—
until the self disappears, and all that remains is Love.
[1] The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: The Mirror of Relationship, Volume III 1936-1944, Krishnamurti Foundation America 2012, Ojai, CA, pg. 55.
VAB 18-Mar-24
©2024 stillawakening.com All Rights Reserved
