The Element of Mindfulness and Its Hope for New States of Consciousness.

Picture Courtesy: Sylvia Sky

We live in a state of continuously changing consciousness.

We eat something.  We feel pleasure or disgust.

We listen to a song on the radio.  We feel delight or awe or emotion.  If the song has rhythm, our foot starts tapping.

We enter a church or museum – we feel awe and reverence.

We go to a movie.  We feel fear, we feel excitement, we puzzle over the plot twists.

Our favorite sports team or our political party loses a battle – we feel frustrated.

We play a chess or video game, or we try to solve an intellectual or human puzzle.  We are in a state of engagement. 

When I learned to meditate, it became one of my goals to alter, escape, control, heighten, or reduce the severity of these alternate states of consciousness – depending on whether I wanted more of them or less.

I started by becoming more mindful and aware of my state of consciousness. Noticing how my mind changed and my body changed in response to different situations. What my thoughts were. What my sensations were. And what my feelings were.

Then I thought about what the ideal state of consciousness for those situations would be. 

Here are some of the questions I posed to myself about situations, and the state of consciousness I thought would be appropriate. 

Does the situation call for delight?

When I eat one of my favorite foods, or when I eat something new which delights my palate, I want to be in a state of total attention and in the moment - so I can enjoy and delight in the food. I don’t want to be walloping it down mindlessly, while I think about the next task on hand, or while I fret and fume about today’s annoyance, problem or irritation.  

Does the situation call for non-ego?

When someone cuts me off on the road, or expresses road rage at me, because I am not going at the speed limit he or she wants to me go at, I want to respond with non-ego. Of course, this is tough to achieve; so what I want to do is the next best thing – to observe my reflexive angry ego internal response until it evaporates. Sometimes, it will leave leftover emotional residue which will take a little longer to wear off – I want to observe that too.  I feel strongly about road rage.  Horrible things have happened because of it.  A year ago, a bus and a motorcyclist got into a road rage spat which resulted in the bus and the motorcyclist knocking each other, eventually leading to the motorcyclist’s death and his body being dragged for a mile under the bus.  Please read my post How to Become a Low Maintenance Person if road rage is an issue for you.

Does the situation call for counting to 1000?

At work, someone shouts “you didn’t do this” or “why can’t you understand?” or “how come you don’t know this with all your experience?”  This happens because we are not perfect, and there are bosses and coworkers who don’t know how to deal with imperfections. At such times, we have to figure out a way to alleviate and reduce our instant internal defensive, angry fight or flight feelings and thoughts, until those feelings and thoughts go away.

Does the situation call for engagement?

When we are fully engaged in something, as when writing this blog, we may not need to watch our thoughts – our consciousness is in the best state it could be – on task, in the flow, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would call it.  So far, I am glad to report, I have always been in that state when writing this blog.  Of course engagement carries its own challenges.  When someone disturbs us in the middle of something we are engaged in, and which requires our full attention, we have to learn not to lash out.

Does the situation call for attention?

When anyone is talking to us, they deserve our full attention - and not our distracted only-half-there minds.

Does the situation call for awe?

When we look at the stars and think about infinity, when we ponder the diversity, vastness, complexity and amazing beauty of nature, when we enter a hallowed place such as a museum, a church, a temple, we want to be in a state of awe.  My post How to Become a New Person tells you how observing a full moon and coming upon a rattlesnake while walking the trail brought on that state of awe for me. The next time you are in a situation which calls for awe, I hope you will give yourself fully to the moment.

Does the situation call for respectful silence?

There are some situations, such as when we are honoring the dead, or watching a couple exchange bridal wows or watching any solemn ceremony – when we want our thoughts to be respectfully silent.

Does the situation call for joyful abandon?

When we watch or listen to enjoyable entertainment, or we dance to music, we want to give ourselves to the moment wholeheartedly and without reserve.

Does the moment call for overlooking and forgiving and forgetting and not doing anything rash?

Our biggest challenge is responding appropriately to provocation – not going berserk when our hot buttons are pushed.  This is the greatest consciousness victory of all.

Meditation has done wonders for me in all these respects.

In my post TheElement of Challenge and its Hope for Pushing Us Out of Our Comfort Zone, I make mention of the best FRD I ever wrote. This FRD was written for a company which makes an interesting medical implant for epileptics.  The device is a battery the size of a dollar which is surgically implanted in the chest of the patient and has threads going to the vagus nerve in the neck.  The physician programs the device to deliver short bursts of electric stimulation from the battery along the vagus nerve to the brain.  Additionally, the patient is given a hand held device to control the stimulation themselves. VNT (Vagus Nerve Therapy) helps patients who do not respond to medication to control their epilepsy.  It reduces both the frequency and severity of epileptic episodes.

Meditation, likewise, has helped me reduce the severity and frequency of angry, defensive flight or flight responses.  I find that even when I can’t get rid of the response altogether, I am able to meditate until I am out of that state. This is a big deal.  It cuts short the fretting and fuming that follows.  And keeps me from doing anything foolish, which of course, is always a temptation in these situations. I use meditation to cope till I calm down. 

Sooner or later, we always calm down. When enough time has passed, we even are able to laugh about distressing incidents.

When I came to America, I had a driving instructor from hell.  Once she got mad at me because I changed lanes without looking at the front and side mirrors. She swung the front mirror away from me and yelled, “obviously, you don’t need this.  You didn’t look at it once”.  I was terrified.  She regularly terrorized me and the other students during the lessons.  One student even started crying. I couldn’t wait for the driving classes to end.  Now I laugh about it and Rosie says I am a good driver because of the instructor’s harsh lessons.  Driving Boot Camp :)

Meditation has been such a win – win for me.

Not only am I able to deal better with provocation, I am also able to experience more awe and wonder, more “aha “moments, more delight, more cheerfulness, and more connectedness.

But then you know this from my post Connected Minds.

Connectedness and compassion is the best state of consciousness – when we feel connected and we care for others - we typically don’t need anything else to feel life is worth living.

It’s a fulfillment in itself.

As I said in my post The Element of Vision and Its Hope for Lighting Our Path, there’s not a soul in the world who can’t provide me with some information for my blog.

This is a wonderful epiphany.  An epiphany filled with joy and hope.

I am not unique –countless other people in the world are at the exact same point as I am. They have learned to become aware of their consciousness and experience positive changes in consciousness.

Changed consciousness is available to any and all humans in the world.

You don’t have to go to a monastery and train under a monk or priest. I didn’t. I just read a book and started from there. But if you think it can help, go for it. Alternate ways of thinking and being are just a question of letting the genie out of the bottle. And you may have to try different things to get the genie out of that bottle. 

Join a Bible Study Group.  Go on a retreat.  Give yourself the creative pause I recommend in my post The Element of the Creative Pause and Its Hope for Turning Us Into Idea-Generation Machines. Do what Trevor Blake suggests in his mind-blowing book Three Little Steps.

If you have a desire to find new ways to think and be, sooner or later, you will find new ways to think and be.  It’s just a question of time.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl-Seeker like you.