I was reading "Beyond the Occult" (by Colin Wilson) the other day, when I got this idea. I was aware that it is part of Jedi philosophy to be able to put full attention to the 'here and now'; but I had known it only theoretically. And I realize that many other Knights and Masters in the Jedi community have never exercised awareness practically, either.
Then, I came upon this fragment, containing a quote from the book "The Magus of Strovolos" (an account on the mage Daskalos), with a surprisingly simple exercise:
Quote:
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[these words by Daskalos], for example, might have been said by Gurdjieff or by some Zen master:
"Let me ask you a question. How many things do you concentrate on with full awareness during your everyday life? Very few. When you train yourself to concentrate you will become aware of much more in your life. At first devote a quarter of an hour every day. During that time you may take a walk and will fully notice everything around you. Nothing should escape your attention, nothing. You may feel tired at first because you are not accustomed to paying attention to everything around you, the ant walking, he flowers, the sounds, the voices. You perceive everything, you feel everything. When you start this exercise you learn that during that quarter of an hour you live much more fully, much more intensely, than at any other period of the day. You will discover that what is considered ordinarily as the awaking state is in reality a form of semihypnosis..."
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What I would like to propose is that those who are interested and have never done it, try that exercise. I propose that we form a group or something to study this particular technique. (I am not proposing creating another ezboard, gods forbid just a task group with no other place than this thread). Just, you know, find 15 minutes daily and add the exercise to your daily routine. After some time try 20 minutes, 30 and so on. But don't start with less than 15, because it takes some 5 to 10 minutes for a beginner to build up a sufficient pressure of consciousness.
After, say, three weeks from the start (let's start this Friday - 17.11 - and return to this post on 8.12) we'll exchange our opinions, impressions and results, and if they are interesting, maybe we'll continue for a year...
The thing is that although many of us know the concept of full awareness from Zen and elsewhere, it seems too difficult and some of us don't know how to go about achieving it. Well, I think the exercise above is a step in the right direction.
But before we begin, I would like to explain more technically what we are trying to do, and why I expect it to be so rewarding.
Perception, or awareness, is like a beam of will (you could call it a beam of attention, and visualise it as a beam of energy from the eyes, like in some Japanese cartoon ). In order to see, it is not enough to direct your eyes towards something. If you have been going by train for an hour, and you are bored and looking out the window, after some time you virtually stop seeing! Another example, if you are reading a boring book, or you are tired, you have these moments when you go through half a page and suddenly realise that you are not reading anything - even though your eyes did absorb the text, you haven't the slightest idea what it was about.
Once we agree that consciousness is like a beam of will, we must set down another fact: that, in an everyday state of mind, this beam of consciousness is of extremely poor quality. It's like an untrained muscle. The reason for that is the habit of taking the state of your consciousness for granted; this is equivalent to not believing that muscles can be trained. And the poor quality of everyday consciousness is the reason for which most people's everyday lives are of equally poor quality. Not to mention that such an inert mind cannot achieve full awareness even for a moment, because it is simply too weak.
The exercise I quoted at the top of this thread is designed to teach to 'build up pressure' in consciousness. I never knew what Wilson ment by 'pressure' until the following experience, more than a year ago:
I woke up very tired and in a lazy mood, like I could barely open my eyes. Then I had to go to the dentist; as I have always been very afraid of the dentist, I watched her intently, expecting pain all the time. The tortures lasted for 1h and 20 minutes, and I was very concentrated during the whole visit (even though, objectively, there was no real pain). Now the real discovery was when I (finally ) left. I felt a difference in the state of consciousness, and indeed, it could have been expressed by saying that my consciousness had build up more pressure than it usually possesses (I was lucky I thought of analysing it into words, otherwise I wouldn't be able to recall it now ). I was able to pay more attention to things around me; I felt I saw things for the first time. Although the reason for it (the visit to the dentist) was over, I had enough concentration to have been able to play chess in my head and talk with someone at the same time, I was so full of energy that I felt like running or playing football or something. It was raining a bit, but I didn't care.
I think Daskalos, Gurdjieff, the Zen masters and all the rest were right to say that when you are more aware, you live more fully. The 'normal' state of being awake is in reality a half-sleep; but just as an extreme effort of will can awaken us from a nightmare, similarly we can rise from the semi-sleep that we consider 'normal consciousness' to what more deserves the name of consciousness. And the most intriguing thing is that full awareness, when used in deep relaxation, is the key to the paranormal and mystical experiences! At least that is something that mystics, guru, martial arts masters, mediums and the rest are consistent in.
My conclusion is this: if this exercise proves to be as rewarding as I think (especially in awakening the 'hidden powers' of mental and paranormal nature), we should decide if it should be THE exercise for learners of the Force.
Morken Sa'an