Perception and conditioning

[rsingh]

Our pereception is based on our mind. Mind is collection of impressions stored as memory from past. You may get some insights or intutions but if this is used by our mind then it also becomes our past. So how to improve perception beyond our conditioning? I have been listening to various teachers and almost all of them recommend that, you to change your focus from mind to awareness or consciousness. If your focus is on consciousness then consciousness start developing, eventualy leading to realisation that you are actually consciousness. What is your opinion? Do you have any better method for spiritual development.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

Do you have any better method for spiritual development.
Not better or worse, it just works, for me.. i am not so concerned with how i label 'mind, consciousness, awareness', etc.. the process exists and i am interested in refining the process.. 'labels' become attachments, though useful for communication, i don't think about them as a function of doing/being.. it is my process to suspend the thinking processes as often as is practical, so that my relationship with Life informs 'that which i am' with Clarity.. by-passing the mind's inclination to manipulate the perceptions..

Be well..

[andrew g]

Our pereception is based on our mind. Mind is collection of impressions stored as memory from past. You may get some insights or intutions but if this is used by our mind then it also becomes our past. So how to improve perception beyond our conditioning? I have been listening to various teachers and almost all of them recommend that, you to change your focus from mind to awareness or consciousness. If your focus is on consciousness then consciousness start developing, eventualy leading to realisation that you are actually consciousness. What is your opinion? Do you have any better method for spiritual development.

I like this. My process has basically been two fold. First, to use your words, it has been focusing on consciousness. Second, it has been looking at those conditioned blocks/beliefs that have made focusing on consciousness difficult, and then using tools of different kinds to release those (often subconscious) blocks. In summary, an ongoing process of 'purification', or 'lightening up'.

[mattie]

Our pereception is based on our mind.

Our mind is our spirit’s computer to interact w/, manage our body, & process our thoughts & emotions. Our perception is our spirit’s consideration or assessment.

Mind is collection of impressions stored as memory from past.

Our mind is stored memories, but is so much more. It is involved w/ everything physical & nonphysical that’s going on in the NOW.

You may get some insights or intutions but if this is used by our mind then it also becomes our past.

Our mind isn’t autonomous.

So how to improve perception beyond our conditioning?

The phrase ‘our conditioning’ infers that we are passive. What we choose to react to is an active choice, even when selecting passivity.

I have been listening to various teachers and almost all of them recommend that, you to change your focus from mind to awareness or consciousness. If your focus is on consciousness then consciousness start developing, eventualy leading to realisation that you are actually consciousness. What is your opinion? Do you have any better method for spiritual development. [/QUOTE]

Awareness & consciousness are synonyms. Awareness is ‘having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact’ & consciousness is ‘• the awareness or perception of something by a person :’ or ‘the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.’ Whether the word awareness or consciousness is used doesn’t matter much. What matters is the delving into one’s energies.

How to develop spiritually can vary quite a bit from person to person for many reasons. What is just the right method or meditation for one person won’t do a thing for another. This is why there are many ways we can pursue this. Use what works & discard what doesn’t. Have the flexibility to change as you explore & expand.

[Lisa]

Being still, attention in the body, looking at space, watching thoughts, accepting what is in the moment are effective practices.

[Uma]

Our pereception is based on our mind. Mind is collection of impressions stored as memory from past. You may get some insights or intutions but if this is used by our mind then it also becomes our past. So how to improve perception beyond our conditioning? I have been listening to various teachers and almost all of them recommend that, you to change your focus from mind to awareness or consciousness. If your focus is on consciousness then consciousness start developing, eventualy leading to realisation that you are actually consciousness. What is your opinion? Do you have any better method for spiritual development.

I think you've been given some great advice R. but the tool we use to focus on expanding consciousness is mind. My teacher says it's like using a thorn to remove a thorn that's embedded.

The experience of a higher consciousness state is not only like an out-of-body experience, but an out-of-mind experience as well - where you can feel distinct from your thoughts. Your thoughts emanate from you when you choose to think. In a high state you don't want to think - it feels too good to not think.

Thinking is what the mind does nonstop. But like breathing there are pauses between the thoughts. The magic place you want to get to is in between those thoughts, into the silent space of the pauses - and trying to stretch those pauses so they are longer and longer.

Consciousness is what we are when we just "are". It's so fundamental to existence that it's hard to step into a space where you can feel that.

I could go on and on but I'll just stop here - see what you think about it.

[Mr Interesting]

I find the ideas about intention and letting go and how they relate to each other to be an interesting place to play.

The intention bit is about using the mind as well as intuitive insights to define what we would like to be in our future. Then to give that intention it's best chance of coming into being, I think, that it's important that we then stand away from an active role, as it were, and allow the universe to unfold the options before us and the less we actively participate, as in re-intend, the more able the universe is to get on with it's job.

The funny thing is that this can be macro and micro. So I can think I will paint this line on the painting. My intention and exercise of free will. Then I silence my mind, stand back, and actively participate in the unfolding by just watching what happens... until such time as I think another decision is required. So a decision can be a microsecond followed by multiple seconds or even minutes of silence and being actively involved in whatever is happening... or the decision can take half and hour of thinking with resultant silence, related to that intention, going on for days or weeks even.

I do think that this is where faith and trust come to the fore though because we need to have faith and trust in ourselves to let the intention play out how it will. Halfway through we may think it'd be a good idea to tweek our intention, change our mind, and faith and trust will either give us the confidence to go with an intuitive feeling to change or let us just stick with the original intention and allow the outcome to teach us what it will.

It's, for me, all about allowing that original intention the backup it needs to come to fruition in silence. The more we can just let things play out as they will, without actively re-tweaking, with intent, the outcomes then the faith we have in our intentions becomes greater.

Mind isn't disregarded for something else but honed, sharpened and attuned and as it is the area of consciousness gets greater as faith and trust open up the slience...

The hand tool isn't thrown, to be replaced by a powertool, simply because it's blunt. You learn how to sharpen it and use it to it's full capabilities... then when you get the powertool... you don't take it for granted!!!

[Humm]

I find the ideas about intention and letting go and how they relate to each other to be an interesting place to play.

The intention bit is about using the mind as well as intuitive insights to define what we would like to be in our future. Then to give that intention it's best chance of coming into being, I think, that it's important that we then stand away from an active role, as it were, and allow the universe to unfold the options before us and the less we actively participate, as in re-intend, the more able the universe is to get on with it's job.

The funny thing is that this can be macro and micro. So I can think I will paint this line on the painting. My intention and exercise of free will. Then I silence my mind, stand back, and actively participate in the unfolding by just watching what happens... until such time as I think another decision is required. So a decision can be a microsecond followed by multiple seconds or even minutes of silence and being actively involved in whatever is happening... or the decision can take half and hour of thinking with resultant silence, related to that intention, going on for days or weeks even.

I do think that this is where faith and trust come to the fore though because we need to have faith and trust in ourselves to let the intention play out how it will. Halfway through we may think it'd be a good idea to tweek our intention, change our mind, and faith and trust will either give us the confidence to go with an intuitive feeling to change or let us just stick with the original intention and allow the outcome to teach us what it will.

It's, for me, all about allowing that original intention the backup it needs to come to fruition in silence. The more we can just let things play out as they will, without actively re-tweaking, with intent, the outcomes then the faith we have in our intentions becomes greater.

Mind isn't disregarded for something else but honed, sharpened and attuned and as it is the area of consciousness gets greater as faith and trust open up the slience...

The hand tool isn't thrown, to be replaced by a powertool, simply because it's blunt. You learn how to sharpen it and use it to it's full capabilities... then when you get the powertool... you don't take it for granted!!!

Very insightful and useful reflections M.I. - Thank you.

[Papa Bear]

Our pereception is based on our mind. Mind is collection of impressions stored as memory from past. You may get some insights or intutions but if this is used by our mind then it also becomes our past. So how to improve perception beyond our conditioning? I have been listening to various teachers and almost all of them recommend that, you to change your focus from mind to awareness or consciousness. If your focus is on consciousness then consciousness start developing, eventualy leading to realisation that you are actually consciousness. What is your opinion? Do you have any better method for spiritual development.

Hi rsingh, some excellent reflections already posted, just thought I would add my own reflection. Within the experiences of Spiritual development, often a subtle awareness is missed regarding our understanding of what mind actually is. It may seem to be one mind, but its reflections are different when identified in differing natures.

The human condition and its psychological nature, is not the same as mind experience beyond the restrictions of that human perception and understanding. So though it may be subtle, our mind in Spiritual awareness is not as `conditioned` as the human experience of it, in the conscious nature of human psychology. Or how else could we become aware, in mind, of experience beyond the confines of human psychology.

Again consciousness and awareness also have a subtle difference, in human mind rational they are the same thing, but within experience which is either a direct interconnectivity of Spiritual experience beyond human sense, or often as a reflected Spiritual influence through chakric sensitivity, `awareness` replaces consciousness. The subtlety of the difference can be so fine, that it may require more in explanation of its reflection, to be recognized, as a part of our Spiritual human experience.

How does a clairvoyant distinguish the difference between their own thoughts, and a Spiritual reflection from someone who does not exist in the material condition?

How does a Spiritual healer know the difference between their own condition, and the conditions they may have taken from a person just healed?

How do we discern the difference between a psychological instinct and intuitiveness, when we think we recognize an impression, which may have had Spiritual source?

When working with chakras, how do we discern whether changes in heat, is natural body reaction, or etheric energy flow?

Consider that if millions of human beings, naturally experience astral interconnectivity while asleep `unconscious`, not only in human condition, but also during that actual experience, yet they still perceive a subtle `awareness` of its activity and experience.

Any number of subtle intuitive experiences which, while conscious, and conditioned by human psychology, require a transformation from `consciousness` into `awareness` to be able to discern with any true accuracy, if there is `an invisible presence in the room`, or a subtle `change in the surrounding conditions`, that is not caused by material conditions, but something beyond them.

The reasoning for this subtle change, from conscious human psychological mind reaction, to pure awareness, is that the origins of those experiences are not within the scope of the human conscious conditioning, so unless there is a subtle departure into a sensitivity of awareness, the intuitiveness of recognition may be blocked, missed or misinterpreted by a human conditioned response.

In deep meditation, this process is natural to those who learn, that human mind conditioning, human perceptions of conscious experience, `must` be transformed into awareness of experience, rather than just being conscious of it. Because ethereal, astral and Spiritual interconnectivity, are experiences of chakric sensitivity, and an aspect of our mind experience, which is not conditioned by human rational or its conscious association.

So my advice to any who are active in their Spiritual development, would be, to learn to discern, the difference between the human conditioned mind, and an aspect of higher mind which translates Spiritual experience into awareness. And on a human level of consciousness, learn to discern the difference between conscious instinct and the `awareness` of intuitiveness, when trying to identify a potential chakric sensitivity of recognition. Human senses identify material experience, chakras identify what is not material experience, and one depends upon conscious recognition, the other upon the awareness supplied by sensitivity.

[Xan]

rsingh... There are two essential methods for expanding and deepening our awareness in being, in life itself, realizing the true Self.

One is, as you said, becoming aware that you are aware, and watching it all go in pure consciousness... being fully present.

This is the path of knowing beyond the mind.

The other is becoming aware in the inner heart, pure unlimited love for-no-reason that is the complement to pure consciousness.

This is the path of surrender.

People are generally attracted first to one path or the other, but in the end we all get it all.


Xan

[chattisgarh_india]

There are two essential methods for expanding and deepening our awareness in being, in life itself, realizing the true Self.

One is, as you said, becoming aware that you are aware, and watching it all go in pure consciousness... being fully present.

This is the path of knowing beyond the mind.

The other is becoming aware in the inner heart, pure unlimited love for-no-reason that is the complement to pure consciousness.

This is the path of surrender.

People are generally attracted first to one path or the other, but in the end we all get it all.



real wisdom in it xan love to read.