For a
while now I have been concerned with how our world and values as modern humans are
changing. We are way more fragile and entitled. While we think we are conscious
and aware. Sometimes even worse, people are conscious but not necessarily
aware, conscious but not healing, and conscious but not grounded. Modern life,
technology and the recent psychedelic wave have provided us with unearned wisdom.
I see many of us possess the knowledge but unable or unwilling to implement it within ourselves. Or there are those – the dangerous
type - who are trying to use this social transcendence to change the world to attend
to their fragility and entitlement.
True
consciousness is aware, humble and resilient. It is being wise without
arrogance, being gentle without weakness, and being determined without stubbornness.
Real person to themselves they don’t care about labels or titles. They know
what they have inside and they know that is all it matters. They have strong convictions for themselves but tolerant of the world. It is the sure-footedness that comes
from having proved that we can meet life. Consciousness doesn’t advertise
itself in social media, it doesn’t present itself only through meditation, psychedelic
or even psychotherapy. It is a state of mind created through extensive
experiences, through making mistakes and learning from them, which allows us to see inside us clearly, while a medium is just a
tool.
The thing is, our modern life taught us immediate gratification. We require instant results through minimum effort, and we feel entitled to it. That doesn’t work when it comes to consciousness. No matter how old we are, we developed complicated psychological systems that took years to build up. Therefore, it is only fair to expect to spend equal time to understand them, decode them and then proceed with our consciousness journey. Similarly, we have to understand that consciousness is not the same as awareness, and awareness not the same as wisdom. To develop wisdom takes time; we start by being conscious, then aware and throughout the years of self-awareness and experiences we reach wisdom a little bit at a time. Being intelligent or smart doesn’t qualify a person to be self-aware or wise either, it could help in some cases – although usually, it complicates the process - but it doesn’t mean it does give anyone an edge over the rest of people.
As Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Because when we are aware of what is within we can’t help but be aware of what is outside because we are part of one. Genuine self-awareness is essential because it teaches us how to be comfortable with our humanness, with our temporariness and our finiteness. If we think about it, that's exactly what is life all about. The integration of ourselves as part of the oneness of the universe, no shortcuts to that and no pretend.
