Concentration or awareness?

Concentration is the directing of attention to a specific object, to the exclusion of everything else. A single object becomes the only point of focus.
Awareness is a state of being conscious of everything around you, and within you. It is a process of watching everything. It includes everything.

Being informed, not opinionated!

"Perception is awareness shaped by belief. Beliefs control perception" - Bruce Lipton Ph.D., Cellular biologist

"People do no see their beliefs. Instead their beliefs tell them what they see" - Matt Kahn

Beliefs control and decide how one perceives a given situation. One's perception of the situation decides how one responds to that situation. And what one makes out of a situation depends on how he responds to it.
Our beliefs are a product of external influences, our past experiences, mental conditionings and a variety of other such forces. Most beliefs and formed unconsciously. We don't always consider the hows and whys, rationally process it,(not on the basis of our prejudices but on actual, real facts of reality) to arrive at a conclusive belief, do we? We usually jump to conclusions, many external factors could be contributing to it. Whatsoever be the nature of our beliefs, the truth lies in the fact that we still hold onto those beliefs and be led by them. (Here it must be understood that every belief we hold may not be true) When once we have held a certain belief, we look at every situation in the light of that belief. So, what we understand of that situation is an opinion, that comes as a byproduct of processing, what meets the senses, with our previously held beliefs. The reality always passes through the filters of these beliefs.
Opinions stand on a shaky base called belief. Now, the question, can we always trust our opinions? The answer surely is, no! In such a case, crying over them or otherwise, is quiet meaningless. This could also mean, half of our problems are illusory!
Before doing more talking, let's understand that we must first stop being opinionated. We don't need baseless opinions to run our lives, by any chance!
To understand how an opinion is formed is the first step to stop forming it. We must first become mindful of the stream of thoughts that run in our minds, before they stop at an ending point called an opinion. Start mindfully watching these thoughts. Simply watch. Don't judge, because to judge again is to compare and critically analyse on the basis of beliefs. Keep watching. As you watch, more and more, your beliefs will no longer come your way. You will now see the reality as it is!
A sure shot way to mindfully watching your thoughts is to start with watching your breathe. Watching is different from concentrating. (Will be discussed in the next post) Don't concentrate on the breathe, be aware/mindful of the breathe. Though, initial concentration can eventually lead to being aware.
This can help lead an informed life, not an opinionated one.

Be mindful. Be peaceful. Be the true you.

Why is Self-knowledge necessary?

"Man know thyself; then thou shalt know the universe and God" ~ Pythagorus, a mystic, mathematician, scientist

How many times have you found yourself saying, 'I don't know why I'm feeling how I'm feeling'? How often do you get disappointed all of a sudden for no specific reason that you can identify? Has it ever happened that you switched from being the happiest to being the most frustrated ever, in less than a split second, but you had no clue why?
In all of the above mentioned cases, there is one thing in common - that we do not know what is happening, how and why it is happening.
Reason? We are lost in the chatter of our cluttered minds. We are so caught up in the stories, our minds are cooking up. (Though we know that something is constantly running in our minds, we are not consciously aware of them most of the times. Thoughts come and go. They also leave their trail behind - we feel pleasant or unhappy etc. But we don't know why they came, where they came from, and how they silently left, without our notice)
Then what do we do? We just need to stop for a while, and look into our own minds and consciously see what is Happening.
How would it help to see what's happening? We would become aware of what our monkey minds are upto.
Then? When once we know what is happening in our minds, it becomes easy to navigate thoughts, to our advantage. And to see things just as they are, with greater clarity, without giving them our individual definitions. And this is what it means to be mindful!

Here's it's spiritual side: The deeper we know the mind, the more we begin to know who we truly are, because we are now looking at ourselves through clearer eyes. Our vision is no longer blurred by the cooked up stories of the mind. We simply begin to see things just as they are, less and less filtered by the mind's messed up perspectives.

Here's a little exercise: Watch your mind consciously everyday, while you are cooking, brushing, driving, and until my next post! ;)

Be mindful. Be peaceful. Be the true you.