I have for a long time represented to myself, and it’s a common to the point of cliche I think, as I later read, that anything we do ripples out among our environment, the people we know, as well as our own life, like a rock dropped in a still pond. I thought more about this as I later became acquainted with internal practices such as meditation and Qigong.

Taking the ripples a bit further: we have billions upon billions of people that have lived, are living, and will live on Earth, barring the apocalyptic collapse of the human race (or the more positive approach of the Golden Age defined by the transformation of the human race and its society equivalent possibly to a process of enlightenment en masse); imagine all these people, their lives as the ripples quantified in totality when dropped in an ocean at different times. Each of the ripples unfolding their life as they travel further and further out, bumping into other ripples, waves, or splashes becoming changed in some way. I think this is part of the problem when we try to become aware of our self is when we look outward. We cannot separate out what has affected us and the nature of our true self.

It is an immediate reaction to look outward, instead of taking note of internal processes. We look for empirical evidence proving the logical outward interactions as some sort of formula for our existence so we can point to the tangible categorization, “That’s Me.” The ‘is-ness’ of reality is rooted in us from our past generations imprinting their ripples into our immediate entry into ‘reality’. Some imprints are strong, some are weak, but ultimately if we want to find their source we cannot look only outward.

The practice of awareness as I described as Meditation in my previous post is possibly the beginning of understanding this process. There are many ways to address the problem of self-awareness and any method is simply that, a method and which one best suits a person is for each to find out.

Awareness is more like observation without consequence, like a body without the ability to move. Choice offers us the ability to act, and follow a path, any path we are aware of, or not aware of, in terms of its ultimate destination or consequences. The more awareness we have the more choices we can make consciously. Awareness doesn’t mean we can choose the right choice, as awareness is completely impartial. It is our true nature that gives us this sense.

The consequence of being imprinted by billions of other lives coupled with the billions of choices of each life leaves us with a lot of habits, or tendencies in our behaviour. When we aren’t aware we behave with those inherited and acquired tendencies as if we were pre-programmed robots. For the most part the choice to change these tendencies is out of reach when there is only enough awareness to exist and not to live life (as I keep these definitions separate).

It is amazing to note that even modern neuroscience confirms that plasticity of the brain. Anything that we adhere to that defines our reality is our belief of who and what we are–a set of tendencies in our awareness and choices. It doesn’t matter how old we are, any patterns can be changed. It doesn’t take years of meditation to accomplish change from within, it only takes self-discipline and the pure desire to accomplish that goal. Once we decide to do something and create a new tendency or make the one we want to change obsolete, we just need to maintain awareness that our choices coincide with the desired tendency.

Greater awareness leads to more choices; more choices leads to the possibility of more awareness and the changing of tendencies. The more we change the tendencies the more malleable we become, eventually being able to naturally adapt to any and all situations. The ability to adapt is coupled with the ability to understand how to change. Once we can understand how to change through awareness and choice, we are less burdened by what has been imprinted upon us, freeing us from our past, so we can make real progress.

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