Convicted Awareness

A Tenuous Consciousness, a Fragile Openness: Revelation must be established and strengthened by conscious choice, then perfected through disciplined action.

The opportunity and possibility for living in a state of openness is fragile. The crystalline encasing of our own consciousness can be broken, penetrated, or shattered by something insignificant, like a discomforting word that was said to us. Revelation is only possible in the moments when we can stop our reaction and pull ourselves back into the heart. What ensues is the simple joy that comes from resting in our own consciousness. Unless these moments become a permanent state, our consciousness remains fragile and tenuous.

To establish ourselves in joy we must bring consistent, convicted attention to our awareness. We must be like Shakyamuni Buddha, sitting under the Bodhi Tree. With his fingers extended, touching the ground, he called forth the earth as his witness, affirming, “I will not move from here until I know myself.” The Buddha’s story conveys what it means to have an unconditional intention to remain open.

When the Buddha declared his intention, it triggered his ego’s counter-determination to remain closed. He saw demons threatening him, beautiful women trying to seduce him, and kings throwing gold and jewels at his feet, all in an unsuccessful attempt to pull him out of his convicted awareness. And, just as he remained steadfast, it is always our decision to remain in center and not allow ourselves to be knocked off course by the conditions of life.

The Ego is a Leprechaun

Too often we falter and make decisions from our ego. Functioning from a place of duality, we choose to leave our center and chase temptation. It doesn’t matter what arises to reveal the tenuousness of our own consciousness — it is just a display of the ego’s power to steal our freedom. My teacher Rudi described the ego as a leprechaun that is constantly transforming itself into something that will grab our attention and knock us off center. It is only our disciplined inner practice that will reinforce and strengthen our openness.

To be free from unstable awareness requires a conviction and commitment to our intention; to be willing, no matter what conditions we encounter, to take a breath and feel our heart. Having convicted awareness is like walking steadily on a tightrope, even when we feel off balance. We develop the discriminating capacity to recognize when we are about to fall and then have the willingness to do whatever is needed to restabilize our awareness.

It is fundamental that we bring conviction to our sādhana every moment of every day, because it is the lifeline to our awareness of our center, which is the central channel (suṣumṇa). Sādhana is what keeps us from falling off the tightrope of our attention as we move through our day. In activity, we don’t always maintain the connection to the inner fullness that we experienced when we meditated or did the double-breath. If this connection unravels, we lose contact with our heart, our openness, and the flow within.

Ours is Not a Caravan of Despair

In the very moment we lose contact, we must remember that sādhana does not just happen with our eyes closed. During the day, we use our convicted awareness to continue to internalize the energy of our mind and emotions. By putting this energy back into the central channel, we stay centered and balanced. The extraordinary gift of any tradition that focuses on Kuṇḍalinī is the understanding that the impenetrable freedom from the tenuousness of life can be found in the suṣumṇa, the channel of śakti and Consciousness within which our connection to God is perpetual and unbreakable.

This balance and openness cannot be found from the mind, which is only a tool of the ego. The mind may even seek to replicate experiences of nonduality we have had — but we want to cultivate a state of awareness, not a temporary experience. A permanent inner awareness only comes from disciplining ourselves to return to the place of consciousness in which we had the experience of freedom. We want to build the muscles of vimarśa, our self-reflective capacity, which can hold, channel, and direct our awareness, rather than attempting to replicate an earlier experience.

Vimarśa is the gift of recognition that reminds us to do the double-breath, pull our energy out of the mind and its tensions, and simply bring it back into the heart, the organ of consciousness. Let the heart consume the activity of the mind. If you lifted your hand off the ground of awareness, re-establish that connection by bringing your attention back inside. When the Buddha said, “I will not move from here,” it then required great conviction to build the strength that led to his awakening. Our sādhana helps develop our own muscles of vimarśa and opens us to higher consciousness through the consistency of practice.

Moments when we falter help us recognize the weakness of our intention to hold on to the very thing that we say we want most in this life. My advice is to keep working, and never give up your conviction that liberation is of paramount importance. Rumi says, “Come, come, whoever you are. . . Ours is not a caravan of despair. . . even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.” Let Rumi’s words and the Buddha’s conviction be a reminder that you, too, have the capacity to live in unwavering openness and joy.