Life Examined Part Two

Examining self requires that we take some time in our busy world of doing, to just be for a moment. That requires a strategy for quieting the analytical, judgmental mind and become the observer of the mind. In the Gospel of Thomas, we read, “Jesus said, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.’” vs 70 (1). When we bring forth that intelligence that is within us, which is put there by our very nature, we will realize that we are part of a larger intelligence that must be recognized and acknowledged. We are all in relationships in which we must acknowledge our dependence on one another. We also must acknowledge that our thoughts and actions have tremendous consequences on all things around us. Everything matters, there is nothing on this planet that does not have purpose, therefore matters. Failing to recognize this will in fact “kill us”.

From ego, this perspective is extremely difficult to recognize or experience. When one has a transcendent peace, or waking experience one can only conclude that it is true.
           
Working with many people who have come face to face with their mortality has taught me that higher consciousness often accompanies the failure of our temporal knowledge. As one detaches from ego function, that is the things that can be taken from us, one is left with that which is “within us”. We see examples of this when people lose everything materialistic and yet somehow find a quiet peace and gratitude. I have experienced people losing parts and function of their bodies, have lost loved ones, have lost property and yet have transcendent peace. This peace is not a product of ego function (attachment) but it is a knowing, which knowing comes from inner awareness or stillness. This can only come from the journey inward. 

 (1) The ‘scholars’ translation of the Gospel of Thomas by Stephen Patterson and Marvin

Life Examined

Socrates was known to have said, “A life unexamined is not worth living.”

When I first read that statement I found it to be quite harsh. As I have traveled further along life’s path I see the wisdom in his statement.

We are the only species on the planet that I know of that can be conscious of our consciousness. We can think about what we think. And we can choose to act or not act. We can think about ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our likes, our dislikes, our prejudices, our fears, our insecurities, our wisdom and our lack thereof. In essence, we can have a conscious relationship with ourselves. We can make choices and we are ALWAYS accountable for those choices, even when those choices are made from a less than a conscious space. 

If we fail to examine self, we are simply a product of our socialization process. We never rise above the generation of before us and thereby repeat the “sins” of our fathers. Self-examination allows us to evolve and to transform, which I believe we must do. As a species we were meant to evolve physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

As we examine ourselves we come to realize that the intelligence that created the universe is the same intelligence that created you. You are nature and nature is you. The intelligence of nature is the same intelligence that is in you.

One important key to unlocking that intelligence is through the observation of emotion. Nature created within us the ability of emotion that we might understand our relationship to all “other” things, even though we ourselves can never be the “other”.

While all things are conscious to some degree, we as a species can activate by studying, by meditating, and by communicating with our hearts, a deeper or brighter consciousness of purpose. Most human beings have at some level, a desire to know of their unique purpose in mortality. This purpose can be discovered as one observes self in relationships. Relationships are our primary teachers about what it means to be us. Every relationship measures back to us some essence about us. All things we see “out there” are in reality within us.