What does it mean to live consciously?

[CroMagna]

I've heard the phrase "living consciously" thrown around here often. Many people here feel saddened that so many people aren't "living consciously." What does that mean?

[James81]

To me it means that knowing that every thing we do in our lives begins with some form of a choice.

For me, "living consciously" has been kind of like an awareness of sorts...where all those things that I thought I had no control over suddenly become things that were my choice, within my power, and/or my responsibility.

[forexpreneur]

James hit the nail right on the head as far as answering in the same basic way I was going to. It is one heck of a journey to tear yourself down and rebuild you the way that you would like to be. What I mean by this is the process of truly questioning every strong belief you have about the world, people, etc. Where do you get that belief? What is it exactly? Do you really truly believe that or is it a program from someone else?

When you start to do this process you quickly understand that an extremely large amount of our population are just walking computers with programs that get triggered by one thing or another. It's is NOT to be judgemental towards others or even our selves, it's about being the captian of your ship instead of the ship be guided by the "storm" most of us call life.

I'm still not completely there yet, as I still have some leftover childhood trauma I'm working through, however I have overcome quite a bit and have truly examined many beliefs I had and changed or at least altered quite a few of them.

That is a much longer example than James, but, well that is just how I am I guess.

Cheers.

[nothuman]

Begin by understanding what living unconsciously is like.....led around by thought / emotive patterns......reactions dictated by same.........freedom marginalized by same

Living consciously.......in a state of awareness as opposed to a state of mind.......freedom and space increased.....understanding and intelligence increased

That is simply my experience and understanding.........

[Andrew Gubb]

well, the normal way of living isn't very effective as far as being happy or... anything is concerned. if you don't question things and find your own way of living, I'd say you're unconscious.

note that "unconscious" is a spiritual/new age term in this context. to understand it fully I'd suggest you read a new age work such as The Power of Now.

[Michael Chui]

Mindfulness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[raykilleen]

Originally Posted by CroMagna

I've heard the phrase "living consciously" thrown around here often. Many people here feel saddened that so many people aren't "living consciously." What does that mean?

A keener sense of awareness…

[The Cloud]

I've often wondered that, too. It seems to me to be one of those useless stock phrases that gets bandied about. The problem is that "living consciously" doesn't provide any details; it could mean just about anything. It encompasses too much, and so ends up encompassing nothing at all.

If I had to put a definition to it, I would choose something like James81's. I would amend it by saying that everything either is a choice, or will become a choice. Right now, you might not have all the choices you want. You may not be able to control your own behavior in the way that you would like. But one day, with effort and awareness, those things will become possible for you. That is conscious living, close as I can imagine.

[Philemon]

I like the insights from others here.

For me, living consciously involves asking myself questions, such as. . .

"Why am i behaving this way?"
"What is my desired outcome and necessary course of action?"
"Am I accurate in thinking this way?"
"What should I eat for dinner? No really, what should I eat for dinner?"
"Why do I have this urge right now? Is it an urge I should follow, or am I once again subconsciously sabotaging my own well-being?"

and much much more. . .

It also involves a lot of conscious statements to myself. I state my daily intentions. I tell myself what kind of mood to be in. I remind myself constantly of my purpose and my intentions. I remind myself how I want to react when I catch myself acting not according to my desires.

Also, I meditate. I sit and listen and observe. I observe my own thought patterns and evaluate them. I carefully consider the "stimuli" I allow to be a part of my life. Therefore, I killed my TV and my coffee table has books and art supplies on it. In that way, I create an environment that supports my own "conscious living."

As I walk down the street, I feel my feet beneath me, I touch leaves and stones and attempt to communicate with them. In other words, I try to experience each moment - - hence some others' suggestion to read "the power of now" -- important idea about conscious living.

I could go on and on. Conscious living takes constant effort. It's easy to slip into a non-conscious state of living; through all my efforts I probably have daily moments in which I do. I'm still working on it

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Philemon

For me, living consciously involves asking myself questions, such as. . .

"Why am i behaving this way?"
"What is my desired outcome and necessary course of action?"
"Am I accurate in thinking this way?"
"What should I eat for dinner? No really, what should I eat for dinner?"
"Why do I have this urge right now? Is it an urge I should follow, or am I once again subconsciously sabotaging my own well-being?"

For me, I think living consciously is more about being able to not ask those questions. There's the point where you've never thought it important to ask those questions before, but I think there's also a point where you've moved beyond their necessity. That is true conscious living, not needing to ask questions to know who you are.

Originally Posted by Philemon

It's easy to slip into a non-conscious state of living

I disagree; I think that once you're conscious, you're conscious, and there's no going back. A man that slips and falls doesn't become a child again. He doesn't move backwards through time.

You imply that state of living has something to do with state of being, but I think the link is only incidental. I could be feckless, friendless, filthy, fat and full of fast food, and be fully conscious of it. Consciousness exists independent of what you eat or what you watch on TV or who you have relations with. Nothing prevents consciousness; it's always available, at all times, to all people. Perhaps you could say that life is consciousness, to us humans.

Of course, there are tendencies that conscious people might have, but they don't have those tendencies in order to become conscious. They live consciously, but they aren't conscious because of how they live. That's the way I see it, at least.

[VinceG]

It's very simple.

Let's say I bump my bare foot into a concrete street curb. I scream and holler. After I'm done screaming, I'm angry and irritable. Later on that day something might happen, and I'll snap, and have a reaction that totally wasn't justified, all because that episode earlier has me on a tight fuse.

"Living consciously" means that I'm aware of what's making me irritable. Not living consciously means that I'm not conscious of what's making me react the way I am. It does not mean that I won't get irritable, just that I know what's making me that way.

If you've ever heard the phrase "expanding your consciousness," that's exactly what it means. You're expanding, in a very real way, the things you're conscious of.

[Brutha]

The problem is that "living consciously" doesn't provide any details

The whole point of "living consciously" is that you don't need a step by step formula to "live consciously".

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Brutha

The whole point of "living consciously" is that you don't need a step by step formula to "live consciously".

I agree. I also see where CroMagna's confusion comes from. If I say that the solution to your problem is to live consciously, I haven't really said anything at all if you're the kind of person that would need that advice. The only use I can see the term having is as a hook for a group/institution/church preaching about conscious living, and when people come to ask what it means, they give them their particular gospel. In that way, conscious living is only as good as the explanation that comes afterwards.

I do like VinceG's explanation.

[Philemon]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

For me, I think living consciously is more about being able to not ask those questions. There's the point where you've never thought it important to ask those questions before, but I think there's also a point where you've moved beyond their necessity. That is true conscious living, not needing to ask questions to know who you are.



I disagree; I think that once you're conscious, you're conscious, and there's no going back. A man that slips and falls doesn't become a child again. He doesn't move backwards through time.

You imply that state of living has something to do with state of being, but I think the link is only incidental. I could be feckless, friendless, filthy, fat and full of fast food, and be fully conscious of it. Consciousness exists independent of what you eat or what you watch on TV or who you have relations with. Nothing prevents consciousness; it's always available, at all times, to all people. Perhaps you could say that life is consciousness, to us humans.

Of course, there are tendencies that conscious people might have, but they don't have those tendencies in order to become conscious. They live consciously, but they aren't conscious because of how they live. That's the way I see it, at least.

To some extent I think you're right, but I think the view you explain here explains consciousness as though it has a glass ceiling, a point at which there is no further growth and awareness to obtain.

[Mike0149]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

I disagree; I think that once you're conscious, you're conscious, and there's no going back.

You were conscious before you "became conscious". Once you "became conscious", you then realise that, although you were conscious before you 'became conscious', you weren't fully conscious.

That's a process that can go on repeating. But proceeding on the path generates increasing ego resistance or, more subtly, the ego insinuating itself into the spiritual growth process and mounting hidden defences to further growth.

So, at one and the same time, it's possible both to live with a 'no going back' level of attained higher consciousness and to slip into a non-conscious state of living - the non-consciousness of having no awareness of even the existence of a still-higher level of consciousness, let alone attaining such higher level.

Originally Posted by The Cloud

Nothing prevents consciousness; it's always available, at all times, to all people.

Consciousness may be available 24/7/365 worldwide, but that doesn't mean humanity is positioned to step into it 24/7/365 worldwide.

Ego prevents higher levels of consciousness, or at least it has a formidable array of "egoic-self"-defence mechanisms. The most insidious such mechanism is quietly co-opting the spiritual search process and "egoising" it so that defended areas stay defended. Or, in the face of the spiritual search pressure, the ego might deign to allow some growth, as a sop to distract attention from the reallocation of the released egoic resource towards keeping the highly-defended areas of the psyche even more highly defended. Or the ego might prompt one to explain all this on internet forums, granting oneself, for doing so, a pat on the back if not indeed a bright white halo, for spreading the word and 'helping' others on their spiritual search instead of continuing one's own grunt work of regular meditation or whatever.....

Originally Posted by The Cloud

For me, I think living consciously is more about being able to not ask those questions. There's the point where you've never thought it important to ask those questions before, but I think there's also a point where you've moved beyond their necessity. That is true conscious living, not needing to ask questions to know who you are.

[my emphasis]

Maybe. Or maybe it's an ego-capture: "I've moved to true consciousness, I've arrived. That's it. Well, I do have a vague feeling that that may not be the whole story. But no-one is going to tell me that, with my newly enhanced consciousness, I'm unaware of being defended against considering whether further travel on the path might be desirable. In fact, that would be a meaningless comment to make! Because, as I said, I've arrived, a bit like arriving at a railway terminus, so there is no further path to travel".

[MagicalRealist]

It can sometimes be hard to get a grasp on what this "living consciously" stuff really is. So maybe it's more helpful at first to consider what living unconsciously involves.

To live unconsciously is to be run by your inner programming--the "scripts" that tell you what to expect from the world and how to behave in it. You receive many of those scripts from your culture and society, your family, and your religion. And you generate many of them yourself, without even thinking about it--without consciously doing so--based on these received scripts.

Trouble is, a lot of those scripts are self-defeating, if not outright dangerous. At the very least, they keep you from enjoying life; the worst ones can keep you paralyzed, unable to function in this world, and cut off from yourself and other people.

Here's some common scripts I see people running in their heads:

"Balding men are unattractive, and if I go bald I won't be loved."

"I still haven't lost my virginity, and that makes me a loser."

"Women who enjoy sex are dirty whores, and deserve whatever bad might come their way."

"I'm unworthy of the nice things I have in my life. Other people know it too. I mean, it's obvious, right? And I'm ashamed of that. But if I keep them appeased by never saying no to them, they'll be nice and won't point it out."

"If I say 'no' to people when they ask me for things, they will be angry with me. And since other people's anger is the worst thing there is, it's best just to give in--even when I don't want to, and even when it hurts me."

"Women are lesser beings than men--inherently irrational, unpredictable, and untrustworthy. But I need one desperately and I'm terrified they will reject me."

"Men are pigs. They'll cheat on you and leave you for someone else, given half a chance."

"I was raised by devout parents, and this religion is part of my culture. So I am obligated to believe in these things and observe these practices. And if they hold me back and make me miserable, I deserve it because I'm a rotten sinner (plus, I'm absolutely terrified of going to hell)."

"If I get old, nobody will love me and I'll end up alone and forgotten--so I must stave aging off as long as possible."

"I'm just not smart enough to get what I want."

"If only my body was different, I could start being happy."

"I have to put up with his/her rotten, disrespectful, childish behavior--what if I can't find anyone else to love me?"

"If I leave this miserable situation, other people will point out what a failure I am--and they'll be right."

"I would love to do that! It's my dream! But I might fail. In fact, I probably will fail, because I've failed at other things and frankly, I'm just a failure at life. And it's better to not pursue a dream at all than to try and fail, because I just can't handle another failure."

"I'm 24/27/30/40 and I still haven't accomplished anything big yet. I'm a failure."

"I'm 35/40/55/65/80 and I still haven't done what I've always longed to do. But it's too late now."

Many of the posters to this forum are at least becoming more aware of the scripts they are running--they're becoming conscious of them. Some are extremely skilled at re-writing. But most people? They run these scripts without even thinking about them, never noticing that they're doing so. It's automatic. They're running on their default settings, occasionally (and unconsciously) writing new scripts based on those defaults.

A big part of living consciously is learning to identify those scripts, recognize the way they have shaped your life, and replace them with something more useful. Instead of living by default, living consciously is about constantly creating and re-creating your own internal programming so you can run the life you want to live, not the jumbled, buggy, self-contradicting result of accumulated bad programming.

[Brutha]

In that way, conscious living is only as good as the explanation that comes afterwards.

You assume that you need to have an explantion of a meme to allow that meme to effect yourself.
It's however an idea that's hard to communicate via text.

[Criseyde]

Good question, CroMagna. I've frequently wondered about this as well. "Conscious living? Does that mean making sure I don't sleepwalk?"

I like James's answer, though.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Philemon

To some extent I think you're right, but I think the view you explain here explains consciousness as though it has a glass ceiling, a point at which there is no further growth and awareness to obtain.

I can't say for sure, but I think it's like a switch rather than a sliding scale. Within the context of the ego, there are varying levels of egotism. Some are closer to consciousness, and some further away, but all are ego. Then the switch flips, and suddenly I'm conscious instead of egotistical. Perhaps there are varying levels of consciousness as well, I couldn't say, but I do think there is an absolute difference between the state of egotism and of consciousness.

Originally Posted by Mike0149

You were conscious before you "became conscious". Once you "became conscious", you then realise that, although you were conscious before you 'became conscious', you weren't fully conscious.

That's a process that can go on repeating. But proceeding on the path generates increasing ego resistance or, more subtly, the ego insinuating itself into the spiritual growth process and mounting hidden defences to further growth.

So, at one and the same time, it's possible both to live with a 'no going back' level of attained higher consciousness and to slip into a non-conscious state of living - the non-consciousness of having no awareness of even the existence of a still-higher level of consciousness, let alone attaining such higher level.



Consciousness may be available 24/7/365 worldwide, but that doesn't mean humanity is positioned to step into it 24/7/365 worldwide.

Ego prevents higher levels of consciousness, or at least it has a formidable array of "egoic-self"-defence mechanisms. The most insidious such mechanism is quietly co-opting the spiritual search process and "egoising" it so that defended areas stay defended. Or, in the face of the spiritual search pressure, the ego might deign to allow some growth, as a sop to distract attention from the reallocation of the released egoic resource towards keeping the highly-defended areas of the psyche even more highly defended. Or the ego might prompt one to explain all this on internet forums, granting oneself, for doing so, a pat on the back if not indeed a bright white halo, for spreading the word and 'helping' others on their spiritual search instead of continuing one's own grunt work of regular meditation or whatever.....

[my emphasis]

Maybe. Or maybe it's an ego-capture: "I've moved to true consciousness, I've arrived. That's it. Well, I do have a vague feeling that that may not be the whole story. But no-one is going to tell me that, with my newly enhanced consciousness, I'm unaware of being defended against considering whether further travel on the path might be desirable. In fact, that would be a meaningless comment to make! Because, as I said, I've arrived, a bit like arriving at a railway terminus, so there is no further path to travel".

I have no disagreements with anything you said; in fact, I think it's brilliantly descriptive. But there's no use in any of it being true. In a way, truth is what we make of it. The ego is a hindrance because it is made to be a hindrance. It has no actual power; its power is that it is said to have power. For me, there's no use in the ego having the power to stop consciousness, and therefore no use in saying so. To put it another way, there's no use in consciousness not being available to me at all times.

It doesn't matter whether it's really true or not, because there's no reason for it to be true. If I'm not conscious, there's no use in me lacking consciousness. There's no point in saying it or believing it, because the utterance of such words is the fact of the matter. When I can't say that I am unconscious is when I'll be truly conscious, so I see no reason to work against myself now by saying that I (or anyone else) am anything other than what I want to be.

You could say that's dishonest, and that I should admit to having an ego, but that admission becomes truth precisely because it is admitted. And admitting that you have an ego and it is stopping you from being conscious is just the same as saying it about myself. It serves no purpose, not for me, and certainly not for you. The truth is, you don't have an ego, because I say so. You aren't unconscious. You aren't lacking in anything. I don't say that because I believe it to be true, I say it because it is true. More accurately, it is true because I said it.

Note: I use the word "say" inexactly. Obviously it's not the act of speaking that I am referring to, just something very much like the act of speaking that is often capable of taking the form of spoken word.

Originally Posted by Brutha

You assume that you need to have an explantion of a meme to allow that meme to effect yourself.
It's however an idea that's hard to communicate via text.

I've just never found the meme to be effective. To the contrary, I've found that the less I try to "live consciously," the more conscious I become. I suppose that has bred some antipathy in me, since I'm not certain of the help it has provided to other people.

[Mike0149]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

You could say ... that I should admit to having an ego, but that admission becomes truth precisely because it is admitted.

It's truth whether you admit it or not. You have an ego, you will continue to have an ego. You need an ego. If you didn't have an ego at all, you would literally be psychotic: your consciousness would be filled with hallucinations from archetypal roots deep in the psyche and you would be completely out of touch with reality. Aiming to weaken the ego isn't the way forward either; google on "weak ego" and survey the unappetising, non-growth-fostering consequences. One google-cached extract caught my eye: "Paradoxically, we need to develop a healthy ego before we can transcend it" (I acknowledge that the weak/strong axis isn't synonymous with the healthy/unhealthy axis).

The ego may perhaps, loosely speaking, be likened to the ringmaster of a circus, or the chairperson of a meeting where those present have widely differing agenda. If the ringmaster/chairperson is absent or weak, chaos and fractiousness will reign as the parts (the individual acts, the individual members) run amok and fight it out amongst themselves for their place in the limelight, their turn to have their say and feel heard and acknowledged. If the chairperson is present and firm, but isn't doing his job properly, is overbearing or judgmental or not being impartial, then the parts that aren't allowed their place, their say, at all, will insidiously, secretively, turn subversive and express themselves by undermining other parts that are being allowed to express themselves. So, the ringmaster has to do his job, he has to hold it together, has to allow widely divergent parts to have their place without seeking to impose his own agenda. That is where the problem lies with ego: it gets puffed up; because it occupies the field of consciousness more or less 24/7, it gets above itself, thinks it is the whole person; represses, trivialises, ignores, parts seeking expression that don't fit the ego's own agenda.

The Ego (item 5) : " The ego has a limited function. When we believe that the ego is our only identity, we naturally assign all administrative functions to it, including our small choices (e.g., deciding how to react to an indignity) and our big choices (such as our direction in life, including career, relationships, etc.). Throughout our life, much of our frustration and failure occur because the ego has accepted duties for which it is unqualified (and for which it has no authority, hence the conflicts when the ego tries to impose its will); the ego lacks the information, perspective, and power that are available to the soul. There is no reason to criticize the ego for these limitations (as many religious teachers have done); on the contrary, the ego performs splendidly in its role as the center for our human identity. The problems occur when we expect the ego to be, or to do, something which it is not designed to be or do; when we believe that the ego is our ultimate self, we expect it to have the knowledge and power which only the soul possesses -- and then we unfairly condemn the ego for not being able to meet our impossible expectations. Our so-called "ego problems" -- lack of ego development, or an unbalanced ego, or an "inflated" ego, or the terrible qualities which are assigned to the ego in general -- are never the fault of the ego itself; they are due to our misunderstanding and misapplication of this instrument. "

[The Cloud]

That misses what I was getting at. My argument was precisely not about the ego. I understand that you've probably seen a lot of people focus on "killing the ego." I'm saying that there's either nothing to kill, or no reason to kill it. Nothing is preventing consciousness, neither ego nor any other imaginary force that seems to be in the way. The power of the ego to stop consciousness comes from the assertion that it has power. There is no real power there, unless you're trying to say that consciousness is affected by something as petty as the ego.

So, in a way, it does have power. For example, your entire argument empowers the ego greatly. But it's only real power to those who believe in it. To those who don't, it's nothing and not even worth denying, existing only as words coming from others that find no connections within their own being. The solution is not to kill or restrict or circumvent or even understand the ego; the solution is that no solution is necessary and nothing stands in our way. Admittedly, one may gain a great deal of knowledge about the ego in the process of reaching this point, but none of that knowledge has any use to those who don't need it, and only serves as a refuge for the ego to hold sway over in many cases.

[theworldthroughmyeye]

For me, "living consciously" means treat others like how you would like to be treated.

[Perspective]

Originally Posted by Philemon

To some extent I think you're right, but I think the view you explain here explains consciousness as though it has a glass ceiling, a point at which there is no further growth and awareness to obtain.

Excellent point.

IMO, Consciousness is continuing to strive for the best of all possibilities by being aware of the why of what we think, say & do.

[Merrick1]

Originally Posted by CroMagna

I've heard the phrase "living consciously" thrown around here often. Many people here feel saddened that so many people aren't "living consciously." What does that mean?

Living consciously means living with Love .

Merrick

[TeranDios]

Live in the moment..to see the root of your reactions in life and also now consciously directing your action into producing the result that you desire,instead of letting life or fate or circumstance control all of it like before. That is all there is to it to me.

[Acting Like Godot]

You think every day, every hour, every waking minute.

However, have you ever considered that your thoughts are, perhaps, pretty much like the hair growing on your head? Or like hormonal secretions from your glands?

Living consciously means being aware of the thoughts that your brain is automatically and constantly secreting.

If you live very consciously, you would be highly aware of the thoughts that your brain is secreting.

That allows you to accept certain thoughts, or reject them, or explore them further, and to identify your own irrational fears; your own prejudices etc. As well as those positive attitudes which you would like to further cultivate and amplify.

[Brutha]

I've just never found the meme to be effective. To the contrary, I've found that the less I try to "live consciously," the more conscious I become. I suppose that has bred some antipathy in me, since I'm not certain of the help it has provided to other people.

I didn't say that you should try to become more conscious.
It's more about having upbeat discussions with other people about living consciously and then taking those emotions into your daily life.

[Bongza]

WOW! This is powerful.

[civileyes]

Living conciously means being aware of one's own inner mental mechanics/thoughts and seeing how they interact with the reality one observes. The term suggests that one is aware of this to the degree of recognizing the inherent, constant, conditioning our culture does (after all that is what it's supposed to do) and be able to act and think independently from that. So to me, living consciously means being autonomous and being able to think for yourself and BE yourself.

[Lifeisamazing]

Great stuff from James81, VinceG, and Acting Like Godot! Agree with all of you.

con·scious
adj.
a. Having an awareness of one's environment and one's own existence, sensations, and thoughts.
b. Mentally perceptive or alert; awake:

So it's really understanding yourself as well as possible.