Spirituality Tips Guides

Is it possible to consciously choose to create a more satisfying life experience?

This seems like an innocent enough question that can be answered in the affirmative.
But it is actually a trick question. The reason why most people have only a few satisfying life experiences is because they are almost completely unconscious. They are operating on automatic, on subconscious programs that run quietly in the background, dictating their every move, pulling on their emotional strings, selecting their perceptions, and organizing their experiences around past hurts, fears, and insecurities.

Ironically, they think that they are conscious. Acting out in a crazy, self- and other-destructive way is not conscious. And it is only because of acting out on our drives that we are unconscious. Someone who is conscious does not let their drives dictate their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead, they choose the best possible options available to them based on what they currently know. A casual survey of people around you will quickly reveal that impulsive actions are the norm. Rationality takes a back seat to innate tendencies and urges.

The way to become conscious is to become aware.

Awareness is stepping back and looking at everything for the first time. It is pulling the subjective ego state out of the equation and making an attempt to see what is the way that it is.

Awareness is not simple. It is not something that you naturally snap into. And this is why spiritual disciplines like yoga, focusing on your breath, meditation, mindfulness, and so on exist and have the power to change your life for the better. The natural state for human beings is to be hypnotized by the onslaught of conditioning that began since birth.

Thus, the natural state for human beings is to be unnatural. It is to perceive through the lens of bias. It is to hear selectively. It is to act impulsively, regardless of consequences. It is to defend the ego from all possible threats while at the same time pretending to make a show of being open-minded, rational, and even objective.

Another way of describing this phenomenon is to say that the neocortex is used much less often than the mammalian or reptilian portions of the human brain. Yet it is only the highly-developed and functional neocortex which will inform our actions to choose the best possible experiences. The emotional brain and the instinctive brain take over the show.

Thus, if we desire to have more satisfying life experiences, we have to be present to the moment. This means that we have to be aware. We have to be cognizant of the environment. And we have to recognize our own subconscious programs trying to bubble up to the surface to take over our experience.

If you are aware enough, the past does not have to equal the future. You can, in fact, choose your ideal future and find ways to reach it. However, because most people are
not aware enough that the future happens to be a constant repetition of past patterns.
The weight of past experiences, because it is unexamined and therefore unconscious, has a stronger pull on them.

The way to create awareness is to take on the practice of some psychological or spiritual discipline which will train you to think in an original and creative way. Those who choose not to examine the past are condemned to repeat it.

Cultivating awareness is not easy, but there is nothing more worthwhile. The culmination of supreme awareness is enlightenment, the uncanny ability to be in a stream of constantly unfolding satisfying experiences.

Ultimately, it is a spiritual experience to be in charge of your own mind and direct it away from unconscious acting out to conscious deliberation. The culmination of this discipline is awareness. And the gift of awareness is connection with your own divine nature.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul