awakening

It’s All in the Comparing

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Comparing Is Natural

What are you doing right now? Notice the comparing you are engaged in after reading that question. Comparing is so natural to us that we are mostly unaware of just how much of it we’re doing.

All comparing is based on relationships between you and not you. Whether obvious or invisible to your senses, you’re always comparing.

We can compare because we are capable of separating our own experiences from those of others through judgments. Yet, we are just as capable of imagining the experiences of others, which seems to increase judgment capability.

The Dual Purpose of Comparing

Along with judging differences, which builds walls between right and wrong, there are judgments of sameness that help build connections. Practicing the latter can reveal how difficult it can be to create connections outside judgments of right or wrong.

Some of the ways duality shows up in comparing my reality of me to myself and me to others –

Me compared to myself:

  • Yesterday to today and tomorrow
  • Who I think I am to who I should be
  • My accomplishments to my failures
  • My intentions to my outcomes

Me compared to others:

  • Differences in authorities
  • Skills and talents
  • Education and training levels
  • Wisdom and understandings
  • Changes over time – who we were yesterday, are today and will be tomorrow
  • Who I think I am to how another should be
  • Accomplishments
  • Intentions and outcomes

In my bubble of limited awareness, I naturally compare what I perceive. From my perceptions, I create the need to divide and define every thing to validate that need. I assign a boundary to everything that I perceive can be separate from all other things. Thus, I divide up what I perceive as one whole – making separate through perceptual differences.

Knowing I Resist

Those perceived differences form the boundaries that define the means of resistance between me and everything else. Because I divide up wholeness, I can see more clearly how I associate likenesses and differences between things. Yet, knowing in some ways that they are the parts that make up the whole.

By seeing the contrast, I can experience relationships! Those relationships that define my defenses are my experiences. This allows me to define my reality and therefore my purpose within that reality.

My purpose is tied to my ability to maintain resistance, another word for defense, which includes:

  • Perceiving separateness
  • Dividing wholeness into things
  • Assigning boundaries
  • Perceiving characteristics that validate separation
  • Making sense of separateness as reality
  • Giving separateness a purpose in connection
  • Validating conflict
  • Resolving conflict by creating similarities
  • Supporting and focusing on similarities
  • Connecting similarities to create flow
  • Appreciating creations without judgment
  • Releasing the need to defend
  • Embracing change

Thus, I more clearly see who I believe I am. Because I’m capable of dividing wholeness into separate parts, I’m equally capable of uniting what was never truly separate. The connection of one thing to another begins a new adventure – that of putting back together what I have divided.

An Alien Addicted to Entertainment

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What possible purpose might an extraterrestrial race find in interfering with human evolution, human politics, day-to-day human activities? I like the idea of entertainment as the purpose for alien visitation and intervention.

If an alien species were watching us, they might find us entertaining. Who knows what they might think of us – I’ll wager not the same as what we think of ourselves, though.

Suppose an alien race found a wild planet-bound species intelligent enough to invent and use technology. Though, not wise enough to use their technology or their intelligence to their mutual benefit. And, useful to aliens, not smart enough to escape the confines of the planet to which they are bound.

Further, suppose that this alien race is BORED and likes to be entertained. Maybe they’ve been watching the same TV programming for a million years. After many millennia of the same old stuff, wouldn’t you think you’d like something “different” to watch? Maybe they would, too. Thus, my concept of alien addiction to entertainment.

What About Morals?

Suppose these aliens don’t give a flying feces about our morals, our “10 commandments,” or any other “code of [human] conduct.” They’re aliens! Perhaps all they really care about is TV ratings on their planet! Consider how little we care about subjecting ourselves and other species to all kinds of immoral practices for entertainment’s sake.

An alien race might feel no compunction whatsoever in intervening into whichever human group they wish. Thus, accelerating some groups while watching what happens to others when they do. They’d be completely amoral about it – not caring at all who gets hurt (it’s not gonna be them!). They only care about the entertainment value to them. Thus, their addiction may appear as ratings to them and “bad alien” to us.

Suppose their “network” got to work on entertainment projects like these –

  • “Tonight on ABC News (Alien Broadcast Company) – crew crash lands on an alien planet. Surrounded by wild beasts, they may not make it out alive! Details at 11…”
  • “Today on ‘Days of our Human Lives’ – Harry gives Doug the go-ahead to deliver the device that wipes out everything for kilometers! You don’t want to miss this exciting episode!”

What if the alien to which I refer is me?!

Relationship Between Compulsion, Want, And Need

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In my limited awareness, I experience compulsion as needs. Compulsions increase in number and intensity when I think my environment controls me. As I take control of myself, I experience fewer needs. Need and conscious awakening seem to have an inverse relationship: the more awake I am, the less I experience need. Inversely, the more need I experience, the less awakened I am.

Let’s look at the need-less experience of a lucid dream as an example. In that consciousness, awareness of dream and dreamer while asleep gives me complete awake control. This because I’ve taken awake control of thoughts and emotions that generate the dream. I experience few if any needs in lucid dreams because I have full awake command of my dreaming self.

In awake consciousness, it seems I have many needs. From air to food to shelter, it appears I must depend upon my environment for survival. That dependence on what I feel is outside me may be key to why I have needs.

Unlike wants, needs are more black-and-white. Needs feel 100% compelling while wants feel more desirable than compelling. For example, even though I may want to breathe, at a certain point desire will turn to need and I will be compelled to breathe. I have no choice – I must pay attention to it – I must act.

I’m also compelled to believe the need is compelling enough to justify the compulsion. Thus, needs justify compulsions that justify needs. They are dependent upon and so justify each other.

Need and Compulsion Represent Each Other

Compulsion is an urge – a concept – not a physical thing or a goal. Physical or not, need represents the compulsion concept. Accepting a need as literal compels me to feel dependent upon my environment and so feeds my compulsion.

Feeding a compulsion feeds an awareness of lack that I judge as need. To that end, I may surrender all that I am to satisfy my compulsion in hopes of satisfying a need.

The nature of compulsion leads me to consider using need in situations where I seek to satisfy a want. My thought is that if I were to consider a want as a need, I’ll work harder to achieve it. On the outside, that may seem like a workable solution.

There is a flaw in that logic, however. A focus on awareness of lack tends to build more awareness of lack. Thus, even when feeling compelled to act, the focus on lack will tend to lessen the ability to act. Need may, then, subtract emotional energy from the excitement of want.

Instead, to build energy towards achievement of a goal, want it! And let go of the need for it. The entire process of achievement is within – that’s want – rather than from without – that’s need.

You may then be in a position to consider how want, too, focuses attention on lack. What might happen when you release the need for wants? I wonder…

How About A Consciousness Reset?

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Sometimes my digital device starts to run slower. Maybe it has caught a cold (virus) or filled with bits of digital detritus. It is then that I consider a reset – that clears out all the cruft and makes it “like new.”

On my device, I can select a number of reset options. For example, one might preserve my settings, another my data, and yet another reset everything to “new.” Each reset option has advantages and disadvantages. I select the option that best serves my purposes.

Sometimes my consciousness seems to run a little slower, or maybe off just enough to bother me. Maybe I’ve noticed that my old thoughts, judgments, and feelings are starting to disrupt my life. Similarly to my digital device, my consciousness might benefit from a reset.

What Is A Consciousness Reset?

How might it manifest? How would I initiate it? What are my options?

Perhaps we should acknowledge that consciousness is a huge and arcane program. How much do you understand of the operating system on your iPhone or laptop computer? Consciousness as a program may be infinitely more complex and mysterious. Fortunately, one doesn’t have to understand every nuance of a computer program to operate portions of it. The same may apply to consciousness.

Because I operate within the program, consciousness resets manifest for me as experiential awakenings – ahas. That is, heightened awareness and clarity of mind relating to repetitive emotions in experience. These offer an opportunity for long-lasting change to perspective, understanding, and intention.

Such granular control over reset options gives my conscious self some leeway. My mind doesn’t have to overhaul everything it understands in one giant reset. It can do the job in “baby steps.” Think about what happens when you reset your phone’s display from “normal” to “dark” mode. A tiny change results in a huge experiential difference.

Consciousness resets are backed by new intentions that serve to increase the benefits of those intentions. Thus, any change intended towards greater awareness is a consciousness reset. Increased consciousness heightens awareness of our connections to others. That in turn makes for a heightened awareness of the ways in which one can serve to benefit all life.

That level of consciousness increases opportunities for greater awareness of accountability and service. Before reset, I tended to resist opportunities for greater awareness and service. What I resisted in fear tended to persist. With reset perspective, I could address my resistance in a different way than from comparisons to loss. This changed everything for me.

Resetting Intention Changes Everything

I reset my intention towards a person, place, or thing when I answer “no” to the question, “Is this what I really want?” This type of questioning sets up new future responses to those kinds of experiences. Resets encourage future resets.

Resetting intention resets perspective and is represented in a new person. A reset perspective is proactive in that it offers a different interpretation of feedback that leads to seeing the difference between old and new ideas. A change in my perspective affects everything in my perception.

Perspective is based on identity – who I believe I am within an environment. A reset would realign perspective to a new identity. This might appear as a change in attitude about specific relationships and about life in general.

What Would Indicate Or Precipitate A Consciousness Reset?

One might precipitate a consciousness reset with a change of thinking/feeling about one’s:

  • Environment
  • Relationship
  • Education
  • Career
  • Health
  • Location (address)
  • Self-image
  • Financial status
  • Social standing
  • Religion/philosophy
  • Government/Law

I might consider a reset to:

  • Realize my acceptance of accountability.
  • Change mental/emotional/physical capabilities.
  • Recognize my freedom to act.
  • Mitigate my perception of my environmental and/or physical restrictions.
  • Help me adjust to changing moral and social norms.
  • Make significant changes to my beliefs and prejudices.

To name a few.

In Conclusion…

You might ask, “I like the idea of a consciousness reset. Can I do it right away?” The answer is YES, YOU CAN RESET RIGHT NOW. Why? Because you can “simply” change your mind – in an instant.

Yet, because we believe in time, it may take some to see the results of your changes. And in that time, your native defenses will resist – because it’s their job to resist. Be patient with yourself. I can’t tell you how many “ahas” it will take before you realize noticeable changes in your life situation.

I leave that up to you.

Embrace Distraction to Awaken Inspiration

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What if distraction is a useful characteristic of mind? I have the ability to be distracted – comes to me via evolution. Evolution favors that which is useful over that which is not. Just because I think it’s not useful doesn’t make it so. I ask again, “What if distraction is a useful characteristic of mind?”

What would make me believe that I’m actually creating a distraction? If I were to realize my creation, might I then put it to use? What would happen when I change my perspective about the way I think about distractions? Might I be able to utilize my ability to be distracted by asking, “What did I create this distraction for?” (seeks purpose). How might I utilize the distraction?

Perhaps I can use distraction to:

  • Sharpen my mind
  • Redirect attention
  • Help me identify hidden needs
  • Find new information
  • Get inspired

Where is inspiration and innovation?

Usually in the distraction zone. A distraction often involves a break in attention from a hypnotic state. Sometimes that seems like a break from something important to something less important – “Oh, look, a birdie!” How do I know what’s most important in this instant?

“Pay attention!” Perhaps a distraction is an attempt of mind to understand from another perspective. My limited awareness state of mind works in associations – this related to that. Because of that characteristic of mind, I wonder how all distractions are related. What is a distraction telling me? That everything is related, even those, like the birdie, that seem completely unrelated. I can use that to help me understand who I am.

Could a distraction be an opportunity? Inspiration rarely resides in strong narrow focus. One might say inspiration resides in the blink rather than the stare. The blink offers a distraction from the stare – an opportunity for new vision.

So, embrace the distraction! Maybe in it, you’ll find a new focus.