All living things have developed a sense of behavior that regulates the basic instincts of survival. When humans developed out of the animal world they carried with them the same survival instincts. However as the evolution of humans advanced beyond the animal stage they began to develop patterns of behavior beyond just survival. They began to develop ego and individual awareness of themselves. The use of language and tools caused rapid development of human evolution. When large numbers of humans began living in groups they began to create rules within their tribes and later laws of society.
Concepts like good and bad began to be used to make judgments about behavior. As awareness grew, the eternal questions of "Who am I" and "Where did I come from" started to be asked. Questions about the origin of the spiritual self began to form religious traditions and spiritual beliefs. Those religious traditions established a moral code or set of rules for acceptable behavior that became the foundation of the laws of society.
Beliefs are thoughts made by the ego for individual identification. One of the more common beliefs is the male and female roles in society. Your concept about your ability to do certain tasks based on your gender is part of your individual and collective belief system. Those beliefs indentify your relationship to yourself and others. With awareness you can see that men and women can take on roles in society regardless of gender. Do you see the changes in gender identification within traditional roles of society as good or bad? Only your interpretation of it makes it one or the other. Beliefs about good and bad behavior are on a sliding scale. When does good become bad?
Acceptable behavior in a strict Muslim society is completely different from acceptable behavior in a liberal society. Good and bad are abstract thoughts in that they are defined only by your beliefs about them. Think about your definition for good behavior. What rules of society do you accept as good or bad? Where is the line between good and bad behavior for you? There are still many communities that have laws about buying alcohol on Sunday. If you sell alcohol before 12:00 you are breaking the law, but it is ok to sell it after 12:00. This law goes back to the belief that people should be in church on Sunday morning and not buying alcohol. This is an example of how beliefs about good and bad behavior become laws in society.
You have individual beliefs and collective beliefs. Collective beliefs are what you construe to be laws and rules of society. Individual beliefs are a subset of the collective mind set. Individually a belief is a reflection of something you identify with in the world. When you see some action that you label good or bad it is because there is a part of you that believes that to be true. You identify something as good or bad if you have a belief about that behavior. If you are standing in line at the store to check out and someone pushes in front of the line, can you be neutral about that experience and allow it be what it is or do you automatically label it as bad behavior? What belief are you using to identify that experience bad?
Simple exercises like this can reveal many layers of beliefs stored in your subconscious. Since concepts of good and bad are based on a belief system, then judgments are inherent part of the process. Judgments are beliefs carried to an extreme that go beyond simple preference. Judgments occur when you make negative comparisons or think that everyone should agree with your preference. If you have a preference for classical music that is a personal preference, when you think that everyone should like classical music that is a negative judgment. As awareness grows you can see where personal preference slides over to judgment. When you can see that some beliefs cause conflict then you can start to see that judgments cause people to suffer.
Suffering is a thought that causes conflict and stress with the reality of the experience where there was none before. Suffering is the reaction to an event where a belief is in conflict with the reality of the event. If you lose your job, that is an event in your life, if your reaction to the event is clouded by beliefs of what should or could have happened, then you are suffering. The way to break free of suffering is to accept the reality of the event and attach no other meaning to it. This way you allow the energy of the event to move through you and no stress or conflict can reside within you.
Another way to identify behavior is conscious or unconscious. Conscious behavior accepts the responsibility for the good of all concerned. Conscious action is rooted in unity awareness. Unity awareness is the knowing that people and all living things are inter-connected. Unconscious behavior is centered only on individual ego gratification. Unconscious actions are harmful for everyone concerned even the person who is supposed to benefit. "No crime goes unpunished" recognizes that unconscious behavior will eventually have to be resolved. "What you sow, ye shall reap" is another way to express this understanding. Unconscious behavior can be met with inquiry and be resolved, it is the nature of awareness rising. Be aware of your beliefs and see if you are coming from unity or ego conscious behavior.
Consciousness is a state of being as well as the underlying energy field of all living things. Traditional use of the word means that you are physically awake or not asleep. In a spiritual sense consciousness describes your awareness of the unity of all things. Awareness is also a term to describe attentiveness. A deeper meaning is the knowing of the many different levels of the perception of life. You can see the different levels of consciousness in other people by the way they interact with the world. What decisions they make and how they relate to other people. Are those decisions inclusive and are they in harmony with anyone involved. Are their actions exclusive and create stress and conflict? Any decision may appear to be selfish in the sense that it benefits one over another, but the difference between conscious and unconscious decisions is whether anyone is harmed by those decisions. If you give a job promotion to someone over another, it can be done in a way so that the applicant that was not chosen can be appreciated for applying. The process of making difficult decisions can be done consciously so that no negative stress or conflicts are created.
Developing awareness is the process of overcoming the limited ego self. By examining your thoughts as they appear, your awareness grows. This is the process of stressful thoughts being resolved and thoughts of harmony being expressed. Why would you hold on to stressful thoughts? Once you can identify a belief then the process of inquiry can start. Most people never give their beliefs a second thought. They accept beliefs as part of their heritage or past. During the growth period of life most people are forming their beliefs based on social and environmental settings. These beliefs are thoughts which conform to society and your individual experiences. During the maturity stage of life you have more opportunity to examine your beliefs. You have more life experiences to compare. More importantly you know that there is more to life than the day to day experiences. You begin to know that you are a spiritual being that exists outside of the confines of the ego mind identification.
"The Nature of Awareness" is a comprehensive study of the Mind, Body and Spirit Connection. Visit http://thenatureofawareness.com for more information and free download of sample chapters.
This book is an expression of my spiritual journey. When the thought of writing this book came to me, I wanted to explore individual and collectively held beliefs and test them against my understanding or awareness to see what new awareness could be gained by this inquiry. I found that any subject could be met with inquiry and a lot of beliefs fell by the way as I pushed the envelope of understanding. The journey always led back to the truth that the source of all life is also the final answer to all questions. The creative energy field of all creation, the source of all life, is the alpha and omega. Without the spark of consciousness we call life, there would be no evolution. The journey back to unity with the creative energy field is the path of self awareness. Once a topic was examined there was no barrier to peeling the beliefs away to get to the understanding of where those beliefs came from and if they were rooted in stressful ego identification.
William Lovett, author, email info@thenatureofawareness for questions or comments.
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