Conscious Awareness

Everyone who is alive is at least semi conscious; this is basically true for all beings. Where humans differ from other species is in the ability to be aware of being conscious…

A friend shared a story about a cat he has as a pet. It seemed the cat actually liked this person. He would hold the cat and it would fall asleep in his arms. It would lick his hand and take food from him. One day as the cat was eating out of a bowl, this person took the food away before the cat was finished. The cat bit and scratched his hand, so much for liking the individual. The cat knew his food was being taken away, but it ended there. There was no awareness of who was actually taking the food, his food was being taken away and the cat didn’t like it. This is how a lot of humans react to situations, they like people as long as they don’t take away what they like.

To go beyond this mindset there must be awareness of it. This is where we as humans differ. Other species don’t have this ability to be truly aware. If you look around it would seem most humans don’t have this ability either. What will have to transpire at some point in your life for this to change is truly being conscious of being aware; noticing what arises when what is liked is taken away or just when something naturally changes. This is key if you’re not going to be drawn into the unconsciousness of what’s changing. Suffering comes from not being consciously aware of being controlled by what’s liked. When there’s awareness of this, one can be conscious of it, but not attach to it, thus one is free. What you like will still be taken away at times, but hopefully you have conscious awareness of this and you won’t bite or scratch when it happens…