Consciousness
George Gurdjieff (Esoterist, teacher of The Fourth Way) says that people, the way they are today, are nothing but machines. And he is right! Consider yourself, how automatically you behave. How much attention are you paying to what you’re doing right now?When is the last time you totally consciously bit into an apple, tasted the whole spectrum of flavors, perceived the juice that collected in your mouth with the bite? When is the last time you hugged someone with real feeling, using your entire body? Not for a long time, huh?
The problem is that we have an intellect. It gets in the way of consciousness, but we need it for everyday life. The intellect builds itself from knowledge and personal experiences, which make up 99.9% of our lives. The laughable rest is consciousness. When you reach for intellect, consciousness is lost. We have lost contact; the connectedness to the whole, to creation, to the divine. That is also the reason why religion is so successful. But: they are taking us down the wrong tracks, they want to sell us a way to the divine, because they are agents of gods which don’t exist. They lead us into dead ends or other unhelpful places. When you are conscious, then you are directly connected with existence, and nobody is standing in the way. Then your senses begin to flow, you awaken, you get a taset of the divine, which you are a part of!
What is actually the meaning of consciousness and awareness and why are they so enormously important to Tantra? We live mostly either in the future or in the past, only very rarely in this moment.
Our thoughts are mostly about the future, the nice or not so nice moments are already behind us. This moment, being, is, however, what is essential, because that is the only time we can influence. Only in the present are our senses and feelings in full use!
We are only conscious, when we are fully present. There are no thoughts to intrude, time stands still, we melt so to speak with reality.(Almost) every person has already experienced total consciousness, even when they didn’t see it as so in this moment. This state is usually very short but powerful: it is an orgasm! No thoughts, no control, pure consciousness! Try once to formulate a thought during an orgasm! It doesn’t work….
Have you ever seen a deer in the forest – how alert it watches, how carefully it moves? You take a step in it’s direction, there is a certain distance, then it slowly lessens. Go closer, just one step further – and it runs away. It has a high level of alertness, when it senses you, then it is with it’s total attention, it’s entire prescence focused on you. There is nothing between you and the deer, no time, no distance, it melts with you. That is total consciousness!