What Does It Mean To Live Consciously ?

[Bruno]

I am reading and working with the six pillars of self esteem. 

And the first one is the practice of living consciously.

I already have a pretty good understanding of Branden's perspective,and I am putting it into practice  

but what do you guys think it means to practice living consciously ?

[vizual]

17 minutes ago, Pinocchio said:

To stop imagining life and to start looking at it.

By simply letting go and accept whatever it may bring without judgment

[vizual]

1 minute ago, Pinocchio said:

Sounds pretty unconscious to me.

Only from the egoic perspective

[vizual]

Well that is your assumption. The ego tries to hold on and thrives on passing judgments constantly, if you can alleviate that you can live a heck more consciously. It all depends on how the person interprets these statements. At the end of day, no single statement will make a person more conscious, the person actually has to do it.

2 minutes ago, Pinocchio said:

That's where the journey starts. You start from unconsciousness otherwise we wouldn't be talking about what it means to live consciously. The question would simply not be possible. It is a question that comes from unconsciousness. And I guarantee you that "simply letting go and accept whatever it may bring without judgment" will not make you any more conscious, it will just make you a vegetable.

[Bruno]

On 22/02/2016 at 7:15 PM, Pinocchio said:

To stop imagining life and to start looking at it.

 

On 22/02/2016 at 7:34 PM, vizual said:

By simply letting go and accept whatever it may bring without judgment

I think this can be useful but it depends on the intention, you can intentionally let go and accept but you need to remais totally aware of all relevant facts of reality.

From my point of view, adding to Branden's perspective, living consciously means to be brutally honest with yourself, so you can let go and accept the facts of reality because in the present they can't be changed, and then, take action accordingly...

[Bruno]

This is what I've experienced about living consciously described in the book :

• To seek to be aware of outer and inner realities.
• To have a mind that is active rather than passive, a mind that seeks to understand.
• To be present and to guide action accordingly.

[99th_monkey]

its so friggin simple it hurts. i can tell you right now. GET THERE! then make decisions about how to live consciously. you can "get there" right now, in this instant. in this moment. not later. not tomorrow. RIGHT NOW.  screw mindsets, screw "action" dont worry about reality cuz your only going in circles. so get all that crap out of your head. 

[WelcometoReality]

On 2/22/2016 at 11:03 PM, Bruno Sousa said:

I am reading and working with the six pillars of self esteem. 

And the first one is the practice of living consciously.

I already have a pretty good understanding of Branden's perspective,and I am putting it into practice  

but what do you guys think it means to practice living consciously ?

Start with getting aware of how unaware you are. Notice how much of the time in a day you're lost in thought. You might say to yourself -Wow I been totally embraced by thought the last hour or I really identified with that thought.

[Ayla]

I feel inspired to share a little story with you. 

I was travelling two days ago, waiting between flights in a fairly busy airport. 

There was quite a bruhaha of "artificial noise" - heavy machinery from a building site, cars, planes, people talking... 

I know by now that life is teaching at every single moment, so I became conscious of everything taking place and soon discovered that there was a little group of birds singing "in the background". With a little bit of shift of attention and focus, I was able to "dismiss" the loudness of the artificial noise and only hear the little birds singing. Shortly, there was an understanding of their "talking". They were not scared of noises but rather, struggling to make themselves understood by the entire group. There was so much acceptance there, such a perfect adaptation to the circumstances...life just taking place.

That, to me, is conscious  living. "Mine" and "theirs"  

[Rufus]

 

Conscious simply is being aware of what you are doing right now, 

in a basic daily level, when you are asleep, you are not totally conscious about what is happening around you.
And when you dream at night, the dream looks so real so you are not conscious that you are dreaming. 
Same thing with daydreaming, you are not focusing in your task because your mind is thinking about something else, so you are not being conscious.

In spiritual awakening, it's also the same meaning but it goes into deeper levels, it's referred as awakening from the dream of reality, which is made by mental projections.
The more conscious you are, the more you will realize that the physical life as we know it is some kind of human mental projections, and things actually are not as they seems to us as humans, in a deeper level (which is enlightenment) all reality will collapse and the only thing left is your true nature which is pure timeless consciousness(Aka present, presence, or the Now, the nothingness, God, Spirit, Higher self, Allah, Shiva, Universe, Space)
Terms may vary due different teachings but the essence is one.

 

Edited February 24, 2016 by Rufus

[Bruno]

19 hours ago, 99th_monkey said:

its so friggin simple it hurts. i can tell you right now. GET THERE! then make decisions about how to live consciously. you can "get there" right now, in this instant. in this moment. not later. not tomorrow. RIGHT NOW.  screw mindsets, screw "action" dont worry about reality cuz your only going in circles. so get all that crap out of your head. 

Get where dude '-'

[Bruno]

13 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Start with getting aware of how unaware you are. Notice how much of the time in a day you're lost in thought. You might say to yourself -Wow I been totally embraced by thought the last hour or I really identified with that thought.

That's definitely part of it, one of the things I've been trying to be aware of is the quality of my thoughts during the day, if they are high quality positive thoughts, or low quality negative thoughts.

A thing that's helping me with that is meditation =]

[Bruno]

13 hours ago, Ayla said:

I feel inspired to share a little story with you. 

I was travelling two days ago, waiting between flights in a fairly busy airport. 

There was quite a bruhaha of "artificial noise" - heavy machinery from a building site, cars, planes, people talking... 

I know by now that life is teaching at every single moment, so I became conscious of everything taking place and soon discovered that there was a little group of birds singing "in the background". With a little bit of shift of attention and focus, I was able to "dismiss" the loudness of the artificial noise and only hear the little birds singing. Shortly, there was an understanding of their "talking". They were not scared of noises but rather, struggling to make themselves understood by the entire group. There was so much acceptance there, such a perfect adaptation to the circumstances...life just taking place.

That, to me, is conscious  living. "Mine" and "theirs"  

Cool =D

I absolutely have had some moments like that in my life too, sad thing their usually so short.

I think that part of living consciously, is about seeking to be aware of the beauty in everything =]

[WelcometoReality]

11 hours ago, Bruno Sousa said:

That's definitely part of it, one of the things I've been trying to be aware of is the quality of my thoughts during the day, if they are high quality positive thoughts, or low quality negative thoughts.

A thing that's helping me with that is meditation =]

Try this. Examine what it is that puts value of positive and negative onto thoughts and other experiences, is there anything prior to those judgments.

 

Let me rephrase that. Be conscious of your values, how you tag experiences with good or bad. Are they real? or is reality just how it is, without any good or bad attached to it? 

Edited February 25, 2016 by WelcometoReality

[Bruno]

Oh you mean being conscious of the judgments I make about experiences. Cool, Leo has some videos about judgments, the one about judging other people is especially good =) I've watched them but never went too deep about the other video (about judgments ruining my happiness)

But this is an interesting concept, I'll try to bring more awareness to this point =)

[Amplituda]

First, you can start using your mind and stop consuming things like shampoo from companies who uses animals to test it on, simply because by that act you support those companies(just 1 example). Second step is turn on your heart and awareness and Ayla made a great example above. As your awareness will raise up your conciseness will increase and one of these days you will feel enlightened. Simple enough?

[Bruno]

16 hours ago, Amplituda said:

First, you can start using your mind and stop consuming things like shampoo from companies who uses animals to test it on, simply because by that act you support those companies(just 1 example). Second step is turn on your heart and awareness and Ayla made a great example above.

Raising awareness to the consequences of my acts, and acting in a way that causes positive effects ! Wonderful !

16 hours ago, Amplituda said:

As your awareness will raise up your conciseness will increase and one of these days you will feel enlightened. Simple enough?

Yeah who knows...