Doing by mechanism vs doing things mindfully?

[lmfao]

I'm trying to map on the duality of doing things in a low consciousness manner vs doing things in a high consciousness manner onto the possibly existing duality in the title. A big theme one comes across is one's mechanicalness and automaticity. Most people like me are in a constant state of being in autopilot. This fits in with the idea of karma, memory. We have many preprogrammed sequences stored in our brain.

If one's goal is to do everything mindfully, I don't know how to reconcile that with the many automatic processes we do. For example, my ability to type at the rate I am doing is thanks to memory and automaticity no? Same for my ability to walk, breathe, eat, drink, etc. Whats the relation between automaticity/mechanicalness and mindfulness then? Can these activities be done mindfully, even though they are automatic. I mean the zen idea is to just let yourself be fully involved in the activity, but I don't think I get that. If I try to be extremely mindful of the way I do my activities, I just find myself having the urge to be cease the activity all together. 

If mechanism is the antithesis of mindfulness, then I'm confused. Maybe it isn't, idk. I'm finding myself get absorbed in this process of typing sentences in a unpremeditated way, so maybe this is duality is stupid. 

Edit: maybe the one of many forces in my psyche which wants to cease activity arises from the acute acknowledgement of having neurotic motivations in the first place for the behaviour. 
But that leads my brain into more blah since neuroticism and automaticity possibly have an intimate relation. 

Edited February 17, 2020 by lmfao

[Jonac]

Things are automatically done so you can have energy to concentrate in your personal goals. Imagine being mindfull all the time will drawn your energies, cuz its takes a lot being conscious of one action every single second. If you interest in spirituality you can do this in small doses, for example by being mindfull while doing dishes. If you star doing this you are gonna lose your current life, little by little. 

[Ero]

This is a false dichotomy. It's not a matter of either/or, but rather the degree of consciousness you do something with. And that's from 0 to infinity. 

[Prevailer]

From my experience the change from autopilot to the manual conscious state is like flicking a switch.The individual can bring himself/herself out of autopilot and into the manual (in the moment) state at leisure and at any time  he/she wishes.The problem is sustaining it.Most individuals are generally only SUBCONSCIOUSLY aware of the autopilot (zombie) consciousness state as this is the consciousness state they generally spend their whole lives in....when they first CONSCIOUSLY bring themselves into the MANUAL state they cant sustain it for long periods.The aim is to bring  yourself into the MANUAL consciousness state more and more and more.The ultimate aim being to stay in the MANUAL consciousness permanently which at first appears impossible to do.The more you practice bringing yourself out of autopilot and into manual (in the moment state) the longer the periods you will be able to stay in MANUAL.What you will notice during this endurance process is a constant state of backwards and forwards MIND MOVEMENT from autopilot to manual.Eventually, if God is merciful to you....you will be able to sustain MANUAL permanently.You will have succeeded in bringing yourself (with God’s aid) into a higher state of consciousness.The biggest problem you will have though is silencing the the 2 off biological computer voices (negative mind chatter) from within your head that are totally and viciously opposed to you coming into this higher state of consciousness.From my experiences....it’s a brave man/ woman who tries to walk this walk on their own I.e. without the true God helping you...so ferocious are the attacks from the enemy as you go through this process.This is my experience.

[Prevailer]

You can experience many things in the autopilot consciousness state and I’m sure many many many more weird experiences if you are on a drug enhanced trip.Making  sense of your mind involves far far far more than this however.

[Chilli]

@lmfao In my conception, autopilot shouldn't be something want to put an end to. Some things need to be on autopilot because of the overwhelming responsability. Can you imagine having to consciously beathe every breath, beat every beat of your heart? Not just that, but to say that you want to be fully conscious also implies being conscious in every state. Could you consciously beat your heart while fast asleep? Imagine you were in a life threatening situation where you had to make a split decision. 

 What can be done is , slowly but surely, become increasingly more conscious of when you are on autopilot. Also, what Jonac said: practice your mindfulness as frequently as you can remember. If you have the urge to stop all activities, go meta on the stop. Is the urge to stop also coming from autopilot? What if you were mindful of the urge to stop?

[Prevailer]

The problem with autopilot is the consciousness state becomes divided between the left and right biological computers I.e. your brain.Your consciousness state becomes split, hence the feeling of being in your head.If you bring yourself out of this state (into manual and wear your body fully again) then your consciousness becomes united again.I believe you are absolutely correct that  we should become consciously aware of when we are in autopilot.We should become even more aware of when our consciousness state is back  in synch/in manual/in the moment.We should,more than anything,notice the seesaw effect of drifting into/out of the autopilot/manual states.This MIND MOVEMENT needs to be STILLED.When you have managed to still your mind from this seesaw effect you need to make sure that the still state you have found is in manual and not autopilot.Once you have learnt to still the mind in this way a completely new state of consciousness takes over called the neutral consciousness state.

[Ingit]

16 hours ago, Chilli said:

@lmfao In my conception, autopilot shouldn't be something want to put an end to. Some things need to be on autopilot because of the overwhelming responsability. Can you imagine having to consciously beathe every breath, beat every beat of your heart? Not just that, but to say that you want to be fully conscious also implies being conscious in every state. Could you consciously beat your heart while fast asleep? Imagine you were in a life threatening situation where you had to make a split decision. 

 What can be done is , slowly but surely, become increasingly more conscious of when you are on autopilot. Also, what Jonac said: practice your mindfulness as frequently as you can remember. If you have the urge to stop all activities, go meta on the stop. Is the urge to stop also coming from autopilot? What if you were mindful of the urge to stop?

?????

[Prevailer]

If you find the NEUTRAL consciousness state there is an autopilot consciousness state that overlaps perfectly with the manual consciousness state, however, you don't experience the out of synch feeling (living in your head feeling) when you progress between the two...........You don't experience the unconscious or conscious (dependent upon where you are at)  MIND MOVEMENT between your left and right biological computers in you brain as you progress backwards and forwards from the MANUAL to AUTOPILOT states. You see mind movement of this nature only occurs when you are trapped/entangled up with these biological computers. You need to come out from them and re-unite your consciousness sate, thus stopping this mind movement and thus STILLING the mind.