Sometimes it is worth buying a book for $100 that has one sentence… the rest is gravy.
The sentence that was worth the $100 is:
If you are angry at a person who is unconscious, is like being angry at a dog for being a dog.
And at another place
“No conscious person could become involved in such actions, so these are clearly the actions of an unconscious person. So for you to get yourself angry towards someone like this would be like becoming angry at a dog for being a dog.”
Why is this worth $100 for a conscious person, or someone who is becoming conscious? For two reasons:
- it is an amazing distinction about anger, resentment, vengefulness… The moment you catch yourself angry, resentful, etc. you can now be clear you are unconscious yourself… And get conscious.
- you can forgive yourself for having been unconscious
But… what is conscious? What is consciousness?
We use these big words, and have no idea what they mean, not even what we mean? We just want to sound more sophisticated than we really are, at least some of my students do!, while nothing is happening, because we are wading in unclarity, mud, and that is not what conscious people do.
So, what is consciousness?
Well, the adjective, conscious is the type of word that demands another one… conscious of, conscious about.
What that means is that all of you is in the present and is present to what you are looking at, what you are hearing, what you are thinking, what you are saying, what you are feeling. All at once.
In the present moment. No past, no future, right now. Right now when there is never anything wrong, things are the way they are, always, and that’s how they are. You feel the way you feel, you think what you are thinking, and it is all well.
In the present moment there is nothing to fix. That’s how you get to the next moment and the next moment, and what you think, do, feel, moment to moment comes from no-thing.
Not from what you know. Not from what you want. Not from some fear. No. from the present moment, from “all is well.”
This is what conscious is.
There is a hidden aspect of conscious, the context.
The default context is: “This isn’t it”, or “Someplace better than here” but what we call consciousness is “all is well.”
Now, when you look at consciousness this way, you are clear that maybe you have visited this place before, maybe not, but you certainly don’t live there.
Don’t despair, that is most people most of the time, and maybe most people all of the time.
But if you are one of most people, you can start getting conscious, from time to time.
Consciousness is both a pregnant/not pregnant phenomenon: every moment you are either conscious or not conscious. And it is also a sliding scale: you will always find yourself somewhere on the 1-100 consciousness continuum… You may be conscious to some things and not others.
Consciousness is to be discovered.
Most of the time you are not conscious that you are not conscious… so the way to discover consciousness is through a bunch of things you could be conscious of but you aren’t.
So, the Playground, our live calls, and the Bug free mind have two things in common: they can knock you conscious, little by little, morsel by morsel.
Life will stay the way it is, blah, unless you get conscious. The more conscious you get, the more you become powerful, the more colorful, enjoyable, manageable, the more adventure-like life becomes.
I didn’t think I needed to be more conscious, but I was wrong. I can’t tell you how many things I have been unconscious of… and it’s fun to get conscious now, and in the future.
I think it’s an endless process.
But, today I got rid of some resentment, some anger, some guilt, some regret… and I did the same yesterday… different resentment, different anger, different guilt.
It’s great to be growing. It’s great to get more conscious every day.
Come join us on Playground, or buy the book and do the work on your own, if you have the discipline.
Or get the book through my link, and I’ll comp you into the Playground for a month. You have to send me a copy of your receipt.
Why am I doing this?
If Andy sold 100,000 copies of his book, I would have about a thousand more people to work with… I want him to become a billionaire…
I just want the people that were knocked conscious at least a little bit.
Sophie – Thank you for this. I started using the “all is well” context as often as I can remember to (which isn’t nearly often enough, but I’m working on it!) – I’m finding it knocks me onto the vertical and into the present moment. You give us such great tools – they actually work (unlike tools I’ve gotten elsewhere).