*AWARENESS - see MEDITATION, ENLIGHTENMENT, AWAKE, TRUTH, REALITY, LEARN, CONSCIOUSNESS, REALIZE, EVOLVE, TRANSCEND, TRANSFORM, LEARN, UNDERSTAND, PRESENCE
Antonmys: ILLUSION, DUALITY, PARADOX, MYSTERY, IGNORANCE
It is the Jesus who tells us the "Kingdom of Heaven is within" and to "Be Still and know that I am God" which are messages directing us back to ourselves so that we might contemplatively experience God. Jesus tells of the need for unconditional love, non judgment and embodying the innocence of a child to enter into this awareness. (http://www.amazon.com/Third-Jesus-Christ-Cannot-Ignore/dp/0307338312)
From constant awareness, this is the only way we can establish a free access to our own divinity and highest delight. So to achieve self-transcendence, either we can walk along the way of true humility, or we can walk along the way of awareness.
Yet non-dual awareness, pure consciousness is not the ultimate goal. We are here to serve a great Purpose. Living in awareness accords with and supports that Purpose in important and subtle ways. But our obligations do not end there. Respecting both the traditions of the East with their focus on being and those of the West with their focus on doing, we see that being is not enough. Purity of being, awareness, promotes the purification of our will, the letting go of attachments and egoism. Gradually opening our will to the Divine Will and our heart to the Great Compassionate Heart of the World enables us to discover and create our destiny through our own unique service to the All. (http://www.innerfrontier.org/Practices/NonDualAwareness.htm)
The death penalty is an expression of our fear and inability to know what to do to help the situation. Our enemy is not the other person, no matter what he or she has done. Their act was a manifestation of our collective consciousness. We all have to discuss the situation and see what we can do. Meditation can help, not by making us oblivious to our real problems, but it should produce awareness in us and also in our society. For us to achieve results, our enlightenment has to be collective. (Buddha, Christ, p75-6)
The question is: Do I walk this path consciously or unconsciously? With awareness or lack of awareness? As the cause of my experience or at the effect of it? This is what is known as conscious living or walking in awareness. (Conversations, p156)
Simply avoid becoming attached to what you see and think. Relinquish the notion that you are separated from the all-knowing mind of the universe. Then you can recover your original pure insight and see through all illusions. Knowing nothing, you will be aware of everything. (Taoism, Wisdom, p172)
With contemplative prayer we are becoming aware of our spiritual nature that our spirit is the dwelling place of the Trinity. The awareness of the deepest level in us is also an awareness of the deepest level in everyone else. You become aware that your true Self is Christ expressing himself in you, and the further awareness that everybody else enjoys this potential too. You are aware that a power greater than you is doing everything. The insight into Christ dwelling in every other person enables one to express charity toward others with greater spontaneity. You perceive everyone's desperate need of help. (Open Mind, p102-3)
There is more to life if we look at a much deeper (see DEEP) level. We need to focus on all the little things because they are much more important than we realize and when added altogether make a bigger whole than we realize. For example, by being stubborn, impatient, non-listening, non-understanding, uncompassionate, self righteous and by using power struggles (no matter how small they may be); I make the evil worst rather than subdueing it with love. (Randy)
We are born with a dim and indistinct awareness of God; through the "Mind's Journey to God" this becomes more distinct and explicit. But knowledge is only one form of union with God and not the highest or most perfect. Love can attain what the intellect cannot. (Mind's Journey to God by St. Bonaventure (who was a cross between St. Augustine and St. Francis).