awareness – Robert Rabbin

Posts Tagged ‘awareness’

26
May
2015

Witnessing Awareness

categories: Silence, Spirituality & Religion

There are two distinct ways of being. We can live in the excitement of thought and words and memory, or we can live in the silence which witnesses those. This is what the first principle of authentic living, Be Present, refers to: the silence which witnesses the thought stream and offers protection from its incessant noise and demands.

This first way of being is preoccupied with creating a bigger and better life, a passionate and purposeful life, an aspiring life. One lives within the identity created by all these ambitions. One’s motivations and choices and rationalizations come from and point towards the ambitions for a bigger life.

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28
Sep
2014

An Audit of My Life at 64

categories: Authentic Living, Speaking Truthfully, Spirituality & Religion

It’s September 2014. I am 64 years old.

I’ve gotten here so fast, I’m almost certain that some of me isn’t here yet, hasn’t caught up to the here and now.

Wasn’t I in Magnolia High School last month, radicalizing the student body during the ’68 presidential campaign? Back then, looking forward, I didn’t even know what 64 years old was. I’m sure I never thought about it; I never thought about time. I believed I had forever: time was like an endlessly moving horizon I would never reach.

Now, I can hold an entire decade in the palm of one hand, like a glass.

But a glass that somehow has within it 10 years of moments, real and imagined. Ten years of seconds that passed without much notice. (more…)

22
Aug
2014

Calling all Radical Sages

categories: Social Transformation, Spirituality & Religion

I know people who are active in what is called the “non-duality” movement.

Some host non-duality meet-ups, where only awareness is discussed. Nothing psychological or emotional, nothing to do with current events in the world. Just awareness.

Like Tupperware or sex toy parties, but without the Tupperware or sex toys.

No, I’m not going to dis them or the non-duality movement. After all, some of my work has even been labeled non-dual, a label I take off as fast as I can. (Yes, you can feel a “but” coming, so here it is.)

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09
Aug
2014

The True Test of Spiritual Attainment

categories: Authentic Living, Speaking Truthfully

I have devoted my entire life to cultivating self-awareness. For me, self-awareness implies something that is applied; in other words, self-awareness in action. What does self-awareness look like as we go about our daily lives? What are the behavioral corollaries to self-awareness?

My teacher, Swami Muktananda, exemplified self-awareness in action; everything he did had the distinctive qualities of clarity, competence, completeness. In a word: impeccable.

He set the bar quite high for us. We were expected to align our inner work (meditation) with our outer work, whether it was sweeping garden paths, chopping vegetables for the communal lunch, or managing ashrams. In my case, I did all three at one time or another in my ten years of living with my teacher. (more…)

24
Jul
2014

Be Present

categories: Authentic Living

The first principle of The 5 Principles of Authentic Living is “Be Present.” It is life’s game-changer.

Be Present requires that we move our center of gravity, our core point of view, from thought to awareness and from words to silence. In silent awareness, which includes but is not defined or determined by thought and language, we experience life-as-it-is, as distinct from life as we think it is.

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