This Week’s Quotation:

The person who attempts to attain enlightened awareness through human effort believes that they will know it only after they expend human effort of some kind—after they fast, meditate, read, deprive themselves, exert extreme physical effort, or pray. But they don’t. At least they don’t have enlightened awareness unless they do what anyone could do right now—change the orientation of their mind. Because, yes, it is natural to extend effort in a human life. But that is not what creates enlightened awareness.

~ Becoming a Sun p. 194

Enlightened Awareness

What does it mean to change the orientation of the mind?

Here is a simple way to understand it. There are four things you can think about:

1. You can think about what is happening now around you.
2. You can think about what you and other people are feeling.
3. You can think about what you and other people are thinking about.
4. You can think about what is possible.

When a person’s mind thinks about possibility, it is orienting to the world of pre-form. This is the world of what hasn’t manifested yet, but which might manifest if the person lets it. It is the world of essence.

It can become a mental habit to orient to what is happening now. And that’s important to some degree because we have to navigate current manifest reality. We have to deal with what is. But that becomes depressing if that is all we see. Every challenge becomes a problem. The evolution of circumstances becomes a freeze-frame in the mind with no awareness of the essence of what it is becoming.

We might think about what we and others feel. If we do so with compassion and understanding, that can be fruitful. But sometimes, people drown in emotion, and it becomes their only reality—how they are feeling.

Thinking about what you are thinking might be good self-reflection. But it can easily become circular, like a dog chasing its tail. If you want to become anxious and confused, just think about what you are thinking about for a while.

Thinking about possibility is thinking about the invisible essence of things. It is tuning into the seeds of creation, and it is the basis of creativity.

Enlightened thinking and awareness are foundational elements of being a creator. I know this from my experience as a songwriter and composer, and as a writer, speaker, and poet. And from my experience in living a creative life. Enlightened thinking allows our life to come through the process of change and growth to give birth to something whole and beautiful.

Without enlightened thinking, we are “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” as they say.

What are the seeds of possibility that are yours to think about today?

What does it mean to become a sun?

Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.