Attentive Survival

[harsi]

From 2 April 2011.

Learning the art of being attentive to one's surroundings requires understanding of what creates a gap between what our mind's focus on and what we should be aware of. How this gap is created by the mind through our beliefs is discussed in detail.


Listen at: https://harimedia.net/downloads/lecture ... rvival.mp3


"The mind gets absorbed in its own belief system. To some respect, and to some degree, you are what you believe. It really doesn't matter if what you believe is true or false, or something in between. It really doesn't matter if what you believe, is not actually so. What really counts is what you believe." "We create our own reality in our own minds." "We create that which we think is."

"Belief, what do I believe? Is that really a system, a belief system? It means I have something that is fundamentally, potentially, completely irrational. And I choose to believe it. And than on the basis of this belief, I create a system that supports it."

"But like a fireman you have to be one hundred percent attentive to the moment, I mean one hundred percent. That's what means living in the moment. Do you know, this is a very spiritual thing. I'm not just talking about survival. I'm talking about the core essence of what I am as a living being, my energy, my essence, my awareness, my consciousness. Totally connected to the moment, the right now experience of what I am."


..One of the major difficulties that we as people face, is that our capacity as human beings is very much dependant on the state of our mind. I've been having talks with my wife about this. She's a very good example of this in regards to what she does with horses. Now, she is ingaged in riding horses in dressage. Which means you make the horse do all kinds of fancy things.

And what's interesting about working with horses is that the rider and the horse have to be in sink, there's a connection formed. It's an energetic connection formed between you and the horse. And the horse becomes very sensitive to you, the rider. Because you, the rider, are flowing with the horse. You, the rider, and the horse are feeling each other.

And when you, the rider, make small adjustments with the reins - because it's in the mouth of the horse - the horse immediately feels it, or with your weight, or with your feet, or with your legs. Small changes - of corse you require a trained horse - will cause the horse to do all kinds of things, even do this criss-cross thing-is... I don't know all the terms. So she's being practicing this for many years. And sometimes she does it fabulously well. And her teachers are amazed, they say: "Wow, that's incredible! We didn't know you can do that."

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..And her horse, called Wess, has a huge smile. Because he's very happy when he gets praised because he does something spectacular, which he can do. And other times she doesn't do it well, the horse doesn't listen to her. And we have boiled it down to the mind. When the mind is concentrated, when the mind is focused, the results are very good, the results are very spectacular. The results cause it to be somehow or another very different, than when one is not focused.

Now this is the same in every activity. For example right now I'm speaking. If somebody writes me a message that says: "Ups... something's not working, help, my attention is totally diverted and I loose this track. Because now I'm focused, my attention, my connection, my consciousness is connected to this activity of presenting this subject to you. This intention rules the manner in which this activity takes place. It does not matter whether you're riding a horse, whether you're speaking, whether you're trying to deal with computers, whether you're dealing with your children. Children, for example, know very well when you're not focused on them at all. They know when you're off somewhere else, they know when you're not very together, they know when something's wrong.

Now this intention, this attention, this focus is very, very important right now. It is very, very important, because we have to be attentive to survival. Now, we are very motivated to survive as human beings. All living beings are generally motivated to survival, we have this survival instinct. It is what has enabled us as human beings to last for this many thousands of years we have lasted. It is related to what we are biologically, it is that which keeps us functioning even in terrible circumstances. This will to live, this will to continue. It is wired into our being, wired into our being as to what we are. It is exactly what we are as human beings, this survival.

Now okay, that's all obvious. Now how does that relate to the present? Well, it relates to the present. Because when I've been saying be aware, I've been saying that we should be careful, we should prepare. Now the secret to being able to deal with something, is attentiveness. Just like when there was that tsunami in the... near Thailand, I don't know, I don't remember the exact name of that ocean there. I don't know of what it's part of, that...

The animals ran away, they were attentive to survival. For them the first and foremost ingredient of all ingredients is survival. They're always attentive. Whatever they're doing they are attentive. It's a constant. We humans have lost that. The animals have it, that's why they could escape.

We humans have lost it. Even if we're told that this is gonna happen, our first tendency is to not believe it. We basically have to be convinced that it will happen. That's a very interesting mentality. That means we do not have attentiveness as our basic functioning. We do have survival. But there's a gap between survival and the quality of perceptive attentiveness that is required to actually do it under all circumstances - there's a gap.

The animals don't have that gap. But we humans have this gap. We have this gap called the mind. The mind gets absorbed in its own belief system. To some respect, and to some degree, you are what you believe. It really doesn't matter if what you believe is true or false, or something in between.

It really doesn't matter if what you believe, is not actually so. What really counts is what you believe. I have used this example in relationship to gurus. When you believe something to be so, you make it so. When you believe it is not so, you make it so. If you believe everything's fine, it is fine. If you believe it is not fine, it is not fine. And that is regardless of the actual fact of the situation.

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We create our own reality in our own minds. Some people say they are not creators, some people say they are powerless, some people say that everything's under the control of some authority somewhere, or that everything is a random array of events. People say many things. But everybody will understand that we create our own reality in our minds. We create that which we think is.

We can take an event and interpret it into something quite opposite to what it was. After all there is no restriction. There's truely no restriction. The only restriction is your belief system. Belief systems, it's such an amazing thing. Even that you use the word system and belief in the same phrase, it seems to be an oxymoron if you consider what it is.

A belief is not necessarily a system, it's a belief. It's actually something which is metaphysical, something which is subtle, something that can be completely divorced from rationality. A system refers to systemization, systemized, it means it's set up, it's logic, there is a logic to it. A computer operating system - incredible logic. An electrical system following codes and designs. A communication system, interconnecting people everywhere. A road system. Telling you where things are, and allowing you to drive anywhere you want. System is very logical.

Belief in some respects, if not a lot of them, is totally - or can be - completely irrational, illogical. Even religious systems. There're things in every religious book - I'm not judging it, (I'm) just describing it- there're things in every religious book that some people read and think, you've got to be kidding me, how is that possible? That makes no sense! Or I just have to believe it's so. It's a miracle.

Yet a miracle is a belief, if you weren't actually there seeing it. I mean I've seen incredible things done by mystics, that defy all belief. And the only way I could deal with it, is to understand this person has power I don't understand. I've also seen magic done by spectacular magicians who do things that I'm completely bewildered. I mean I saw David Copperfield at the auditorium here at the university. (It) blue my mind.

Anyway, belief, what do I believe? Is that really a system, a belief system? It means I have something that is fundamentally, potentially, completely irrational. And I choose to believe it. And than on the basis of this belief, I create a system that supports it.

Just like fact on the internet, I mean it's just so amazing how this works. I discovered this long ago. Somebody on the internet somewhere says something is true, they make a statement. That statement is quoted by somebody else on another website. That statement is quoted on another website. After a short time the original source of the information is obscured. You have no idea who's the original source, but because it has been quoted again and again on ten, twenty, perhaps hundreds of websites, it is assumed to be true. And because it's so widely quoted, it can go, for example, in Wikipedia as a fact - a published fact.

Wikipedia is not the only one subject to this. Many rumors have started that way, there had been headlines. There was somebody pretending to be Steve Jobs. I loved this one. Now he's famous as the false Steve Jobs. But in the beginning people actually thought he was Steve Jobs. If you have been living on the Moon for the past 20 years. Steve Jobs is that, you know, genius who makes all this stuff that we all use. The iPods and the iPads, and the Max, and whatever... iPhones.

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..So he was the fake Steve Jobs, but he presented himself as the real Steve Jobs. And for a while everybody believed it, everybody believed what he was saying. Huge scandal, because they believed it. And there was a system being created out of this belief.

Similarly we have a problem. And the problem is, between our basic functions as human beings to survive and our attentiveness to survival, there's this gap. It's not a very big gap if you were to take out your (falding) ruler and measure it. But you can't of corse, because it's all metaphysical. But if you would have the capacity to measure it, you would see it's a very little gap. It's an attitude gap, it's something that you can change by changing your belief, by taking the mind which is now diverting us, diverting our attention.

Like the news. The news people are expert, they know Japan was big news. And even if reactors are melting down, and even if radiation is everywhere, and even if, you know, the sea is filled with radiation and chain reactions are already set in place radioactively.

By the way, if you use Japanese tea, I recommend you buy a lot of it now in the stores locally, don't import it. But anyway, it's no longer news. You may see one item hidden somewhere, or even its main... you don't care, it's old news. You're dull already. You are dull. Yeah, yeah, tens of thousands died, yeah, I'm dull. I'm thinking about other things now, you know, life is getting back to normal.

Gap. I believe my life should be this. I'm attentive to it, gap. I create belief and I create gap. Belief equals gap. God will protect us all. Jesus will protect us all. Okay, I'm not against that. I'm a spiritualist, I believe it. Krishna will protect us, yes! God will protect us. You call him Jehovah, you call him Jahwe, you call him Allah, I don't care. God will protect us.

But if there's a gap, how will god protect us? If there's a gap between my survival instinct and my attentiveness to survival. How will god protect me? Will god come and slap me in the face and say, wake up you idiot? Do you want to use god like that? Do you want to make god your servant, your bodyguard? When you think god will protect you, does that mean he's your bodyguard? Is god your bodyguard? Very simple question.

You know bodyguard, like Kevin Costner in that movie. Bodyguard, he's the guy who stands next to you, your angel bodyguard. What is their role? To slap you in the face and say, idiot, wake up! Is that the role of bodyguard? God should be bodyguard, god will protect me. Or do you believe that god is going to create some protective shield around you. So that whatever might happen in nature is gonna flow right over you or roll right around you, or everything else is gonna brake, but you're gonna be standing in a safe haven.

You can believe that if you like. After all you will create your reality by your belief. Or let's put in an alternative way by which god will protect us, which I believe. I believe it. But I'm also aware of the gap. How will my belief that god will protect me interfere with the protection of god? That's my question. How will my belief that god will protect me interfere with my being protected by god? Interesting. I never thought of it before. Yet attentiveness, I have to move my attentiveness back to survival.

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That doesn't mean compromising faith, it doesn't mean compromising belief, it doesn't mean compromising connection with god, it doesn't mean compromising love, it doesn't mean returning to animal existence. Because a lot of people who are absorbed in belief, quote on quote, systems think that any quality related to animals is not spiritual, it's not even worthy of humans.

I disagree. I think we humans have an incredible amount to learn from animals. But we can't. Because we believe they have no soul, we believe they have no consciousness, we believe they're lower forms of life and not worthy of our attention. Unless they are a cow. We have this beliefs.

But if we were open-minded, open-hearted and we would understand the consciousness of animals, the consciousness of plants, the consciousness that's there amongst all living beings in this great creation that is god's. We would find that they have a quality of attentiveness that we do not have. They are very aware of energy, they read your energy instantly.

My dog reads your energy instantly. You think something, he's on it. He's reading the changes in your energy field. He is perceiving directly your energy field. And if you in anyway are perceived as thread by him, he reacts. If you are perceived as not thread, he reciprocates. It's an instant communication.

Just like with horses. Which is why I've started this discussion. Slight change in the hands. How you hold them. Whether you're stiff or you're loose. How you sit. Whether you're relaxed and solid, or you are tensed - horse reads it, understands it instantly - instantly. Just like those who jump, horses who jump. How do you think the horse knows exactly when to jump? The raider says, jump! Horse goes, whop. Boom.... The horse loves it. He says, my god, I've got this raider on me who's connected to me, who knows me and lets me run and jump, and do my horse thing. Because I love it, I'm a champion. Now use me! You think there's no reciprocation? There's incredible reciprocation. Because those riders know that horse.

I have a dog. I know that dog. He feels me, I feel him. I'm attentive. Why should I make a distinction between living entities that way? Why should I say: He's a dog therefore. I should consider him. Well I should consider he eats different than me, he drinks different than me, sleeps somewhat different, although not really. You know he pees outside, we pee inside. Okay, there're certain differences. He will go barking at another dog. I know that. That's why he's on a leash.

So but this attentiveness requires that one accepts something which is actually our original quality. Primitive man had this. Primitive man was totally attentive to his environment because of the need to survive. Because if he was not attentive, he died. He was attentive to a sound. Beecause what would stop animal from eating him? It's the way it works. He kills animal, eats animal. Animal kills him, eats him. He was attentive, he heard all the rule, he felt all the time, he was attentive.

We've lost it because... Why? We believe we don't need to. We have walls, we have locked doors, we have governments, we have police. We think our locked homes will protect us. But in reality somebody can come chuck something through the window, walk in. Did you ever watched on TV how they get into places? Smash the window, reach around, open the door, cut something, slip something. You know on TV, they always have this little paper clips and they go in and jimmy the lock. I don't know if it's true or not. But hey, seems pretty easy to get in some lock. You just go... chick up... you're in.

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..But we believe we're safe. We believe we are being protected by police. Okay, to some extent we are. Generally they do quite a good job, but they are not next to you. The criminals comes up to you they're not next to you. Your house protects you only so much as it can. Your house doesn't protects you against gamma ray radiation, doesn't protect you against diseases. So we have to be attentive.

Someone might say that now do I have to believe that I'm not safe all the time? Do I have to believe I'm in great danger? Is that's what you're saying? No, that's not what I am saying. Because again, that's a belief. And belief equals gap between attentiveness and actual survival, (it) creates a gap. Because if I believe I'm in danger all the time, I live in fear. If I live in fear, than fear distorts my consciousness, fear distorts my energy. Fear places me in a position which is as difficult to be in as any other belief system. It distorts me.

Being in love distorts me too. When you're in love everything's wonderful. When you're in love everything is like roses and heaven - and there's that gap. Okay, maybe it's not a belief. But before you got to love or you got to fear - the two primal emotions - you had a belief. Fear belief is, I'm in constant danger, or I'm in danger. Love belief is, hey, this person is great, perfect, wonderful for me.

I'm not saying that belief creates love or fear. But when it does it's very relevant to this discussion. You can be afraid of something, not just from belief, but because you know, you know fire burns. So when you're not next to a great fire, you avoid it. That doesn't mean you're afraid of it.

I mean, I used to be a fireman. I used to go straight into burning buildings, holding the hose. I knew perfectly well, fire burns. I know it better than a lot of people know it. Was I afraid? In a healthy sense, yes. Which is I'm only gonna be standing here in the middle of this chaos because this guys in back of me (are) shooting water on me. Because I've got a hose in front of me with a stream that goes like this or like this according to my control. And there're this two guys behind me holding the damned thing, because it's so powerful.

So my healthy fear is connected to my belief that I can handle it. Because I have a certain faith in myself, I have a certain faith in the people behind me, I have a certain faith that that water's gonna continue coming out. Which now that I think about is not necessarily reasonable because the pump truely could have broken. But if the water was going to stop flowing in, it would do so, I would see it happening, I would run like mad. But even than I might not have made it. But still there was danger element.

Okay. But I was attentive? Oh yes! Whatever I believed about fire or whatever I feared, or whatever I believed about flow of water, or people, non of those beliefs interfered with my attentiveness. Beecause believe me, I was one hundred percent attentive to every snap, crackel and pop that happened in the fire. One hundred percent attentive to where those flames were going, one hundred percent attentive to what was in that building and what was needed to prevent something even worse from happening, or where people were.

So I was intently focused on attentively perceiving what was in front of me, what was this experience. That's actually a very, very good example. It exactly signifies how we need to be attentive to survival right now - like a fireman. Okay, maybe you don't have a fire to put out. That's okay. But like a fireman you have to be one hundred percent attentive to the moment, I mean one hundred percent.

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..That's what means living in the moment. Do you know, this is a very spiritual thing. I'm not just talking about survival. I'm talking about the core essence of what I am as a living being, my energy, my essence, my awareness, my consciousness. Totally connected to the moment, the right now experience of what I am.

And that's how god is protecting me. Because of being totally absorbed in the moment, in the awareness of what's happening on all levels I can be. It includes maintaining a direct openness to god - direct openness. Which means that when I'm inspired to do something. Take it seriously! When thoughts all of a sudden appear to me were not a product of my conscious creation. Take it seriously! You hear something. Take it seriously! You feel something. Take it seriously! You feel you're standing in a bad place. Take it seriously!

Do you think god is gonna walk in front of you and tapp you on the shoulder and say, buddy, move your ass? Do you honestly think that's gonna happen? Or do you think, that when you're connected to the divine, you allow the divine...

You say it: My dear Lord - if you wish to call - my dear god, my dear Radha - Krishna, or whatever you wish the call that Supreme, your way of address. My dear god, I now declare and establish myself as totally open and desires and eager for your direct connection to me, for your continuous connection to me as my protector. And I promise to be attentive to your words, that may appear in my mind, or may appear as feelings, or may appear as something I hear, or understand.

And I ask you to make it powerful so I shall know the difference between fear and love, between hysteria and a rational decision. That I shall close the gap, keeping me from attentiveness to survival. That I shall be absorbed in the moment with god as my partner. Where I hear, I understand, I act, where my experience is of the present.

Not that it doesn't matter anyway and if I die I go to heaven. Not that I'm hysterically afraid, I'm going to dig a hole in the ground and pack it full of food. But that I'm attentive and I shall prepare, understanding the news that isn't told to me, the news of the ether, the news of the movement, the news of the motion, the news of the flow.

And I shall move with that flow insomuch as it is beneficial for me to do so, because I will experience what it means. I'm experiencing the moment, I'm experiencing the flow. And I am accepting the connection to the Supreme and allowing it to direct me. Because I admit, I know, I don't have full knowledge or full awareness of what's going on. I also know anything can happen at any moment. And I know I shall meet any situation the best I can, with a good feeling, a good motivation, a good intention. If I needed to be of service, I shall be so. And if I need to save myself, I shall do so.

And if I need to just continue, as I'm doing in my life, I shall do so. And if I need to be attentive to preparations, just in case, I shall do so. Because I'm open to the moment, I'm living in the moment without fear and without being in the clouds. Without being clouded by a belief. Not being clouded with the belief that someone's gonna save me. It's hard to say how things will be. I can't say, I can't guarantee anything. With absolute conviction, I cannot predict the future. I have some ideas, I've shared them.

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..Edgar Cayce had some ideas, I've related them. Seems like everybody I know who channels, echoes the same message. And just for fun, for those of you who follow Nostradamus. Remember that strange enemy who had the turban, the one who would attack the new city with that missile? Well, who is in the news nowadays who wears a turban? Anyway it's funny how things are all falling in place. Yet, I can't predict it will be so. But I do know that it would be incredibly foolish not to take everything seriously right now.

Not to be totally aware, not to allow belief to create this gap, and to always be attentive to survival. Be prepared, work towards it, figure it out! And you'll probably (be) super happy you did so, or whatever. But at least you know you've done your best. And who can ask more of us as human beings than we've done our best? Who can ask more of us, than we have tried hard to be of service, we have responsibly been attentive to our survival, and we are trying to establish the future despite the present consequences that we are assuming, and will assume?

So this is not a message of apocalypse, this is not a message of cataclysms, this is not a message of destruction. This is a message of regaining a lost ability that is essential, not only for our survival, but is intimately related to our spiritual essence of being, of that Sat energy, our ever existing moment. This ever existence that we live in, in this moment continuously. It is intimately connected to that on the most basic spiritual level.

And when you're intimately connected to that, all spiritual life plus all material facility is linked. Because you are in connection with the divine, you are in connection with your own perception and awareness and alertness, and you are living the experience of existence in the moment, not with some dream about the future - although you can plan towards one - and not with some lamentation of the past, although you can avoid the mistakes. You're right now, right here, right in the moment.
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