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UNCONSCIOUS AWARENESS
The Knowing That Knows Not
G.I.
Gurdjieff,
the Greek-Armenian mystic, argued that we are not single,
unified beings but rather a collection of a hundred different
personalities—each unaware of the others. These fragmented
selves take turns running the show, often contradicting one
another without our recognition.
Imagine a traveler with a clear destination. Along the way, his
‘selves’ hijack the journey—one craving comfort stops for a
drink, another seeking adventure veers off track, a third,
fearful, turns him back. In the end, he never reaches his
goal—not due to external obstacles, but because no single ‘I’
was truly in control.
Gurdjieff’s teaching emphasizes witnessing this fragmentation as
the first step toward self-unification. True inner mastery means
transforming these competing impulses into a singular,
harmonious "I."
But why are we not naturally conscious of this inner chorus? Why
do these hidden selves continue to shape our actions, thoughts,
and emotions without our recognition—tricking us again and
again?
The answer lies behind the closed doors of perception. And
paradoxically, to open that door, we must first close our eyes.
Eyes Wide Shut
The most fundamental meditation technique is also the
simplest: closing your eyes while remaining fully awake. Within
this effortless act lies a profoundly important realization—one
that does not require striving, only surrender to presence.
The instant you close your eyes, a subtle yet transformative
shift occurs: the body’s myriad sensations rise into conscious
awareness, revealing a vast inner landscape that is always
present but rarely noticed. This shift happens suddenly, almost
startlingly, illuminating a sensory world that has long existed
in the background, quietly sustaining us, waiting to be seen, to
be recognized by consciousness.
Try it now. Close your eyes for a moment. Feel the gentle pulsing of your
heartbeat. Notice the faint warmth spreading through your hands.
Sense the subtle tension resting in your shoulders. These
sensations have always been there, yet they often fade into the
background of daily life. What unfolds in that silent space
behind closed eyes is not emptiness, but presence.
To explore this more deeply, engage in a simple yet revealing
exercise: close and open your eyes in 30-second intervals,
shifting awareness inward and outward repeatedly. Observe what
changes. Notice how perception subtly alters with each
transition—how the external world immediately asserts itself
when your eyes are open, while the moment they close, a
different, often neglected reality begins to emerge.
Through this rhythmic alternation, we can start to discern the
boundary—one that is not rigid but fluid—between outer-directed
consciousness and the vast, silent field of awareness beneath
it.
The Hidden Landscape of Awareness
Consciousness is
typically blind to the awareness that underlies it. We do
not register what we are subtly aware of—unless something
disrupts the pattern. Ordinarily, we perceive only a fraction of
the body’s dynamic sensory flow, while beneath consciousness, a
vast current of sensations hums—subtle yet powerful, like an
unseen river beneath perception.
In this unconscious realm, a chorus of voices emerges—not in
harmony, but in discord, each carrying its own rhythm and tone.
Closing your eyes grants conscious access to this hidden
vibrancy, making the once-unnoticed sensory world suddenly
tangible.
A refrigerator hums in the
background—unnoticed until it stops. In that moment of silence,
you suddenly consciously realize you were aware of it all along.
Similarly, body parts that function perfectly often escape our
conscious attention—until something goes wrong. If you injure
your foot, it immediately demands full awareness. The same
applies to our conflicting inner personalities. They dwell in
the realm of primordial awareness, operating beneath the surface
of consciousness. Yet, the moment they exert pressure—like a
tightening grip—we become acutely aware of their constant
presence within us.
This reveals a fundamental
paradox: we are constantly aware of our body, yet largely
unconscious of that awareness. While consciousness is only drawn
to novelty and disruption, awareness has two modes: Like
consciousness, awareness is instinctually attuned to detecting
sudden changes. However, it also harbors a deep undercurrent
that operates in a state of continuous immediacy, effortlessly
perceiving and holding what remains constant. Here it operates
in a continuous, effortless flow, holding and perceiving the
steady rhythms of cellular existence.
Awareness does not Know Us
Now, let us view ourselves from the buttom up. What about
the layers of awareness that existed before human consciousness
emerged? Does the heartbeat know it sustains a human? Does
digestion recognize the human it nourishes? Are the countless cells and
bacteria within us aware that they collectively form a living
entity—a human being named Tom or Harry?
The primordial awareness systems within us operate without
recognition of our evolution into highly self-reflective,
conscious beings. Just as fish cannot fathom the vast ocean they
inhabit and ants cannot comprehend a modern highway, these
ancient biological mechanisms function independently of the
intricate cognitive structures that have emerged above them.
Who or What Is in Charge? – The Hierarchy of Awareness
We like to think of consciousness as the ruler of our
being—rational, self-aware, and in control. But what if it’s not
the master, but the servant?
Consider this: the mitochondria in your cells, the bacteria in
your gut, the viruses silently shaping your immune system—these
ancient biological entities have been running the show for
billions of years. Consciousness, by contrast, is the "new kid
on the block"—restless, adaptive, and primarily concerned with
external survival. While we ponder philosophy, these microscopic
sovereigns dictate the rhythms of digestion, immunity, and
energy production without so much as a passing thought from us.
In this light, the mind’s loftiest ideals—reason, intellect,
even spirituality—are tireless serfs, laboring in service of
these primordial rulers. We are, in a very real sense, vehicles
for their agenda, blindly ensuring their continued survival
while believing we are in charge.
It’s a provocative perspective, but one worth considering: Who
is truly ruling whom? And what is concept of free will in this
concept?
Consciousness can Self-Transform
Yet, as Robert Ornstein’s
'The Psychology of Consciousness' demonstrates,
consciousness is not only fleeting but also trainable. And in
this very trainability, it may reveal a purpose beyond mere
survival.
In one experiment, an ordinary person quickly lost conscious
awareness of a ticking clock as the brain filtered out the
repetitive sound. A Zen monk, however, could sustain awareness
of the ticking indefinitely, demonstrating that consciousness,
though naturally restless, can be cultivated into deep,
sustained presence.
Unlike the rigid, automated awareness systems that sustain life,
consciousness possesses a fluid, self-transforming capacity—it
can reshape itself through itself.
This ability to reprogram consciousness aligns with the ancient
wisdom inscribed at the
Temple of Apollo: Know thyself.
Through consious self-awareness, we cultivate what I call liquid
inner adaptation—the flexibility to integrate the deeper,
more instinctual layers of our being. The beauty of consciousness is its ability to bridge
this gap. With training, it can illuminate and integrate these
unconscious patterns, transforming them into embodied wisdom.
The good news, as demonstrated by the Zen monk, is that the most
recently developed layers of consciousness possess, to some
degree, the ability to consciously observe, understand, and
integrate the ancient, more constant awareness systems within
us. This integration is what turns unconscious patterns into
embodied wisdom. Without introspection, however, we remain blind
to what defines us most—the silent, repetitive rhythms of life
within.
But how does something as simple as maintaining conscious
awareness of a ticking clock translate into deeper
self-knowledge? To answer this, we must take a deeper dive—one
that transcends the earthly realm of personalities and leads us
into the very watery fabric of awareness itself.
Mirabai's Oceanic Wisdom
The Indian Saint Mirabai says:
"Oh Friend!
Understand
The body is like the ocean
Rich with hidden treasures."
Just as Gurdjieff’s many
personalities operate independently yet contribute to the whole,
Mirabai invites us even deeper—to uncover the hidden treasures
within the oceanic depths of our being. But why does her analogy
of the body as an ocean resonate so profoundly, even tangibly,
with those who journey inward?
In my own experience, introspection carries a distinctly watery,
oceanic quality. This perspective aligns with the Tibetan
understanding of humans as flowing water-bodies, reminding us
that the rhythms and currents within us are echoes of our
oceanic past—rich with evolutionary wisdom and mystery.
Both the Tibetan masters and Mirabai call us to consciously
explore and understand the ancient, fluid ‘languages’ embedded
in the body's bio-mass—or
rather, its bio-water.
As discussed in the chapter,
Consciousness and
Evolution, our bodies retain traces of our evolutionary
journey from the oceans to the land. Most of the "civilizations" of
survival systems accumulated over time within our body are
recalibrated versions of ancient aquatic bio-operative systems.
Even though we at some point in our evolutionary journey crawled from the ocean to the land
we remain deeply watery in nature.
Many of these ancient systems—such as the mechanisms driving our
heartbeat—can trace their origins to creatures like sea
anemones, already thriving in the pre-Cambrian oceans. Every
cell in our body lives a miniature aquatic life, rooted in our
ancient oceanic origins. The salt content in human blood plasma,
extracellular fluid, and other bodily fluids is remarkably
similar in composition to seawater, containing sodium, chloride,
and trace amounts of other minerals. Even the hardest part of us, our teeth,
evolved from the protective shells of ancient fish.
Consider this: Life spent roughly 3.5 billion years in the
ocean. Life has spent only around 375 million years on land.
This means that over 90% of evolutionary history was spent in
water—we have been oceanic creatures for more than 10 times
longer than we have been terrestrial.
In this sense, we carry a distant but massive memory of our aquatic origins,
projected into myths like Atlantis, while our own inner
"Aquaman" continues to live within us.
Mirabai’s ocean is not just a poetic metaphor; it is a profound
truth, inviting us to reconnect with the depths of our watery being,
where the treasures of life’s ancient memory continue to flow.
From there, the
journey unfolds like walking—or perhaps more accurately,
swimming—blindfolded through inner rivers, guided not by
understanding but by what I would term consious 'innerstanding.'
Innerstanding, a word coined by the Danish mystic,
Emanuel Sørensen, refers to an intuitive, embodied knowing that
transcends intellectual comprehension—a wisdom rooted in direct
experience, where the mind becomes an intimate knower to the
ever-shifting flow of life within.
Let us now dive deeper into the unconscious nature of this inner
ocean. As previously mentioned, the key to understanding this
lies in the evolutionary development of the neo-cortex—a
relatively new yet untrained aspect of our consciousness that is
finely tuned to fast-paced, outward stimuli. Its primary task
has been to ensure survival in ever-changing environments,
scanning for threats and opportunities that require immediate
response. There was little evolutionary advantage in registering
slow, subtle movements ad tides within a seemingly stable inner
environment.
Consider the well-known
metaphor of
the frog
in gradually heating water. The frog fails to notice the
increasing danger because the change is too slow to trigger its
immediate attention. Similarly, our consciousness is prone to
overlook the steady, continuous rhythms of our inner sensations,
simply because they do not present sudden changes or urgent
demands. Yet, it is precisely within these slow-moving tides and
waves of
inner energy that we find the profound, often hidden truths of
our being.
Perceiving these quiet, continuous inner oceanic rhythms requires a
different kind of conscious awareness—a Zen-trained mind capable
of maintaining focus on something as subtle as the ticking of a
clock indefinitely or a humming fridge. This deeper level of
cultivated conscious perception allows us to
become aware of the ever-present, roaring, yet silent flow within our inner
body-ocean.
Through the cultivation of introspection, we allow consciousness to engage with
these layered dormant and slow moving awareness systems, fostering an integrated
understanding where broader awareness can become conscious of
itself in an ever-deepening dialogue between the body and
spirit.
This is not academic science but a both a poetic and practical invitation to explore Mirabai's
ocean in the form of our Tibetan water-body.
THE CONSCIOUS CHOISE
How, then, do we practice this? It begins with the simple
yet profound act of closing our eyes while fully awake. This act
is not passive but in most cases a conscious choice—a deliberate decision to
turn inward. In this context, it doesn’t matter whether free
will is an illusion or not. The French existentialist Sartre
says: 'Even if free will is an illusion, we are still
responsible for our choices because we experience them as such'.
Embedded within the operative fabric
of consciousness is the subjective experience of free will.
Within that experience, it makes perfect sense to say: "I
chose to close my eyes. I did it."
Where the Attention Goes, the Prana Flows
Within
this same realm of choice, we can consciously direct our
field of attention—to our hands, our breath, or anything else. Whether
free will is an illusion or not… isn't that a miracle in itself?
Like Chinese boxes, this small miracle of conscious directional
choice
reveals yet another hidden within it. Both the ancient Indian
tantric and later Chinese Taoist traditions encapsulate this
second miracle with the principle:
"Where the attention goes, the prana (life-energy) flows."
Consciousness adds
Direction to our Life-Force.
A transformative
power seems to follow the path set by our conscious choice to
direct awareness in a certain direction. Consciousness adds
direction to our life-force. In your daily life,
practice directing your awareness to different parts of your
body. Notice how this simple act can invigorate and calm you.
Conscious Attention and Love
Now consider this example:
offer another human being your undivided and nonjudgmental
conscious attention. Almost without fail, this person will feel
uplifted.
The same principle applies to our own body. In fact, it is vital
to put this 'oxygen mask' on ourself first. Simple, focused,
high-quality awareness directed inward enlivens the body and
even holds the potential to heal. This act of consciously
choosing where to direct attention unveils the profound
interconnectedness between awareness and the 'pranic' life-force—a little miracle
hidden in plain sight.
The first human being we must befriend in vitality is our own
body, and that friendship begins with conscious awareness
directed inwards. You, as 'I'
must
befriend 'me.’ And the path to this connection starts
with the simplest act: closing your eyes. It’s that simple. Just
close your eyes and—BOOM—you’re already on the path of a
friendship that will, from there, flow outward, rippling into
ever-expanding circles.
Strength and Quality of Conscious Awareness
The inner energetic life of the body is profoundly shaped by
the strength and quality of our conscious attention. The more
awareness we direct inward, the more this inner life responds,
growing increasingly dynamic and vibrant. This creates a
feedback loop: as awareness fuels inner energy, this awakened
flow, in turn, nourishes and strengthens conscious awareness,
reinforcing the cycle of deepening presence.
The Value of Countless Repetitions
As an electric solo guitarist, I know that behind every
well-played riff lie countless repetitions. Yet the intellect,
in its illusionary superiority, assumes that once a statement is
made, repetition becomes unnecessary—deeming it redundant and
dismissing its transformative power. Yet, the deeper layers of
human understanding resemble a tense muscle—they require
repeated massage for the blocks to dissolve. Similarly,
transforming undesirable habits into something positive demands
constant, gentle nudging.
This is in fact the true meaning
behind the use of a mantra. This mantra is worth repeating as a
self-reminder. Gurdjieff referred to it as the practice of 'constant
self-remembrance'.
Let me now consciously repeat: Consciousness is drawn to change,
while much of our ancient awareness systems are rooted in
continuity and repetition. Consider a few examples of such
natural repetitions—more accurately, pulsations: the heartbeat,
the morning shit, the breath. These rhythms have accompanied
life since the time of stardust, endlessly cycling through
existence. In meditation, the deliberate use of repetition acts
as a bridge, allowing us to become consciously aware of these
primal rhythms that have quietly sustained us through the ages.
The Danish existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard struggled with
the eternal repetition of mundane life cycles—waking up, eating,
going to bed, over and over again. His frustration was,
however, not with the repetition itself, but with the
unreflective, mechanical repetition of life without conscious
engagement. He found it absurd and draining, a never-ending loop
that weighs down the human spirit. Although I’m not a general
fan of Kierkegaard’s existential labyrinth, I
still find a lot of gold in his works. Here’s a poignant insight:
"Of all ridiculous
things, the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a
man who is brisk about his food and his work. What, I wonder, do
these busy folks get done?" (Either/Or, Part I)
Are you and I among
the busy people Kierkegaard ridicules here? The ones briskly
rushing from task to task, never pausing to reflect? I must
admit that, despite all my spiritual work, I too occasionally
fall into this trap. In modern terms, we call it stress.
While sitting in meditation, you might suddenly realize that
you’ve been in a state of constant stress without even
recognizing it. This insight can feel deeply unsettling. And
that’s one reason why meditation often feels uncomfortable. The
discomfort doesn’t come from the practice itself, but from its
remarkable ability to reveal an uncomfortable truth—the frog
sitting in heating water is, in fact, you and me.
Let me repeat our new mantra: Ordinary consciousness,
preoccupied with change, often fails to notice ongoing states of
being because it struggles to detect continuity. In contrast, a
Zen-trained consciousness, attuned to the steady rhythm of
awareness, can perceive persistent malaise and respond to it
with clarity and deliberate action.
By incorporating deliberate repetition in meditation, you
gradually cultivate the ability to consciously detect repetitive
patterns within yourself—particularly the insidious rhythm of
chronic stress. These subtle patterns, unnoticed by the
untrained mind, operate in the background like a continuous hum
or rather pressure.
Meditation trains consciousness to recognize these hidden loops,
breaking the cycle of unconscious tension and bringing them into
the light of conscious awareness.
When you become aware of the repetitive undercurrent of stress,
you gain the power to disrupt it—not by force, but by simply
noticing its presence. Through this awareness, the cycle starts
to loosen, and what was once an unconscious burden becomes a
conscious choice to release.
The Cleansing of Mental Debris in Consciousness
The next step—repeated a million times—is to consciously engage
with all bodily sensations in a state of innocent yet deliberate
'aha-conscious' awareness.
What do I mean by 'aha'? I mean taking notice in childlike
innocence.
Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to capture a natural
photo of someone who is self-conscious about being photographed?
The moment we know the camera is on us, we perform. We tense up,
adjust our posture, and adopt what could metaphorically be
called "botox lips"—a subtle, forced attempt to control how we
are perceived.
French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre famously remarked that
humans are "condemned to self-consciousness." His observation
captures the existential burden of constant self-evaluation—an
internal performance in which we are both actor and audience.
This self-awareness is not inherently negative, but it becomes
burdensome when it spirals into compulsive self-evaluation,
trapping us in performance rather than presence.
In this context, I reinterpret Sartre’s notion of
self-consciousness as the "botox lip" moment—a modern echo of
the biblical story of Adam and Eve. When they became ashamed of
their nakedness, they realized their vulnerability after they
became conscious of their bodies. This marked the birth of
self-reflection, but also of shame. Shame, at its core, is
thinking about oneself from the outside in.
Achieving innocence within consciousness is profoundly
difficult. In modern culture, the performative selfie-era
attempts to overcome this challenge by postulating that the
false smile is real, negating the very notion of a true essence.
Yet, in my view, the absence of essence is not natural—it is a
byproduct of unresolved conflicts between operative systems
within us.
The 'Botoxifying' Thinking Process
Embedded within consciousness, there seems to be a faculty
designed to analyze and manipulate the external world, and for
this reason, it inherently lacks innocence. Awareness-systems,
by contrast, operate instinctively, without intellectual
understanding, and in this sense, they remain innocent.
The thought process, residing within the realm of consciousness,
seeks to take a dictatorial lead over the inner world of
awareness, always striving to achieve something in the outer
world. But when it commands us to smile, the smile becomes "botoxified,"
stripped of its original, effortless beauty.
The pure mirror of consciousness, the latest blooming flower of
evolution, has unfolded so closely alongside the evaluating,
thought-based system that it has formed a near-symbiotic
relationship. This entanglement causes us to mistakenly equate
the thinking process with consciousness itself. But they are not
the same.
It is the thinking machine, embedded within consciousness, that
has lost innocence.
Consciousness, in its essence, is like a mirror—untainted by
what it reflects. In its pure form, it is as innocent as the
awareness-systems, even though it embodies a different kind of
innocence.
This understanding carries countless implications, but the key
takeaway is this: for consciousness to merge with awareness, it
must be cleansed of concepts, words, and understanding. It must
return to its 'aha-state.'
In meditation, our aim is to transcend the judgmental
consciousness and return to innocence. And in that innocence,
consciousness and awareness will spontaneously merge—like
knights gathered around the round table. This is, in fact, what
I mean by conscious awareness. It is a deeply symbiotic
partnership.
The path of inner cleansing is not about adopting another layer
of performance but about removing the layers
altogether—returning to a state where 'aha' awareness arises
naturally, within the mirror of pure consciousness, free from
force or pretense.
How to Arrest the Thief?
You might now rightly ask: Is this cleansing project itself not a
consequence of a thought process? Does it not embody the
very paradox illustrated by Ramana
Maharshi’s analogy of a
policeman trying to arrest a thief, aware that he is the thief
himself?
Here, I draw inspiration from a powerful insight shared by
Nisargadatta Maharaj: Conscious, thought-based insights cannot
create anything primordial. They can only produce symbolic
representations within the mind. However, while thoughts cannot
reveal our true nature, they hold immense power over what we
mistakenly identify as "self"—that is, everything we are not.
This is the essence of
neti neti—"not
this, not that."
When, on a cognitive level, we grasp that we are not confined to
thoughts, something remarkable happens: thoughts lose their
grip. They begin to fade, starved of the attention that once fed
them. And in their gradual dissolution, a deeper reality
emerges—what was always present but hidden, much like a
coastline revealing itself as the fog lifts.
This process is not about forcing thoughts into silence. It is
about recognizing that they are not who we are. The silence
comes not through suppression, but through 'innerstanding'. In
that innerstanding, we rediscover what Ramana Maharshi referred
to as the eternal, unshaken self—clear, vast, and untouched by
the waves of thought.
In summary, we purify consciousness not by silencing thoughts,
but by gently and deliberately choosing to place our awareness
elsewhere. In doing so, we allow consciousness to return to its
natural mirror-state of innocence—clear, reflective, and
untainted by the noise of mental narratives.
In fact, I would go so far as to suggest—perhaps
provocatively—that one fundamental difference between a meditator and a narcissist lies in the ability to see through
the web of thought, resisting the urge to weave self-reinforcing
narratives designed to control perception and dominate a
situation. In this sense, the modern performative selfie culture
can be seen as a natural offspring of narcissism, where identity
is curated for external validation. Unconditional self-love is
here the only anti-dote.
The Power of Pixellation
Now that we have explored the fragmented nature of the self
and the hidden layers of awareness beneath consciousness, the
next step is to refine our perception even further. If awareness
is an ocean, how do we navigate its depths without being
overwhelmed? If consciousness can reshape itself, how can it
learn to see beyond its own habitual structures?
This is where meditative pixellation comes in—an approach that
dissolves rigid narratives, deconstructs emotions into pure
sensation, and reveals the raw, vibrant energy that underlies
all experience. By zooming in on the microtextures of our inner
world, we move beyond identity and enter the realm of direct,
felt experience.
Let us now take a closer look at what happens when we magnify
the unseen world within us—one pixel at a time.
Go from here to the chapter Meditative
Pixellation
With warm regards,
Gunnar Mühlmann
gunnars@mail.com
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