by Jaafar Siddiqui
Mastering the art of self- awareness will create a structure in your brain that will allow you to think and become familiar with the process of becoming aware.
Understanding life, existence, consciousness, and death is the most interesting and rewarding journey one can embark in his/her lifetime. It is only fair if we get to learn a little bit about our very existence, especially when it’s so challenging.
To understand existence, it is crucial to think where it all began (birth) and where it’s all going to end (death), this line of thought humbles you to the very extent that your identity and ego somewhere gets dissolved into nothingness. We didn’t exist before our birth, but the universe did, and we someday are not going to be here, and the universe might exist, ‘Might’ cause who knows what for sure?
The journey to enlightenment begins when you understand how insignificant your existence is in this massive universe. What possibly can you control when everything of everything is affecting you in one way or the other, how much of it is in your hands?
Humility lets you observe better, which now can put you up high on the consciousness scale. What is consciousness? Consciousness is the process of being aware and it’s a multi-dimensional concept, meaning there are multiple ways to attain levels of consciousness, in fact in my opinion consciousness is achieved differently by different creatures of the universe.
However, the center of consciousness in all beings is to observe. If I can coin the term, an absolute observer, an observer whose intellectual confrontation with the realities of the universe is unaffected by their own identity and ideas. You just observe without the pressure to classify or name it and see things for exactly what they are. How do we do that? Be humble enough to take yourself out of equation and understand that the universe around you is so much more than you, your ideas and identity.
Afterall, there’s a reason why religions focus so much on afterlife and death, possibly because it humbles you if you truly focus on what death is. Speaking of death, it is incredibly important to understand death, what better way to understand death than to discuss birth.
One may argue that the natural state of human mind is bliss. Observe babies and how positive they are towards learning and treating them growth and what they like, all the signs of a healthy brain. Hence, the natural state we are blessed with when borne might be the state of bliss, whatever comes after that is made up either by the unrealistic viewpoint towards life or by the challenges splashed onto our faces by the competitive world around.
If you carefully observe what meditation is, you will realize it’s about being in the moment and attaining the state of thoughtlessness, which partially is trying to attain a state of mind where you are like a kid when you were born, not many thoughts going went on isn’t? Only focused on survival and growth.
Since birth has been discussed, what better time to discuss death eh? Death isn’t scary, it’s just unfamiliar. Death is the process where your existence won’t prevail anymore the way you always experienced it, it’s scary for many because what else you really know about death? Attaining the higher levels of consciousness will immensely help you become comfortable with the idea of your existence being erased, as to achieve the higher level of consciousness you need to become an absolute observer, which always requires for you to view the world without “you” being in the picture which is what death is, it removes you from the equation in its entirety.
The journey to find the answers of universe truly begin when one attempts to become self- aware of how they function in this world. Mastering the art of self- awareness will create a structure in your brain that will allow you to think and become familiar with the process of becoming aware. Afterall, it must begin from understanding ourselves as we are one of the undetachable parts of this big universe, we are helping it function everyday by knowingly or unknowingly contributing towards the smooth functioning of this massive ecosystem.
Happy finding your answers!
Jaafar Siddiqui earned Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Hertfordshire — United Kingdom. He writes for The Milli Chronicle on Business, Politics, and Culture.
