Awareness: Key to Survival

 

Our survival is based on a simple two-part mechanism. In fact, our nervous system has formed itself, and has the ability to rewire itself, in direct correlation to how we utilize this mechanism. It is a mechanism utilized by the simplest of organisms, yet, in all of our haughty complexity, we over think the mechanism and fail to act upon it. Often, especially with our desire to control things like climate, food availability, comfort and even the size and standards of the design of our structures, our over-developed logical mind takes center stage. This is done at the expense of developing and learning how to use our entire nervous system, as an interface with the rest of the world, even the universe. Our atrophied senses aren’t due so much to the lack of your ability to track by scent, or hear the landscape via echolocation like a bat. These things are all well established and have been accomplished and documented. There are even cases of individuals who lose half of their brain and manage to retrain themselves to speak, walk, and function in society through the deliberate re-wiring of neural pathways.

All of these things can be accomplished by all of us. In fact, we can increase operational intelligence by simply applying an understanding of this simple two-part mechanism. Part one is awareness. Awareness is what allows the Tiger Shark to locate its next meal, and the sea-lion to escape safely to shore. It is what made you understand the word “hot”, and allows you to know what it means to be lost. Notice how awareness cannot be learned through reading about it in a text. It involves multi-sensory input and an emotional investment. Detrimental to this process is the voice that reads to us or expresses our thoughts as words inside our heads. Processing language, whether it is spoken or not, takes time, and removes the person caught up in the practice of such “internal dialogue” from the moment. Sensory input often elicits emotion, and it does so at an alarmingly fast pace. It is much faster than stringing words together inside your head. Because it is unfiltered, the information gathered to create heightened senses of awareness come in faster and in larger quantities than the logical mind can qualify. Thus we get “intuition”, or “gut feelings” about something. Learning how to first recognize this form of communication as valid, than questing to develop it even further is the first step in increasing you awareness.

But this is only half the survival picture. Actually, I’m lying. There is a third component that needs to be present to manifest this first part of the process and the second. The   second half f the two-part equation for the survival of life on this planet is action. We have become as a culture dependent to the point of inaction. The “victims” of hurricane Katrina waited for their government to save them and blamed the government when they didn’t respond. Our predictable and safe environment means we don’t have to be aware and that we can assign blame to others for our food being late, our health being poor, our lives being miserable. Missing is first the awareness that our environment is not healthy, and second, the action to do something about it. Do you know how to train fleas for a flea circus? You out them in a glass jar and hold that jar next to a light bulb. The smart fleas move away from the heat source, the dumb ones die. The even dumber ones believe you actually use real fleas in a flea circus. The awareness level is not enough. Folks really did dance and play music as the Titanic sank. People really do deny the impending storm until it’s too late. Inaction is a symptom of a broken two part system. Either the being is not aware enough to respond, or the organism in question is simply unresponsive to the situation. Both symptoms are indicators of lack of survival awareness, but only one is a symptom indicating lack of empowerment, and that is lack of action in the presence of appropriate awareness levels.

This brings us to the third and missing element. Faith. faith in self, the greater good, the idea of life as sacred, god, the magic jelly bean, whatever it is, faith is the one default mechanism that activates awareness and compels one to action, even in the face of the logical minds tenacity to remain in control. When you can step outside of that prison of flesh and logic and view your whole being as who you are beyond just a brain that dangles a meaty utility of limbs beneath it you quickly note there is so much more. We are, beyond even the confines of our mind-body connection, constantly interfacing and dialogue-ing with the environment we choose to immerse ourselves in and those things we choose to focus on in that environment.

To close, I must assure you that this is a simple process. It is not an easy one. Profound shifts in your reality take effort, and sometimes they take time. Profound simplicity escapes those whose brains have patterened upon complexity. They grow bored, frustrated, even angry that they can’t satiate themselves with arguement, equations, or self engrandizing thoughts. Remember that it is your brain, not the other way around. Lose your mind and come to your senses. Become the hero of your own story and not the victem of somebody elses. Expand your survival awareness and have enough conviction to act based on what your awareness is communicating to you.