Inner Work

For the week of: January 28, 2002

Awareness of State

Our dominant mode of experiencing often gives way to a whole range of inner states of being. In some moments we are inwardly more alert, more alive, more awake, and more connected than in others. Usually we are passive in this, neither choosing nor developing our inner life. Our state simply reflects the condition of our body that day or the circumstances of the moment. But we have the possibility of directly and intentionally changing our state, our mode of experiencing.

Our state fluctuates up and down, but always returns to our predominant norm, our station or level of being. We can most readily differentiate among our states by the energies which characterize them. Our usual autopilot, daydreaming, associative-thinking, emotionally-reacting state operates with the automatic energy. At a step higher, the sensitive energy state puts us in contact with our body and our surroundings, able to respond appropriately. Higher still, the conscious energy frees us from time and from our self-centered egoism. In true consciousness, we operate from that silent, unchanging background of awareness that underlies all experience, in natural joy, equanimity, kindness, and presence. And higher states beyond consciousness also await us.

We need to understand our actual position directly, see our state, and discern where we are in our path. To do so, we may use the map of the levels of energies as a reference to help us recognize the state we are in, the energy that fuels our experience at any given moment. This seeing gives us a realistic appraisal of our current status, opens us to a heartfelt longing for being, and shows us how to pursue the path.

We can only begin from where we actually are in this moment. Since our states fluctuate throughout the day, we can profitably return to this practice of awareness of state frequently. Of course, as in physics, the very act of observation changes our state. Knowing where we are, we can begin to move deeper into the present. The spiritual path offers many methods to raise the level of our inner life.

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