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Yesterday I received an email from a visitor of InnerOuterPeace who asked me the following:
What is the way to communicate with people and not to forget yourself? To be in neutral position without losing in the situation; to maintain awareness, notwithstanding that our attention must be on our partner? When you’re alone and in silence it’s understandable, but when our daily lives consist of continuous communication, how to deal with it? I work with people and their problems and no matter how hard I try, I cannot stay in awareness.
My answer to you is in one comparison, given by Mooji (one of the foremost contemporary Advaita teachers) during one of his Satsang (spiritual seminar) where a participant asks the same question. The comparison contains a completely exhaustive answer to the question.
Who is Mooji?
Mooji is from Jamaica and his childhood memories are characterized with extremely difficult and strenuous banana picking. The fruits are cut from the trees with a special knife which on the hand of the worker, as well as the knife flows as thick as tar, black, sticky juice.
Within minutes, the knife and hands are stick with asphalt like glue, which isn’t washed with anything except that further picking and cutting becomes an impossible task for the worker.
To be able to work, the banana pickers in advance smear the blades of the knives and their hands with coconut oil. The sticky banana juice thus flows freely on the greasy hands and tools without damaging them badly.
Communication with unaware people, who are in the personality, is similar to dry hands, trying to cut bananas with a knife. The black, tarry juice firmly and permanently glue on the hands, tools, clothes and it’s hard to be washed.
The energy generated in the process of “ego communication” is similar to the heavy, thick, sticky banana juice – once it’s clings, it cannot go away with nothing; fixes on us permanently and makes it increasingly difficult, unpleasant and ineffective the subsequent activity.
As much as we try to be “conscious”, the ego of those we communicate with easily inundates us with “banana juice” and we become permanently sticky, i.e. seeped with ego-tar.
How to maintain awareness?
Therefore, the question “How to maintain awareness, while communicating with people?” comes down to – what “coconut oil” to use, so when the “banana ego-tar” trickles on us without affecting and sticking our hands (consciousness).
The “coconut oil” which Mooji recommends is only one and it’s the Presence of our True Self – his unwavering, permanent and live Awareness.
Here’s a paradox – the reader asks how to keep Awareness, when he’s involved in the non-aware ego – “banana tar” of others, and we advise him to seep himself with Awareness in advance, playing the role of “coconut oil”.
The paradox is apparent. Entering the state of awareness obviously is a gradual process, i.e. the hands and knife gradually become “greasy and beyond the reach of the tar”. The more often we’re in Awareness, the more “coconut oil” pervades us; the more difficult becomes the sticking of tar on us.
Touching Spiritual Presence is a real experience and Awareness of our True Nature. Once we touch to the specific, special and unique, at the same time perfectly natural Peace, Bliss, Silence, Space, typical of our True Self, we won’t stay the same.
Even if you step back, to “lose interest” of Awareness, we’re invisibly and permanently marked and blessed. In us is planted the seed of Purity, Freedom, Truth, which come from the Perfection, unknown to the world of duality and ego.
We’re not those who we’ve been and transformation invisibly deepens. The “coconut oil” more deeply penetrates into our being by invisibly but profound, safe and irrevocable way.
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Niceties
It should be noted and the following niceties.
The ego can only see egos; it’s not able to see or recognize Truth. This sense of alien ego activity belongs to our own ego. After “getting involved” in others unawareness, after we’re prone to others mental activity and are vulnerable to someone to “press our buttons”, it clearly shows that we ourselves are still mostly unaware.
True Nature of people can be recognized only by the Real in us. Truth sees Truth, personality sees personality. Since you see the personality of those you communicate with, you’re in your personality.
People are mirrors of our own state, the level of consciousness in which we are. If in your life there are stressful people, bad relationships, distress, conflict, this means others are a mirror, reflecting your own inner pain and conflict.
When a man transforms the personal level, the inner pain, the ego in the Spiritual Presence, when he becomes Aware permanently of his True Nature, the conflicts with others, involvement in dramas and pains disappear.
“You will know them by their fruits” means that the experiences on an external level will show us the actual inner state of others.
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Who is aware of you being unaware?
A person who asks how to stay in Awareness is not unaware and not involved as deeply as it seems. The very fact that you notice you’re getting involved means that you observe yourself, that you’re conscious to some degree. Something in you clearly sees that at times you’re unaware.
What is this thing?
Feel the One, who Contemplates life through you. What’s Aware and Sees that at times you’re not Yourself is your Awareness, your True Nature.
To answer the question of how to remain Aware, while contacting unaware, we need to exactly see who asks, who wants to stay in Awareness. If the personality wants some versions of well-being, they simply won’t happen; the personality is not capable of harmonious experience.
The personality doesn’t know what is Awareness, it doesn’t have the senses for it and isn’t able to live and achieve it.
If there’s a question, activity, then they come from the personality. This automatically means that neither the questions nor answers have any value. Actually there is no problem. The question of how to be Aware cannot come from our True Self, for the simple reason that Truth never asks, has no needs, no problems with anything.
Truth doesn’t even know what Awareness is because being Truth cannot understand the opposite – unawareness. We say this to point out the fact that no experience, issue, problem, etc. have no depth, no value.
There is no need of solutions, activities and doing also. The only thing that is essential is to be Present in the Peace of Truth and not to care about the things that rustle the world.
Awareness as our True Self rises in us only when we manage to let go of the unreal, personal and mental.
Papaji, another prominent Advaita teacher says simply and clearly:
“Be at Peace. Effortlessly.”
That is his whole teaching. Attend at Peace, which is the flavor of your True Self.
The path to this inner state is discussed in details in previous publications on InnerOuterPeace.
Nothing more can be done and no need to. Trust Mercy, which operates on you, revealing you the world of your True Self, your Spiritual Presence. Don’t worry about being engaged in others unawareness, that is your indicator how much you’re transformed.
If you have a tiny zeal to be in the Purity and Perfection of Truth, in a natural way you will be gradually perfused by that “coconut oil”, which will make it impossible the contamination of the tar of the mental world.
Gradually, in a natural, spontaneous and intuitive way, you will “learn” to feel Peace, your True Nature, Purity of the man you’re talking with, which mental sheath is now restless, unhappy, conflict, tense, etc.
If you perceive Truth in the person who you talk to, a “miracle” suddenly happens – he intuitively enters Awareness without even knowing it. He just starts to behave calmly and balanced while around you. Then you won’t have to be involved.
Do nothing. Only the personality imagination thinks it makes things.
Trust Mercy.
“Be at Peace. Effortlessly.”
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