Mindfulness was invented by the Buddha. It is a tool that replaces ignorance with knowledge in your brain. It is an exercise that uncooks your brain. It is actually like taking a boiled egg and making it raw again. Or rather taking a boiled egg and changing it into a fried egg. It looks like an impossible task yet self mastery teachers have used mindfulness since ancient times to do just this. Now even mainstream psychology is using it too. I am proposing taking mindfulness a step further. I am proposing contextual mindfulness. (May be it is already invented). This means combining mindfulness and awareness. Being mindful and aware at the same time. But they already almost mean the same thing. Let me explain why they are two sides to the same coin and we need them both.
Being mindful is emptying your mind of any opinions of what ever you are experiencing, and just observing in silence what ever you are experiencing. And also observing the emotional attachments of these thoughts with your body's physical state like your tenseness in certain parts or some kind of pain. And awareness is your true self looking at your true self in the context of your brain and your mind and being fully aware of being fully aware that your consciousness is looking at your self/self image. Contextual mindfulness is when you put your focus on simply observing your chain of thoughts, that is being mindful while at the same time being aware that your thoughts are a function of your brain/mind level. Thus putting your thoughts in context of whether your thoughts are springing from the brain generated self image or your mind generated self. If your thoughts are -2 quality(ie. you are thinking of hate or wanting to harm someone etc.) you know they are being generated by your -2 brain. Immediately put these feelings in context. These thoughts are not coming from your +2 self. These thoughts are coming from a brain that is stuck at -2 a brain that is an organ of your body just like your hands. Thus you identify your self with the one - the mind - that is doing the observing. Close your eyes and feel/observe the observing mind observing the brain that is generating your phony self image all the time in full awareness. Thus through contextual mindfulness you separate your true self from your self image. You separate your mind from your brain. By focusing your mind on your brain you gradually dissolves the emotional baggage of your brain gradually elevating it to the +2 level.
In contextual mindfulness you put your self image under the microscope of your current actual reality while being aware of the past reality that is still stuck in your brain and is generating the current phony self image. You recreate each and every painful memory as if it is happening now exactly as it happened then. You replay the whole incident emotionally from the view of the child that you were then, feeling the same emotions like pain, suffering fear, humiliation, anger, helpless etc. Feel the negative emotions of your childhood recollecting the giant overpowering image of the brute who harmed you. Do not recollect the adult brute from your current adult mind. Then again picture the brute in his current status - he is probably grown old and feeble by now. Be aware of all these realities at the same time. As your brain replays the buried memories from your unconscious they will surface into and be exposed to your current reality. These memories when exposed to current reality the brain will become free of them and they will stop having an impact on your self image. The self image is powered by your negative memories as the memories dissolve the self image will dissolve and the real you will emerge...
Know your self, all others and how the world works and is; inside out and outside in.
It is not enough to know your self. You must not only know your self from the inside; and you must know your self from the point of view of your loved ones, the point of view of your rivals and above all in the context of how Mother Nature would view you. Similarly you must know all others as they know themselves, understanding their personal reality pattern from their very own angle. This way you know which level of the mind/brain they are coming from. Knowing which level mind you are dealing with will give you a distinctive advantage. For instance you will know not to expect +2 behavior from a -2 mind. Especially in close relationships say you fall in love and marry a +1 mind. Just because a +1 mind is in love with you doesn't mean she will start behaving with you in a +2 manner. You will have to nurture her into a +2 mind very, very gradually. As you gain her trust a stage will come when you can get her to 'dry clean' her brain with her full conscious participation. Finally you ...
Finally you can get her to know everything including her very own self, you and others inside out and outside in.
Of course knowing has to be so well grounded that the brain and mind must be on the same page. In other words knowing must change into understanding. Understanding your own self inside out and outside in will establish you as an expert of how to behave and handle all others as well as above all how to handle your own mind/self; you will become a real expert of how to win friends and influence people, to borrow Norman Vincent Plea's phrase. Possessing such a mind is the first step. The next step is to know the actual reality; how the world is and how it works. Know what you want from life, know why you want this from life, ask whether you want this or does your self image want it. Anticipate whether you possess the means to have this. What will you have to give up to have this. Know all the different routes by which you can achieve this goal. Know if you need any upgrading of your knowledge. Above all understand your goal and examine it inside out and outside in. Then learn the ropes of life and how to achieve this goal.
I call possessing of a fully aware mind that can understand everything inside out and outside in; for minds to know how things are in nature and how things work, living in contextual mindfulness.
Contextual mindfulness is just one more tool like yoga, Tai Chi, practical psychology, even the latest version of EST etc. that can guide you to exercise your brain/mind collective to bring your brain/mind to +2. If you cannot separate your brain and mind then you need a coach and sometimes even professional help.
One of the biggest problems is that for most of us image is everything. We want to show off the best side of our personality. So when we are say nervous or shy. An extra worry is that others will know that we are shy and so we worry over and over that others will see our shyness and will ridicule us. Many times the worry of appearing shy becomes a much bigger problem than the shyness itself. More than the emotional hole itself the fear of being exposed to being in an emotional hole becomes the bigger emotional hole.
The way out of this secondary hole is to put the fear under the microscope of contextual mindfulness. The first step is to realize that others look at your shyness and dismiss it as a social problem for you. But most people don't care one way or the other. They accept you as you are and adjust to your shyness. You give too much importance to them thinking of you as defective. In actual reality 99.99% don't care about your personality one way or the other. They don't even think of it twice. What they do care about is how you treat them. Thus this secondary emotional hole is totally unnecessary.
Always remember that no matter how extrovert or well adjusted a person is his bottom line, as that of everyone else is that he is unconsciously seeking love, warmth and security. Unless your emotional hole threatens his love, warmth or security he will feel comfortable with your emotional holes. Unless your emotional hole makes you violent and he feels threatened in anyway there is no way he will feel one way or the other about your image. On the contrary your shyness and nervousness will put him at ease and even make him feel good about his own level headedness. So observe by putting all these factors about the real issues of your secondary hole in contextual mindfulness.
So wake up to the factors of reality concerning your life in general and your irrational secondary fears of being observed and discovered as emotionally defective.
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Very interesting. I've been considering pretty much what you describe here although you've clarified it for me. I came to your post by googling mindfulness and how to win friends and influence people - I've found myself going in the direction of mindfulness and sensing limitations to it, due to its quite self centred quality, and then going the other way - towards focussing on others - this has the trappings of an endless cycle - then I got to thinking, what if mindfulness was the anchor to practising in ways that meant behaving in ways that are healthy to others - in other words, having the self awareness to know what's going on for me emotionally, cognitively, to inspire my communications with others - I think some choice has to then come in - so rather than being entirely choiceless in my awareness I use the tools and skills set out in books like HTWFAIP to enhance my relationships with others. This can still be done authentically (I think) and having the anchor of mindfulness to ensure I'm authentic when I approach communication with others. I like your point about what others are concerned with - an awareness of the over-riding priority for love, warmth, security, is a good guide - I guess I'd like more idea on how mindfulness can connect me with an awareness of others' need for that - is it spontaneous to be aware of this in mindfulness, or is it something I have to choose repeatedly? Do I sacrifice my own self-awareness when I consider others, and communicate appropriately, or is there some connection between mindfulness and acting in a beneficial way toward others? As you can probably tell this is a major sticking point for me!
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