Individual Development:
This is a little reminder that our consciousness and awareness can support our individuation, our individual development. Your consciousness and awareness affect the world, your world, but they affect you much more.
Your language is a important part of your development. You do a lot of your thinking with your language. Your words may be the most important part of your language and thinking. The words you use probably have more meaning than you suppose.
We are each a connected part of our universe a child of our culture, even when you are 85 years old. You are a part of it all. You may have begun to have some realization in your early home that you are part of our surroundings. You have become and are becoming more aware that you are effected by your surroundings and that you affect them. You probably have begun to understand that much depends on your developing interpretation of your experience. You are likely to also be aware how you affect your environment and how it affects you.
One can say that we are all in our surrounding environment and of it.
In traveling abroad, I have occasionally lost my awareness that I am part of where I am. I did not want to accept the reality that I was part of it. It was alien to me. Not great feelings. When I calmed my rejection and opened my awareness I did not immediately feel better. I did find that it did give me a better chance to learn from my experience of my present environment and surroundings and then to feel better.
Reality:
The nature of reality is not always easy to get a hold of. However, when we refuse to accept reality we lose. We lose some power at that time. There is that which we can do about that. We can better observe happenings and doings. We can come to see the doings of life more completely and clearly. We can see that a great many of those doings are our doing. And, we probably see that important happenings around us are the result of our doings.
I story comes to my mind that is said to have taken place in ancient India. It can bring to me some simple and powerful clarity. In the story there are a half dozen Indians, a helpful guide, and an elephant. The group of Indians are all blind. The modest helpful guide hopes to guide the group to a helpful learning experience. The elephant is wise and patient. The action begins when the guide leads the group up close to the elephant. They may be blind, they are also valiant. One came to an elephant leg and embraced it. Another began to embrace the elephant trunk and got embrace a bit himself. Still another and took a hold the tail and wondered that the elephant was much like a rope. This continued until all in the group had their experience.
They arrived home pleased after their interesting experience. They began to speak of that experience as the guide listened. The one who had embraced the leg was saying that to him an elephant was much like a tree. The one who had experienced the trunk was surprised that his friend had found the elephant to be much like a tree. He surprised everyone when he said that he had found the elephant much like a large and friendly snake. The one who had taken hold of the tail felt disappointed that he had experienced the elephant as a bit of rope. The Indians argued a little and were amazed by their different experiences of the elephant. They may have been as wise as the elephant and decided that the had much to learn and would like to visit the elephant again,
First impressions can be very strong, but can also be misleading. Strong does not mean realistic. If the indians had ridden the elephant together their impressions and conversation would, I suspect, have been very different. I believe that the Indians did come to ride the elephant anr to learn a great deal more.
When I was very young I had an experience that continues to be helpful to me. For one thing it helped me to appreciate the value of considered awareness and that an experience that was not thought over may not be the most valuable experience. I was diverted by looking through a knothole in a wooden fence. I held one eye or the other very close to the not very large hole. I looked to see what I could spy. At first, that was not much. But I soon found that with movement of my eye and my head I could provide myself with a broad sweep of the world. I could see field, fence, tree, dog, sky, and a great deal more.I was intrigued. I moved my eyes and turned my head and watched great changes in view. A small move on my part greatly expanded my view. I had a distant view and a very wide changing one. Sometimes an object which I was viewing disappeared. My movement caused one object to move so as to cover the other. At times an object closer to me came to block one more distant. Or a similar movement present me with a view of a whole house I was unable to see before.
By changing my angle of vision or point of view slowly or quickly could better picture reality or even a motion picture when bird, car, dog, or person was moving through my field of vision. So, by moving around my little universe, and getting a variety of perspectives, I could develop an increasingly full understanding of it. I could develop and increasingly realistic vision of how changing and changes worked and how I might effectively work within the process. I was living, observing, and learning. I say in all humility.
So, I can humbly brag, that by using my faculties of perception, synthesis, and interpretation, I could taste my environment and even develop a more refined taste for it. Giving an example may not be bragging.
I would like to learn more about paying more attention to my feelings. That may mean observing better. I want to be more fully aware of how I am feeling and why I am feeling that way,
Our understanding does not seem to be a place of arrival, but rather an ongoing process. Actively co-operating with rhart process is likely be beneficial.
I feel sure that awareness of experience, interpretation, and point of view is an important aid to our development.
Much of what I have written here may be reminders to myself as well as to you.
May you enjoy pleasant and empowering development and thank you for reading.
RCS