Is what we teach our children mutually beneficial for other children too? Is our teaching inclusive and useful to all humanity? Is it timeless? If so, these are awareness-intelligent lessons worth to be spread. Such shared insights would come from and support full human potential. Unfortunately, the propagation of obscured views is in vogue. It seems like blind people are leading blind people and nobody realizes the lack of sight. Possible, because “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a king,” as the proverb goes. In any case, many do feel that there is something wrong. All the unnecessary conflicts and aggression are the awareness-blind persons’ desperate canes searching for a way out of disorientation and anticipating hurting clashes. It’s the awareness-blind persons’ own helplessness and frustration that leads them to hatred, self-harming, and violent behavior. Without prescribing a specific cure, it’s always possible to provide everybody in minimum a reference system to aid their orientation to find their cure themselves. If we teach humantime by means of explaining and internalizing the socio-temporal matrix, Awareness Intelligence, and therefore peace will ensue. If you want to re-produce your humanness beyond survival mode, create and enthusiastically inspire others by teaching how to consciously apply systematic thinking to activate the inner eye of awareness that is including the full scope of the socio-temporal system of human life.
[Excerpt from ‘Awareness Intelligence’. See also earlier posts for more context and details]
Often breakthrough findings are the simplest ones. If something can’t be explained easily, it is not well understood. If spirituality is advertised as requiring miraculous super-powers hold by few, it might be spiritual elitism that is not for all of us. An awareness-intelligent understanding of spirituality may be considered prosaic considering its modest level of mysticism involved, and yet it is whole and infinite, full of all the beauty and joy that life has to offer. Spirituality is simple and pure humaneness, it is the ultimate mental playground of human realization. We are all spiritual beings; we just need to be aware of and practicing it.
To organize our thinking about life, mind, and soul is not creating a false god. Neither has a logical arrangement have to deteriorate into a dogmatic belief system. Indeed, what wisdom means for one person may have a completely different meaning and quality for somebody else. What feels right at one time becomes obsolete later on. It’s of limited usefulness to name a spiritual authority or to lay down religious rules and rituals if not for institutional interests. The same is true for so-called consciousness-enhancing substances. However, there is a universal structure of life that we should all be aware of.
THE SOCIO-TEMPORAL MATRIX OF MENTAL WORLDVIEW SCHEMAS
A person’s worldview, i.e., the schema through which the world is experienced, influences one’s well-being. Cloninger’s ‘unity of being’ represents a model of a coherent self-concept that consists of the self, others, and the world as a whole and has an impact on the degree of self-reliance, hope, the ability to cope, compassion, and cooperativeness. In that sense, the socio-temporal matrix as a framework to identify and visualize worldviews can facilitate the exploration of similar possible psychological effects related to a person’s meaning-making and well-being through socio-temporal worldviews.
Figure 1. The socio-temporal matrix of worldview schemas
The novel socio-temporal matrix is derived as described in the following and as visualized by Figure 1. On the x-axis of the model, there are three variables of the temporal dimension. More specifically, this horizontal axis partitions itself, in the order from left to right, into the ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future.’ The vertical y-axis of the matrix contains the three variables of the social dimension. Starting from the intersection with the horizontal axis, which represents time as explained, the first third of the vertical line (y-axis) shall be labeled ‘intra-’ that is short for ‘intra-personal. The next, middle part of the vertical axis becomes ‘inter-,‘which stands for the ‘inter-personal’ scope. The third and uppermost vertical section is the ‘extra-,‘ which signifies ‘extra-personal.’ Similar to a coordinate system, through these two tripartite grid lines, a matrix can be formed (see Figure 1). When using the vertical and horizontal axis’ labels in the same manner as the numerical coordinates of a map, or the letters and numbers of a chessboard, it is possible to identify and navigate the three times three – in total nine – fields of the matrix (see Figure 1).
The nine fields of the matrix will be used to inquire about socio-temporal mental schemas. An individual’s worldview schema is expected to consist of a specific set of matrix fields, depending on whether one’s belief system emphasizes certain socio-temporal mental states over others. For example, one may emphasize other-related extra-past (e.g., socio-cultural upbringing), behave in an inter-present, rather relationship-dominated way, while focusing, however, on a self-oriented intra-future. Such a socio-temporal mental worldview schema might link to specific meanings as, for example, a more independent (i.e., denoted by the intra-past instead of an inter- or extra-past) and other-oriented (i.e., depicted as the extra-future rather than an inter- or intra-future) cognitive socio-temporal worldview preference.
Regarding the above-mentioned social dimension, the intra-personal, inter-personal, and extra-personal factors have been found to influence human perception, experience, and the capacity to manage life areas such as risks. Intra-personal means the thoughts and beliefs related to the individual herself. A definition of inter-personal comes from those thoughts and beliefs, which are related to personal interactions with others. Extra-personal can be defined as a social scope that goes beyond the direct interaction with others. Extra-personal beliefs are related to long-term interests such as social needs that surpass intra- and inter-personal benefits. They can comprise social relationships beyond group memberships, i.e., being a member of the whole human species.
What’s your socio-temporal schema constellation? What combinations of meaningful and often frequented social and temporal aspects within the socio-temporal matrix do emerge and predominate in your mind-wanderings?
You can also discover the adventure of your socio-temporal worldview here:
It is tempting to ask “Which one do I like most?” But actually, I like them all …
We wish to be intelligent to perform tasks such as reading, calculating, solving technical problems, create music, understand nature, be a good employee or entrepreneur, and so forth. These may all be important to fulfill social roles. And, social comparison is a strong happiness factor. People tend to be content if they do well compare to others. Because there are always others who do let us appear compare unfavorably, the choice of a limited circle of easy-to-compare others might be a comforting self-protection strategy. However, such avoiding behavior also prevents from connecting to broader and more diverse walks of life. The measurements of traditional intelligence quotients have only amplified competition unnecessarily. It’s not necessary to compare to others and derive satisfaction from relative high scores in intelligence tests in areas we even don’t feel drawn to naturally as these, in fact, are not of most fundamental relevance to a soul-inspired human life. It is unnecessary to feel judged as a human being by culturally and commercially defined concepts of intelligence. Social comparisons are causing a lot of discrimination, feelings of unworthiness, and related suffering. What makes people really joyful is their capacity for self-determination, which means to be in the driver seat, to function mentally well, and enjoy psychological well-being.
The collective human delusion assumes ‘spacetime’ instead of ‘humantime’ as the fabric of the human psychic universe. Why should space be the component to be studied and mastered as human beings? It’s not the geographical but psychological distance that causes human troubles. I always conclude that the dimensions relevant to humanity are how we relate to our species, life, and how we refer to time. Therefore, our awareness should comprise combining social and temporal dimensions rather than the combination with space. Of course, the achievements of physicalism and technocracy in modern science are fantastic; they brought us, among other things, inventions of the sort of the Internet of things and so forth. However, I think it is time for the internet of human souls, an endeavor that needs a different type of intelligence. Rather than following the tradition of physics and studying the deconstruction and mechanics of the material world, I suggest deciphering the logic of humantime and its effects on psychological well-being, creative performance, and the peace of the collective mind. Humanity would be well advised to invest more in empowering humanness to address known social problems instead of using nationalized budgets for space forces and other armed defenses to fight the unknown material.
“Most conflicts are based on black and white thinking, the fear of devaluation, and the threat to one’s own (cultural) identity. There is one level, though, the global mindset, on which black is also white.”
I often hear that mindset is everything. This common knowledge is used in various contexts and as a ‘tool’ to reach different goals. “If you just put your mind on it, you can get it” became a standard approach in the personal development business. While it’s a good thing to have that knowledge and skill in one’s individual toolbox, I’m also interested in how humanity can achieve a mindset that brings the whole species forward as a whole. From an Awareness Intelligence perspective, my area of research and practice as a psychologist, it is about how to learn to set our minds for increased (if not maximum) true diversity and inclusiveness; something I consider to be crucial if we want to address a more peaceful world. I have written a lot (also in this collaborative) about Awareness intelligence. In terms of the topic of mindset, the concept of ‘global mindset’ possibly comes closest to what I mean.
Mindset: Where’s your attention?
At its heart, mindset is an attention-based approach to performance and for describing a global mindset, therefore, ‘international attention’ – attention to global strategic issues, attention to international beliefs and issues, can be used. How does international attention occur? In accordance with research, for example, traveling to foreign locations or discussing international issues fosters cosmopolitan thinking and behavior. I’ve experienced that during my international work and life as an expatriate in Japan. At the same time, my work as a psychologist and artist involves a high degree of a growth mindset, which might be positively influencing the development of a global mindset. For example, by expanding my horizon, I could fill in some of the blind spots of a fixed psychological map that all too often results in automatic judgment based on cultural understanding. Having a cultural identity makes people’s life easier; many do rely on cultural notions of categories of people to predict others, rather than considering people as individuals, and they favor people they consider to be members of their group. That provides for the human basic need for stability, respectively a sense of safety. in contrast, some people can overcome fear and enjoy more risky, complex, and elaborate thinking, and who are more willing to reexamine initial notions in light of new information. These are the ones who often are attracted to art, theoretical disciplines, and philosophy. But it can take them a long time to decide. Sometimes too long. Or never!
The development of intercultural sensitivity
Intercultural sensitivity is a helpful model for developing a global mindset. Intercultural sensitivity is high when one can adapt to add new behaviors to be more effective in moving in between cultures. In this model from Milton Bennet (1993), the experience of (cultural) difference is moving from more ethnocentric to more ethnorelative stages as follows:
Denial: “I don’t think there’s any other way.”
Defense: “My way is the best.”
Minimization: “What we have in common is more important.”
Adaptation: “I’m adding new behaviors to be more effective in a cross-cultural environment.”
Integration: “I can move in between cultures.”
Personal development towards a global mindset is a hard process because discrepancies between global and situational meaning cause distress. In fact, most conflict is based on the fear of invalidation, the threat of one’s (cultural) identity. A high degree of self-reflection, fearless self-questioning, and openness to commit to giving up privileges and support unity in diversity is required. In short, tremendous effort is required to reduce the distressful discrepancy between situational and global meanings.
Instructions for global information processing
Views that are limited to narrow social boundaries are inhibiting the development of social networks. Such symptoms and communicative isolation in their most extreme forms are characteristics of autism, a distinctly defined illness since the 1940s. The good news is: People lacking more global information processing can be instructed to improve. Humanity is not ill, but it definitively requires instructions on how to develop higher levels of awareness to connect sincerely with others. Interestingly, the availability of more and more global information (i.e., the Internet) did not increase the state of humanity’s global mindset. Instead of teaching how to justify current political structures, which are always local, we should educate on how to become global citizens who care for all.
A shift from cultural competence to Awareness Intelligence
Global citizenship is not a travel lifestyle, it should rather be an attitude of compassion. Multi-relational ability in the sense of Awareness Intelligence is a precondition for cross-cultural competence but goes beyond as it is culture-neutral. Any travel starts within! Cultural competence can be developed by putting one’s feet in another’s shoes. Awareness Intelligence (see also related articles on www.mathias-sager.com), however, is putting one’s consciousness in another’s soul. This will not only enable us to experience some different walks of life but to learn to qualify all of life’s souls. Real and lasting change comes from the level of mental models that enable awareness. Only if the deep-rooted individual mindsets shift towards forming a regenerated collective of deculturized societal structures, human behavioral patterns will start to change accordingly as well. That’s the utopian world of my dreams, the passion in my teachings, the goal of my art, and my deepest belief that it’s still possible; for the benefit of the individual and the common good alike.
One of our uttermost critical faculties in which lies the power to become aware of the nature of lifetimes is attention. To do the mental work of attending, the working memory needs to be able to allocate sufficient capacity. If we are not able to hold attention to picture life as a whole lifespan, how can we situate anything between the coming and going of life conceptually and as applied to ourselves and others? Do we think and act in full temporal awareness, which means to be aware that time is an illusion, or are we just following the row of events, one after the other, without questioning the more prominent arch of a life? Do we just follow cultural customs and social rules of temporal sequences or do we have an own understanding of the right timing of developments in our life along different possible milestones such as the time we go to school, work, marry, and retire? By following everybody else’s planned schedule, there is the peril of missing one’s making of an own plan. The ability to oversee the whole is critical. To do always the seemingly momentary correct thing that is, however, not validated against an integral perspective, risks to end up in unfulfillment and deep regret.
When one’s worldview expands entirely in a grid of paramount awareness, the energy of a unified field begins to radiate In physics, forces are theorized to be transmitted through so-called fields. Others use, besides the term of the ‘unified field,’ also ‘cosmic consciousness,’ in which the ‘in-here’ and ‘out-there’ meet. Awareness Intelligence can be understood as such a field where life-intelligent consciousness and mentalizing are harmoniously unified. Through unifying our thoughts with the nature of a multiverse, a state of all-inclusive and timeless humanness can be achieved, which lets us witness its power through showers of bliss.
POLLUTED DESIRE FOR LIFE (M. Sager, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm)
POLLUTED DESIRE FOR LIFE (M. Sager, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm)
One may find a lot of examples supporting the thesis that things got better, safer, and healthier. However, not being aware of globally increasing wealth inequality, existing heightened levels of hunger, and peaking numbers of refugees in some areas of the world, as well as soaring amounts of prescriptions of antidepressants in many societies, signifies that local perceptions might lack accurate information and understanding. Because what is affordable within reach, is unavailable at another place. What is acceptable for some, is intolerable for others. And what means poverty in this place, passes for luxury elsewhere. While escaping environmental pollution here, more pollution happens there. The growing world population and economy continue to exploit the planet’s resources faster than these can be renewed. Nature gets intoxicated with garbage whose decomposition takes centuries and irreparably contaminates with spurious poison the earthly and universal flow of energy for the generations to come. In developed countries we see today the first generations who are facing decreasing life durations. The life expectancy of a fifty-year-old in a low-income country, which represents the majority of the world population, remained the same as it was thirty years ago. In the last forty-five years, suicide rates have increased by sixty percent worldwide, which indicates a desperate mental climate even in countries of relative wealth. The desire to die usually comes from unfulfilled desires for life. Also most individuals who seem tired of life would decide to live if the necessary psychological support factors such as meaningfulness, purposefulness, and spiritual growth through awareness-intelligent living would seem achievable. All these can be achieved if egoistic group thinking is replaced with the ability to include all and everyone in one’s worldview. We need worldview and human identity that goes beyond the here and now, one that is socio-temporally inclusive of the extra-personal future and, as a result, is intelligently aware.
Excerpt from Awareness intelligence (M. Sager, 2018)
As you know from my blog posts, I combine psycho-philosophical discussions with painted metaphors. The combination of words and images is an opportunity to engage the mind and the soul at the same time. Both intellect and intuition add to the process of holistic (self-)reflection.
I live the teachings I write about as much as I can. I use the conclusions from my research and creative processes to guide me in my quest to become a fitter, kinder, and wiser person. Having a mantra to aid in keeping the focus right is a well-established method in personal development. Our surroundings trigger and remind us constantly and, therefore, influence us very much. In that sense, our clothes are the most proximate environment. I made the experience, that wearing expressive shirts helps to keep me accountable towards myself and increases the commitment towards the outside. I also experienced many interesting connections with others thanks to the food of thought and emotions that are radiated by the shirts.
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Humans like stability to feel safe, and they seek preservation of their identity, whether it be good or bad. In the short-term, though, people often also do not like repetition as it leads them to boredom. In a time paced rapidly by ever shorter business cycles, everything tends to become judged as boring by the declining attention span of the consumer mind. In contrast, as to the creating mind, education and professional practice training are considered successful if one has learned to tolerate the monotonous tasks of the streamlined information and production processes as input to the modern economic societies. That’s how many forgot the excitement of rhythm and surprising improvisations of a freely lived life.
Like evenly-timed rhythms such as four-quarter times are often interpreted through triple step dances (for example, two quick steps and one slow step), it is the shift from the balance of even patterns to the harmony of three that introduces a higher level of human experience. Having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern. To overcome the avoidance of change caused by the monotonous evenness of commercial mainstream and its resulting addiction to stability, we are well-advised to hear the rhythm of the dance of life in all three the past, the present, and the future.
Therefore, the three steps of the dance of life can be seen as follows:
• Step 1: SYNCHRONIZING THE RHYTHM – Guidance by the past of universal unity
• Step 2: INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF THE RHYTHM – Attendance to the present without fear
• Step 3: SUSTAINING THE RHYTHM – Abundance through service to the future of all
Step 1: SYNCHRONIZATION OF THE RHYTHM –Guided by the past of universal unity
Most people are not able to not have to belong, respectively are not able to belong to everybody, so they will belong to certain/specific groups. Group thinking often inhibits critical thinking. However, experiences of togetherness also reveal the motives for unity that involve rhythmic, synchronous movements like marching and dancing. To march or dance together to the same rhythm creates intense feelings of unity and fosters a willingness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s mates. Again, this bears risks and opportunities: Applied to an exclusive group, this is the essence of the birth of radical ideologies and religions; However, when extended to all of humanity, true spirituality opens up.
Step 2: INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF THE RHYTHM – Attending to the present without fear
The ego always fears to lose, why others are seen as threats. This attention to the fear of loss eventually is missing for the attendance of inspiration and love. Because of the fear of losing one’s identity, change becomes the ultimate threat. However, on the dance floor of life, many people dance, and the music will change all the time. So, we should not get angry and fearful when the rhythm is changing again. However, we also shouldn’t necessarily let the music played by others let us dictate our pace. It’s best to choose the music that reflects our natural rhythm so that we can pace ourselves in our journeys of personal development. It’s exciting to meet new people. Meeting strangers creates high levels of synchronized rhythmic activities in the brain. Therefore, let’s enjoy social arousal from novel encounters; the more exciting and less frightening they are perceived, the higher is the frequency of the neuronal dance in your brain.
Step 3: SUSTAINING THE RHYTHM – Abundance through service to the future of all
The commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm, without greed, without unnecessary selfishness, helps to avoid depressive thoughts of loss, burnout, despair, and getting stiff in the ability to dance smoothly. If we change the rhythm from an attitude of “getting what’s in for us” to one which services the others, it’s possible to create a different cadence in life, a rhythm of an all-new quality. We think our life with birth and death is different than anything else as we consider it not to follow a recurring rhythm. That’s why we mistakenly don’t dance through life. On the other hand, we run as straight and fast as possible in one direction, completely denying the possibility that there is no other place than the here and now to go. Shouldn’t we joyfully embrace life as an endless and abundant dance of collective consciousness to which we can contribute as an equal part (not as less nor as more)?
In that sense, let’s overcome avoidance and become guided and attentive dancers for abundance. To live from unity, in love, and for service to all is the ability to synchronize the rhythm and dance the dance of life. This was, once again, another analogy for describing the socio-temporal rhythmic system of the universe on which Awareness Intelligence (see www.mathias-sager.com) is based.
In English, there is a differentiation between consciousness and (self-)awareness. Consciousness commonly means the ability to perceive one’s body and environment. Awareness, on the other hand, is the recognition of that consciousness, which includes the understanding of one’s ability to self-reflect on one’s existence.
Thinking, thinking about thinking (self-reflection), emotions caused by thinking, and the control of emotions through self-reflection
THE ANALOGY OF THE FIRE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness is the source of our soul’s fire, and awareness is its fuel. Firing energy as the fundamental element of consciousness is the nature of life itself; it exists everywhere and in all of us. It just has to be inflamed. The body does not produce consciousness. Awareness, however, is bound to our existence here on earth. Awareness-generated thoughts are the heat and light of the soulfire’s flames.
Flames of poisonous thoughts come from the impure fuel of ignorance. We cannot stop the inflammatory nature of our consciousness, nor is it desirable. What matters, however, is what fuel is burned, whether it is intelligent reflective consciousness or not; Perceptual awareness alone, however highly praised meditation, is not intelligent, but reactive and detached from the whole.
The quality of thinking is determined by the level of reflective awareness from which it arises. Thus, our thoughts and the resulting feelings are in our control. Through the right self-reflection and appropriate conclusions, the perceptual consciousness and corresponding thoughts can be kept pure as meant by nature itself. In this sense, consciousness directly affects our cognitive abilities and, whenever we think, our state of mind, as well as the emotions that follow the quality of thinking. We can also think of emotions as the smoke created by the flames of poisonous thoughts. Impure thoughts generate uncomfortable emotions, such as dark smoke produced by heavy fuel with, for example, a high degree of moisture, while positive and bright emotions arise from thoughts of awareness-intelligent purity and composition.
Our thinking does not have to be emotionally controlled and potentially confusing, as the flames of thought are not defined by the smoke of emotions, but are generated by a holistic, healthy, and sacred reflective awareness, which emulates universal intelligence and therefore can be called Awareness Intelligence.
Single-mindedness is praised and rewarded everywhere in science as well as in business and private matters. If integrating more aspects of life into one’s lifestyle, one is considered unfocused and not knowing what he/she wants. People typically educate and develop in clearly predefined, straight career paths, and socially common and therefore accepted ways in which people all too often assume a tunnel view on life so they can be put into one-themed, clearly labeled boxes.
The Last Universalist
As French Henri Poincare described so well “Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” In the context of understanding life and its signification for human existence overall, some dots undoubtedly remain unconnected. Henri Poincare who died in 1912, is considered the ‘The Last Universalist’ in mathematics since he mastered all the disciplines at once. If today’s specialized scientific fields work in silos and are hindering inter-disciplinary cooperation, it might indeed be the case that a lot of knowledge is not brought into a more meaningful context and does not result into a house of wisdom that benefits and protects all humanity in a broader sense.
Missing systematic management of the mind
Project and productivity management skills to organize business processes are taught everywhere and on all levels of the education system. Surprisingly, the same diligence is not applied to the mental world. How can we think about our thinking and improve it for our own and others’ well-being? How can we critically check our awareness to make sure we don’t miss any essential aspects? The answers to these questions determine how we care for the world, and yet they are not discussed systematically enough in school. To quote the Buddha, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” I think it is overdue to build wholesome human attitudes, which is to think more and in different ways about how we develop and use awareness.
The benefit of mental triathlons
Awareness Intelligence is like a mental triathlon, or a triptych in art. It is not just one focus of mind, but a threefold set of socio-temporal perspectives that form a person’s worldview (for more on socio-temporal mental schemas see the Awareness Intelligence literature on https://mathias-sager.com/tag/awareness-intelligence/). It is to be hoped that one-sided extremism evolves into inherently diverse lifestyles. We need monks who are not only wise, but fit and socially engaging. We need physically fit intellectuals who care, and intellectual and kind sportspersons. We need leaders who serve on the ground of honest servant leadership style based on what’s healthy for human beings. And, we need real, fair competition that rewards not only the smart, but especially the kind.
Horizontal integration for more relevance
For a more harmonious and wholesome lifestyle it is to hope that personality is understood to not only develop vertically (i.e., into a specialization in one field), but horizontally (i.e., integrating multiple fields) to become aware of broader contexts, interdependencies, and connections across everything and all that is relevant.
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It’s not our circumstances that determine our lives; it’s our circumthoughts.
MATHIAS SAGER – PSYCHOLOGY
The ability to be aware and adjust the social and temporal scope in one’s thinking allows more effective approaches towards worries, remaining adaptive, and a sense of meaningful satisfaction.
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Science and wisdom put into practice. Based on the Socio-Temporal Mental Schema Analysis (STMSA). Powered by Awareness Intelligence ™
The Socio-Temporal Mental Schema Analysis (STMSA) and its awareness intelligence properties
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To become a real leader is founded on mastering self-leadership and on being at peace with oneself and the world. For being able to serve as a role model, one has to be ready to give up his or her title and position. Too dissonant can a professional identity become with the aware self.
How could one ever enjoy people who admire rather their title-based authority and social status rather than knowing about their creativity, vulnerability, and loving character in the first place?
As a life begins to readjust to a broader perception of life, jobs for the mere purpose of earning a lot of money might make the place for work with meaning at any price. One’s public and private identities begin to converge, and a deep sense of joy of living a life of awareness always reminds of the possibility to reconcile even the most difficult situations with awareness-intelligent spirituality. One might soon find his or her true passion written not only on a private note but soon also on the publicly shown service card. Social and private identifications merge, and so might roles in different situations.
Not focusing on one specific Awareness Intelligence mode only but integrating the intra-past with the inter-present and the extra-future helps to not go astray in any extreme and unhealthy direction but to reap all the benefits of living a life aware of the threefold nature of life.
Just because you are, in case, diligently and loyally working for somebody else’s dream doesn’t mean that you are right-focused fulfilling your own human potential.
First and most it is your task to be yourself.
Intend what is your source’s intuition and become who you imagine being remembered for.
How do you contribute to the collective human consciousness?
Does it add life-supporting meaning, unconditional love, and timeless kindness?
The quest for pleasure and happiness has driven us into a lot of emptiness, addictions, and violence. However, the post-shallow-happiness era is all about meaning. What do we get from it? Joy. The fear of not getting enough leads to unhealthy opulence. The over-desire to be safe and comfortable leads people into risks and symptoms of dissatisfaction like, for example, obesity and depression. It’s worth to examine one’s desires awareness-intelligently. Some people seem to manage their exaggerated desires well. But often they have just replaced one unhealthy obsession with another, stronger one. This might lead to some application of one or two Awareness Intelligence modes, but not of all the three. That’s why often the deepest motivation of athletes can stem from anger, the motivation of politicians from greed for power, and the one of religious teachers from the desire to withdraw from inter-personalities. These awareness-unintelligent motivators often claim a high price; the more dominant their position, the more they block the soul’s longing for expanding into a harmonious application of all three tenets of Awareness Intelligence.
Anger, like many other negative emotions, is a reminder of limitations in a larger perception of life. It can be only replaced and kept away with certainty with a quality of mind that is unconditional love, timeless kindness, and purposeful service at the same time.
Desires don’t have to be something bad. Life itself is the soul’s aspiration to expand and to become aware. The crucial differentiation is between extrinsic and intrinsic desires. Extrinsic desires do seek pleasure from material and outwardly supplied motivators, while intrinsic desire is the realization of the inspiration from within. Intrinsic and extrinsic desires are both legitimate to a certain extent; one puts the priority on the sensing of the culturally understood world of form, while the other focuses the real, conscious universe of socio-temporal awareness.
When getting tired in the hedonic treadmill of life understood as depending on pleasing sensual pleasures and relieving bodily tensions, it is helpful to remember that real joy lies in virtue-seeking and virtue-realization.
Joy feels so superior to pleasure because it comes from meaning. Conscious life itself is the meaning. So, whenever our thinking and activities are congruent with the holy, whole, and wholesome nature of life, a sense of meaning arises. Pain, which is not to confuse with suffering, is often closely implicated with the experience of joy as well. For example, without patient waiting, there is no joyful arriving; without childbirth pain, there can be no joy of birth; without dying during a lifetime, there can be no personal growth.
Pain indeed is unavoidable, but it always comes with joy. Suffering, on the other hand, is the result of awareness-unintelligent conduct, such as attributing one’s destiny to the conditions of the outer, uncontrollable world instead of creating the world one wants to realize from the inside.
Joy ultimately comes from the trialogue of your awareness with your true self, your unconditional relationships, and the selfless contributions that connect you to humanity.
Fearful attachments to fleeting pleasures cause more fear, greed, hoarding, protective, and aggressive reactions. These are the reasons for our suffering. Fear incapacitates love, the love for ourselves, for our relationships, and for any fellow human being. The socio-temporal matrix of the intra-past, inter-present, and extra-future (see earlier chapters) helps you to remember what you really want and what brings you infinite and immeasurable joy in place of mere glimpses of pleasure that will never sustain any real sense of feeling safe, satisfied, and connected.
Problems from unharmonious awareness occur when the universal desire for learning is restrained. Critical thinking diminishes when human’s inherent compassion and desire for truth is constrained. Unsatisfied desires are substituted with harmful pleasures, which can be found all too easily. Not everything that momentarily feels good is good. Be it through sugar-laden food, tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, or other promises of consumable salvation; resourceful enterprises invest all they can in turning us into dependable customers. The streets are full of advertisements for that purpose. There is little visible promotion for helping people staying independent and self-sufficient human beings though. Nevertheless, more or less consciously, people feel that they are caught in dependability as their control over their behavior is slipping. Losing control then is compensated with aggression and violence against oneself and others. It is only a return to awareness-intelligent thought that allows self-control to be regained. Spirituality is an indispensable factor in most approaches to cure addictions and other out-of-control behavior. Understanding the use of Awareness Intelligence in that vein might help to overcome the stigma that still is attached to spirituality. Spirituality, in that sense, is nothing else than respecting all life’s nature that is in ourselves and anybody else. Life’s true nature that we all are is free of the self-imprisoning stress of lining up urgent desires and exclusive events instead of a timeless and inclusive state of being of importance.
Don’t fight your negative habits. Don’t fight symptoms. Hopelessness raises the value of chemical aids. Therefore, it’s hopelessness itself that needs to be addressed in the first place.
Hope comes from within, from your intra-past. Don’t rely on external approval and support for becoming who you really are and want to be. Use your Awareness Intelligence to freeing yourself from others’ opinions and potentially wrong beliefs about yourself that may hold you down. You are not dependent on single substances, behaviors, or even persons. Doctor’s don’t heal you, healing occurs within yourself. It’s life itself with all its rich variations, diverse types, and different ways that expect you to know and express what you really want. If life can create new bodies and souls, why shouldn’t it be able to heal the same?
You will find everything you need in life if you serve it by helping all humanity that comes and goes. Real healing may require you to quit some situations, be it jobs or relationships, anything that is unsupportive of your journey in line with holy thinking.
The assertive expression of your legitimate desires and quitting temporal states, spaces, and dependencies that are awareness-unintelligent is unavoidable to remove what is inhibiting the wholesome life in humantime that is available to you too.
Awareness Intelligence is a specific constellation of ‘awareness about awareness’ and represents the decoding of the socio-temporal structure of the human psyche. The tripartite lawfulness of the socio-temporal matrix of Awareness Intelligence provides for a mental reference system that empowers for spiritual exploration and practical application of meaning, enthusiasm and well-being, and bigger positive impacts for all.
It can be argued that there are three basic human needs. First is safety. You were safest before birth. In your mother’s womb, you were still well protected. Then the rough, dark, and cold world appeared. On the other hand, also sunshine on your skin, light in your eyes, and later the awareness that consciousness, the spirit of your soul is still and will always be with you. You need to re-connect to your intra-past, your safe source that is always yours.
The second of the three basic human needs is satisfaction. If you look at what you do from a non-judgmental viewpoint that is free of other’s past-based opinion and future pressures, then fearless creation, experimentation, and joyful learning become possible. The same is true for relationships. If you meet others in the here and now without transactional distractions and ulterior motives, if your soul’s need to meet other souls in the inter-presence is met, deep satisfaction ensues.
And third, the need for connection can be met through connecting to all humankind in the extra-future. Billions of others have gone through human life before, and many more will follow in the perpetual renewal and passing of the precarious expression of life. The end of one life is, at the same time, the start of another one. Just within yourself, you can achieve an awaring of how your ‘coming-from’ and ‘going-to’ meet in humantime, which connects you to infinite time and humanity as a whole.
Some people feel alone even among people. And there are people who never feel alone, even when solitary. What is needed is a shift from separateness to wholeness.
It is not our corps connecting the soul to life; it is our soul connecting the body to life. Enjoy your vision, but trust your inner eye. There is no need to physically bind others as there is a deeper connection to whole humanity anyway.
Psychological issues, and by that ultimately any human-related problems, come either from neurosis or character weaknesses. Both are a matter of lack of responsibility and typically lead to symptoms of individual and collective stress. If a society and its members decide to see the world as threatening, hostile, and transactional instead of being determined by love, and if the path to happiness as the highest goal is considered to be depending on what kind of or how much stuff one can accumulate, it is not surprising that this leads to fear of loss, obsessions, and depression. There lie serious responsibility issues in excusing diminished awareness, which lead to selfish, greedy, and passive behavior. Character flaws tend to be excused at all or as illnesses. It appears that it is cheaper for a society to pay for standard treatments, which bring temporary relief of symptoms rather than to invest in the long-term healing of people as whole-human beings. From a financial and law and order perspective, it is more efficient and effective to fight the most extreme symptoms of exclusion, for example, by paying some public assistance and to exploit only to the point that there remains a broad enough middle class that helps defending the privileges of the upper class than to risk a revolution from below. People need to be kept happy enough in their misery that they are still helping to defend the oppressors’ authority. That’s how it came that everybody’s issue and suffering has become nobody’s focus of awareness.
Several psychological mechanisms are explaining how people are brought to justify existing social systems that do even disadvantage them. Social justification theory is about the promotion of ideologies, which underline the belief in the inferiority of underprivileged groups. So, it is a myth that Western societies are based on equality of opportunity. The economic success of most people also depends on the level of resources allocated to them, for example at the workplace or by parents who could afford better education and the necessary capital for entrepreneurial ventures. However, many people today believe in the story of meritocracy and attribute economic inequality to their own inferiority. Such unaware system justification is further blocking critical thinking and can also manifest in system-reinforcing victim blaming and stereotyping.
The saying “It’s all about the perspective” should not become a justification and excuse for any social exclusion or harm to anybody, regardless of how far away and seemingly unrelated.
It is more sensible to assume a multi-perspective awareness that is all-inclusive rather than defending group interests.
People who are not able to coordinate complex multi-limb movements with their body are called disabled and are not allowed to do certain things like, for example, driving a car as it would be too dangerous for others. But people who are unable to coordinate complex multi-perspective situations in their minds are allowed to run organizations and countries.
In contrast to a leg-focused person who forgets about the arm-movement and therefore is realistically considered a risk for driving a vehicle, a single-minded career of exclusively fighting for one particular group’s interest is likely to be admired for its dedication. Standing up for one group to succeed over others from a humanitarian point of view, however, is like prioritizing eating over drinking. The organism of humankind is doomed to die.
It’s time to assume responsibility for one’s scope of awareness. Humanity needs a shift from physical protection to a right intention. A society guided by Awareness Intelligence does not build on barriers, walls, and defense mechanisms anymore because nobody needs to be protected against Awareness Intelligence that can’t but take care of everybody’s needs. Such is the beautiful nature of responsibility of humantime. What else could be more worth to realize?! I, for my part, rather want to have tried.
Highest qualities of the mind do not know fear from failure as only failure to learn falls short of them.
Everybody can develop Awareness Intelligence. Once tasted, the knowing about one’s self-efficacy irrespective of society’s non-responsiveness or punitiveness, is too good to be given up again. Everybody can get the control over one’s access to life source, to meet other people lovingly in the current moment, and to serve the communal good and next generations to come. Even if you are discouraged and rather hopeless about what you can do about your future, you always can start with impacting others’ today and tomorrow, which, in return, will reveal your future to you as well. Your impact is of the full scope of humankind.
Recognize how important you are. Every dream for a better world, every creative act, and even a seemingly naive idea can inspire and provide the courage to break out of the cage of limited knowing.
Think, paint, play music, dance, write, and think again. It’s not commercial products that touch people’s heart most profoundly. It’s what you can do in your mind. It’s not compliance, but boldness that nurtures your, others, and all humankind’s Awareness Intelligence. Every feed into the expansion of knowing is fuel for more awareness-intelligent thought and more wholesome behavior. Life might be right, and an awarian land of awareness not too far away to be already part of now.
