The Art of Living Consciously

1. Consciousness Requires Respect for Reality and Truth

Living consciously has its roots in respect for reality-a respect for facts and truth.

Foundation of consciousness. Living consciously begins with a fundamental respect for reality, facts, and truth. This orientation isn't innate but learned, often challenged by irrational adult behaviors during childhood. Children need a rational environment where facts are facts, questions are valued, and contradictions are minimized.

Impact of irrationality. Witnessing hypocrisy, denial, or conflicting messages can undermine a child's will to understand and trust their own perceptions. A rational universe, where truth is respected, fosters cognitive maturity and a sense of safety.

Sense of reality. Developing a "sense of reality" involves understanding that things are what they are (A is A), and actions have causes. This understanding provides security and allows us to navigate the world with assurance.

2. Living Consciously Requires Both Outer and Inner Awareness

Our inner world, too, is part of reality.

Dual awareness. Living consciously involves both awareness of the external world and self-awareness. It's about understanding our environment, our needs, motives, thoughts, emotions, and bodily feelings.

Balance is key. Neglecting either outer or inner awareness leads to ineffectiveness. Over-focusing on the external can result in alienation from one's own needs and emotions, while excessive self-absorption can blind one to the realities of the external world.

Interconnectedness. What we are blind to in the world often reflects what we are blind to in ourselves. Awareness must flow freely in both directions for effective functioning and a balanced life.

3. Reason is the Primary Tool for Navigating Reality

The quest of reason-this can hardly be stated often enough-is for the noncontradictory integration of experience.

Reason as a faculty. Reason is the faculty that grasps relationships, makes distinctions, and seeks connections. It involves induction, deduction, and relating new knowledge to existing contexts, guided by the law of non-contradiction.

Integration is central. Integration is key to both the life process and the operation of the mind. Reason is the instrument of awareness raised to the conceptual level, allowing us to understand and adapt to reality.

Self-correction. Reason offers the possibility of self-correction through openness to evidence, willingness to correct errors, and continuous learning. It is the opposite of mental rigidity and defensiveness.

4. Choice and Responsibility are Inseparable from Consciousness

The ability to focus our mind or not to, to think or not to, to strive for awareness or not to, to face reality or not to, is our free will.

Volitional consciousness. We have the freedom to focus our minds, think, strive for clarity, and examine facts, or to avoid these actions. This ability to regulate our mental activity is our free will.

Consequences of choice. The choices we make regarding consciousness have real consequences. Choosing to think strengthens our minds and increases control over our lives, while avoiding thought leads to confusion and ineffectiveness.

Responsibility. Living consciously means taking responsibility for generating a level of awareness appropriate to the context. It involves giving our activities the best consciousness we are capable of.

5. Context Determines the Appropriate Level of Consciousness

Context determines what mind-state is appropriate.

Congruence is key. The appropriate mind-state depends on the context, including our goals and purposes. There needs to be congruence between what we are physically doing, what our goal is, and our mind-state.

Selective awareness. Consciousness is necessarily selective. The choice to focus in one direction is, in effect, the choice not to focus in other directions.

Automaticity. We wisely and properly leave much unconscious. It is in the nature of human learning that we automate new knowledge and skills, such as speaking a language or driving an automobile, so that they do not continue to require of us the level of explicit awareness necessary during the learning stage.

6. Avoidance Strategies Diminish Consciousness and Well-being

Psychologically, what is being avoided in all such cases is consciousness. Existentially, what is being avoided is reality.

Motives for avoidance. Common motives for avoiding consciousness include fatigue, laziness, fear, pain, or the desire to indulge inappropriate wishes. These motives can be dangerous and self-destructive.

Strategies of avoidance. Common strategies include giving up the effort to direct awareness, surrendering to emotions, and switching one's mind to irrelevant issues. These tactics serve to hold reality at bay.

Consequences of avoidance. Persistently avoiding consciousness leads to feelings of incompetence, underdeveloped self-esteem, and a disconnect from reality. It undermines our ability to make effective choices and achieve our goals.

7. A Conscious Life Entails Mindfulness in Everyday Actions

If we are present to what we are doing, our consciousness is open to receive.

Being present. Mindfulness involves being present to what we are doing, acting in a mind-state appropriate to being effective, and being alert to incoming information. It means acting in the moment but not trapped in the moment.

Responsibility toward reality. Implicit in living consciously is a policy of living responsibly toward reality. This involves confronting facts, even when they are discomfiting, and acting in accordance with our knowledge.

Intelligence is irrelevant. Living consciously is applicable on any level of intelligence. It means seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals to the best of our ability.

8. Self-Awareness is Key to Personal Growth and Effective Living

Often, a flight from reality is a flight from the reality of our inner state.

Importance of self-awareness. Self-awareness involves understanding our inner world of needs, motives, thoughts, mental states, emotions, and bodily feelings. It is essential for effective functioning and personal growth.

Confronting emotions. Often, a flight from reality is a flight from the reality of our inner state. Learning to manage avoidance impulses and confront difficult emotions is crucial for living consciously.

Self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is the foundation of growth and change. It involves owning and accepting who we are, making peace with our thoughts, emotions, and actions, and opening ourselves to self-examination.

9. Consciousness Strengthens Self-Esteem

We undermine our self-esteem when we persist in our contradictions, because at a deeper level we know what we are doing.

Reciprocal relationship. A reciprocal relationship exists between living consciously and self-esteem. Just as living consciously strengthens self-esteem, so self-esteem inspires living consciously.

Self-esteem defined. Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind.

Undermining self-esteem. We undermine our self-esteem when we persist in our contradictions, because at a deeper level we know what we are doing. Evasion may deceive the conscious mind; it does not deceive the subconscious mind.

10. Living Consciously Embraces This-Worldly Spirituality

When we live consciously, we anchor spirituality in the challenges and opportunities of our uniquely human condition.

This-worldly focus. Our discussion of consciousness is entirely this-worldly, directed at the needs and possibilities of earthly existence. It is about embracing life, not turning our back on it.

Life is growth. In doing so, we are led to embrace the continuing evolution of consciousness itself-because life is growth, motion, expansion, unfolding, a dynamic thrust forever transcending yesterday to reach tomorrow.

Mindfulness. Living consciously entails being in the present without losing the wider context. The context is there as background, and what we are doing is foreground. Then we are in the moment but not trapped in the moment.

11. Mysticism's Claims Lack Rational Grounding

The crime against the child's body was less than the crime against her mind.

Mysticism defined. Mysticism is the claim that there are aspects of existence that can be known by means of a unique cognitive faculty whose judgments are above the authority of sensory observation or reason.

Contradictions. Mysticism often involves embracing contradictions and denying the validity of reason. This undermines the possibility of knowledge and leads to logical incoherence.

Lack of evidence. The claims of mysticism lack empirical support and often rely on subjective experiences that cannot be verified or replicated. It is not a path to knowledge but a path to self-deception.

12. Enlightened Selfishness is Superior to Selflessness

People who are governed by a respect for reality lead lives that work better than those of people who place wishes above reason.

Selflessness defined. In an ethical context, "selflessness" means devoid of, or untainted by, self-interest. It is often upheld as the ideal of morality and spirituality.

Rational self-interest. Rational self-interest involves pursuing one's values, acting on one's judgment, and living with integrity. It is not about sacrificing others to self but about achieving one's goals in a way that is consistent with reality.

Consequences of selflessness. The doctrine of selflessness can lead to self-sacrifice, the suppression of individual needs and desires, and the erosion of personal well-being. It is a dangerous and self-destructive philosophy.

Last updated: March 14, 2025