Reconnection to Consciousness

My own connection to consciousness has varied tremendously over time. I think it’s on an upward trajectory, overall, but it is not at all binary, nor is it always increasing. Some periods have brought steep growth – when I started meditating in 2014, and kept at it with good discipline for the first few years. At other times, I have had downturns –I have found myself profoundly depressed at times, even recently, due to a lack of awareness about some of my core wounds in situations that trigger me emotionally (I will talk about this later in this chapter).

These experiences make me believe that attunement to consciousness is not binary. The answer to “am I attuned” is not “yes” or “no.” Instead, it exists on a spectrum. It’s always a matter of how attuned I am. Less attunement generally gives rise to more automatic, patterned, unconscious behavior. At this extreme, we are effectively robots, programmed by our biology, upbringing and environment. Would you not prefer freedom? Because, if we set intentions with clarity and then fulfill them, every word spoken and every action taken can be considered and deliberate. In other words, we can each be sovereign over ourselves.

What does this mean, to be sovereign over something? It means to rule over it. In this context, I must invoke one of my favorite American poets, Stephen Vincent Benet, in his poem with the cumbersome title, “Complaint Of Body, The Ass, Against His Rider, The Soul” (it is not a short poem, so i jump directly to the punchline): “Your plaint is sound, yet I must rule you still...”²⁰ What Benet is pointing at is the power of one’s conscious will (he attributes this to the soul, or the rider) over one’s programming (the body, or the mule), even under duress. And this authority, this sovereignty, comes from attunement to consciousness, nothing else.

But let me be quite clear: there is no dichotomy. There is no question of having or not having consciousness. You have it, in exactly the same portion as the Dalai Lama or any sage you prefer. The question is how deeply and consistently you attune to it. Attunement to consciousness is trainable, the same way a muscle is. Every step you take towards more attunement gives your experience of life more clarity, more real autonomy, and more peace.

I was raised by immigrant parents, both of whom worked full time and, at different points, went to night school. Despite the obvious, rational understanding I have had for almost my entire conscious life that they were making enormous sacrifices for my brother and me, as a small child, I unconsciously internalized that I must not be a priority for my parents. Why else were they not there when I got home from school, nor when I was feeling upset about having been called a racist slur?

Years later, I was married to my college sweetheart, a brilliant and wonderful woman. But over the course of our marriage, I became increasingly depressed, particularly after the arrival of our son, Solomon. Why? Because I automatically interpreted many acts or decisions of hers as indicating that I was not a priority to her. While this was not the sole reason for the demise of that marriage, it certainly was one of the main causes. And my next serious relationship suffered from this exact same habitual pattern, ultimately contributing to its also coming to an end (which is occurring even as I write this text).

It was not until I started working with a mentor wise enough to help me become aware of this pattern and ask me if this is what I actually wanted for myself, that I have begun to change my patterns. She helped me understand the root causes of these patterns, and to question if I even believe the underlying assumption of my habits. I do not, and never really did. I was operating from the ghosts of beliefs, not from anything real. And my relationship with my parents has markedly improved as a result.

This isn't about me, though. I believe that progressing along this spectrum of awareness may determine whether we destroy, or save, ourselves.

My example shows that, most of the time, our actions are automatic and reactive, with rare opportunities to act with real agency. Modern life, after all, is built for speed, urgency, convenience and disconnection (other than the very most superficial kind, which is a poor substitute for the real thing). We want our groceries delivered within an hour. And how often have you seen a group out to dinner, with every member of the group engrossed in their phone screen? All of these are incentivized behaviors that deepen the cycle of reactivity and automation inside us. Social media gives us dopamine hits that are addictive, but these platforms are mostly trying to influence our behavior – specifically, to buy more stuff from their advertisers. It is as a result of this influence that we depend on Google Maps, even when we know the directions, or why we often make checking our phones the last thing we do before bed, and the first thing we do when we wake up.

But conscious living is the cultivation of agency, through the channel of presence and awareness, which connect us to consciousness. If a coworker is rude to you when you show up in the office, do you react in kind, automatically? Or do you have some control over your own actions and response? With practice, you can replace habits with conscious choice, more and more of the time.

For the next several chapters, we will go through what I think is a reasonable model of the evolution of attunement. It will come in three stages: Recognition (noticing your thoughts), Intention (setting goals and establishing purpose), and Embodiment (living out that intention). First, you can observe the existence of your thoughts, and your ability to “tune the dial” to pay more or less attention to them, selectively. Then, you can set intentions – which align your attention with a purpose. And finally, you embody your intentions with aligned speech and action.²¹