Do you trust that you’re here for a reason?
I’m reminded of a children’s story I love by P.D. Eastman called “Are you my mother?” The little bird falls out of the nest and goes searching for its mother. It asks other animals and inanimate objects who don’t seem to fit the bill. Yet something inside doesn’t let the little bird rest. In spite of all the doubt and contrary reality it continues to search. It just knows “I must have a mother…”
Sometimes we feel like the baby bird. We just know that “I must be here for a reason. My life must have some significance to it. There just has to be a purpose to my existence but I can’t seem to figure out what it is. …”
Our trust in self is tenuous. Like the little bird we go out and search.
The search to find what our life is about can be aimless or it can be with a sense of direction – the sense of direction consciousness gives.
In logotherapy there are other terms and expressions. To be human is to be conscious. Conscience is the ‘meaning organ’ to find out the meaning of a situation. Responsibility is the ability to respond to the call or invitation to fill our space in the world…
An all-encompassing concept that parallels these logotherapeutic concepts is da’at-consciousness.
As logotherapists we don’t tell our clients what they should do but we help them access their own inner wisdom.
I hope that the following sentences summarizing the book on this topic (Pirkei Kinyan Da’at) will serve as guidelines for accessing this inner wisdom.
- Consciousness is the quintessential human quality
- Consciousness is a latent ability that must be stimulated and activated.
- Every person in the world has consciousness, or ‘understanding of the heart.’
- Consciousness is a lifestyle of attentiveness to the truth about reality, including its potentialities
- With consciousness you discern differences between situations, so that you know what to say ‘yes’ to and what to say ‘no’ to.
- This clarity stimulates inquiry into the meaning of what every given situation requires of you.
- Genuine consciousness is not intellectual insight but unification between body and spirit and between mind, emotions and actions. The actions of a person with consciousness are consonant with his or her beliefs.
- The rational alone without development of emotions is not genuine consciousness and creates arrogance instead of humility.
- Consciousness brings inner peace within a person, peace between people and awareness of the life force in everything that joins all of existence.
- By joining with another person in his or her experience of life and being touched to the core by them, your own core self will shine forth.
- Being conscious of the human in you makes you human
How to develop consciousness:
- Beware of the pitfalls of religiosity that crush your humanity by shutting down your consciousness.
- Allow yourself to be guided by life’s feedback.
- Develop a rich emotional world while transcending your emotions and instincts and relating to yourself objectively
- Look at everything you do with a critical yet compassionate eye
- Value your strengths and the strengths of others
- Experience life with amazement,
- Pay attention to the meaning of what’s happening and the opportunity in it for you to do something significant
- Get in touch with your innate goodness and harness all your powers to that end
- Think for yourself
- Take the time for meditative quiet listening in order to be self-aware and ‘situationally-aware’ and through this process get to the core of what you want deep down