“Mind your surroundings!” – Ra’s al Ghul to Bruce Wayne, on a frozen lake.
One of the most meaningful alignments of words from that movie. One that stuck in my mind, crawling in some of my thoughtful moments, when I consciously explore through unconsciousness. The unknown always calls for us, humans or other beings as if we are connected to both paths – the one we walked along with the path we are yet to discover, or even further to create and leave behind new ones for others to explore.
Perceptions and emotions can be consciously experienced as they manifest, while the mind has limited capabilities of awareness over them. We can only experience part of the sensations coming from the body simultaneously and let them manifest consciously, everything else will result in unconscious behavior. The same process applies to our perception. Light always comes through our eyes, sound through our ears, our skin always touches, the nose always smells, yet our awareness cannot easily comprehend everything – especially not continuously.
Minding our surroundings
When a powerful vibration through the air happens as sound in our ears our awareness suddenly becomes narrow, and like a perfectly shot arrow, goes straight to the source of the noise. Our mind begins “minding” around it, with its mechanism – one we created for ourselves. Some will feel their whole body shaking, some will calmly turn around, some will continue to walk as if nothing happened. Depending on the emotional state every being will both react and act upon that sound as it influences our momentary state of being. My cat will just wiggle an ear in his sleep if I shut the door, while my mom will experience terror even when she’s in another room. You can guess which one was relaxed or tense at that moment….
Being fully relaxed can cause over-consciousness…. or sleep, depending on the level of awareness. In a joyful relaxation, one can move awareness throughout the body at will, without being unconsciously influenced by its surroundings, regardless of momentary intensity – the noise around. In willing relaxation, emotions will connect naturally with perceptions, creating conscious experiences, while the inner manifestations can flow unconstrained by tensions. In relaxation every action becomes fluid, like a river flow, passing through continuously.
A bird minds the surroundings in its flight over the landscape, feels the distance, always looking, yet always in relaxation. While we walk through our concrete jungles, many rules constrain our free movement – crosswalks, roads, stations, shops, apartments, etc. Many people have to live together peacefully. Rules had to be created to make the public space easier to use and less prone to accidents. Special places were created where people can manifest in a specific way – theaters, sports halls, music festivals, schools, public toilets, etc. Every space requires a specific type of awareness to be used efficiently. When someone wants mental stimulation go to the cinema or theater – or a sports hall for a physical one – or a party to dance and socialize.
Minding our surroundings must happen consciously at least in one of our perceptive senses to create the feeling of safety. When one has completely lost contact with its surroundings, anything is a surprise after the contact is restored, like awakening from a dream. How many of you have been surprised by your lack of awareness? I know everyone, as we all here on earth because we still need to be surprised by something, or else we would die in bore doom. Literally.
Relative minding the surroundings
Sometimes when I attempt to think about a phenomenon, I find myself falling into a trap laid by the Univers (my surroundings). Example – I am at a crosswalk moving my thoughts consciously, thinking about an essay composition. A biker comes at full speed from the park, passing between the walkers without sketching an intention to slow down. It takes me of everything I build in my mind, and like having a sand castle destroyed by a tsunami, that kid flew on like nothing happened. Everyone around is upset as we all move from peaceful walking to complaining. I walk half the park, five hundred meters thinking mostly reactively until I figure out “how” – “why” – “what” made that kid to be so unaware of our presence.
On the bike, while going between people, I had a certain distance and control over the directions, as the speed became relative. Still, I would notice people tensing their legs, sketching a movement of my way. I can easily pass between as I can approximate with centimetric error my path through, tho I would slow down enough. But when I walk and see a biker coming, I tense my legs as I cannot figure out the path. The approximation is relative to the speed. On a bike, the speed of people feels super slow, making it easy to adjust to it, knowing I can stop in less than a second. On feet, the speed of a biker feels much faster, taking much more attention to approximate his path than it takes him to approximate mine.
The tension I felt when that kid went by was so surprising it left me thinking unconsciously for minutes. After I “recovered” I figured out that there was no solution to that problem. Unless I kick the next biker who chooses to speed up between people in the head, he will never think about his doings, as he will need something of a powerful emotional impact to become aware of the consequences on the surroundings, regarding his actions. “He” because a woman is less likely to be so unaware of her surroundings and more likely to stop if I ask her. That kid would never stop, even yelling at him.
Our surroundings will often be surprising, especially if we choose exploration over comfort. The volume of information we perceive can easily become overwhelming, creating emotional discomfort – decreasing the quality of thinking – making us react by freeze, flight, or fight. After the overwhelming moment, the universe always gives a moment of peacefulness – whether is after a war or an argument with a friend. If we use this moment to contemplate our experience, the next time we encounter a similar situation our behavior will be more prepared & adaptive. If we choose comfort instead of contemplation, we will suffer the same consequences again, which is worsening our behavior by stagnating in the same state of mind.
Minding the extremes
Minding our surroundings can become a very complex adventure. Considering our surroundings being everything around our skin could be a first step towards understanding this complexity. The next step is to realize that everything we perceive, already happened a moment before we interpret and have emotional contact with it. If the time between what happens around us and within us feels insignificantly small think about it this way. When we are tense and unaware of everything that happens in the body, any whisper can disturb our emotional state. When we are relaxed, in complete awareness, we can perceive and feel more, in the same amount of time, making every moment more dilated. This way we create more conscious experiences in our lives.
The speed of light influences our sight, the sound speed of our ears, the myelination of our nerves – the speed of our thinking. Considering that through the Webb telescope, we can observe the position of stars and galaxies hundreds of millions of years ago, you can imagine the relative connection of our perceptions and emotions. If this distance seems incomprehensible large, the speed of perceptions regarding our immediate surroundings can be incomprehensible small. Through our minds, we aim to make sense of everything. Distances and speed are concepts of the mind, helpful when understood and useless when known as words. For the effects to be felt in every moment, we have to understand the value of those two concepts.
If everything we perceive already happened, then what forms in our mind is a continuation of it, if we act consciously to every emotion coming from within. If we react to emotions, our perceptions become nullified for that moment, while the mind comes to fill the gaps we are yet unaware of. The classical example – “Did you lock the door after you left your home?” – “Do you have any memory of that locking?” – “Are you sure the memory you have is about the last time you locked or is about another time?”. Most people will think about that moment with a certain degree of tension rising through the body, while few will know they locked the door or would consider it safe to leave it unlocked. After a moment of unawareness, our intuitive trust can become numb, we become emotionally unstable, further prone to manipulation.
How much do you remember from your last discussion? – Was it every word? Do you even remember one full sentence? The keywords you were interested in? The space, the furniture, that person’s face, clothes …?
I am super bad when it comes to recalling what people said. I met a guy once who could reproduce every word, sentence, the whole conversation. He could not explain how it does it, but I figured it out later. When he listens, his muscles are all relaxed, along with the most important ones – the vocal cords and the diaphragm. While those muscles are relaxed, sound can be more consciously perceived. Anyone can become continuously aware of all the sounds coming through the ears, memorizing his perceptions, thinking through them, feeling the emotions acting upon his experience. Same for sight, touch, movements, space, scent, taste…
During meditative practices focus is on the breath, or more precisely on the movement of the diaphragm, which dictates our heartbeat rate, following our emotional calmness. If our awareness has at its center our diaphragm along with the heart, every movement we make, every perception – every emotion happening will have something to bind to, making our experience of life a continuous moment of awareness. The quality of our awareness (intelligence) results in the quantity of conscious experience over time.
Mathematical consciousness. This might be hard for some of you to grasp, and please, do not consider acknowledging those words equivalent to understanding. You have to practice, with your perceptive senses, emotional sensations, and thought processes. The combinations and permutations seem to me to be limitless. We are very young as conscious beings and many discoveries are still unraveled.
Practice this for now reader. Listen to a video, eyes closed. During the process, be aware of your diaphragm’s movement and tensions which will appear in the body in the form of muscle movements, especially in the vocal cords – the center of our speaking. While part of your awareness is on the diaphragm & heart, and another part of it must revolve around the ear. Now, just witness the sounds. After you finish listening, recall everything that happened, in complete silence. This practice can help you realize “what”, “where-when”, and “how” the whole process of hearing happens. You are on the path to mastering this ability. Is still going to be a long process until you can guide an orchestra. Until then, keep this around your ears.
Considering our surroundings, the last step will be to understand that emotions happen around us. So where are we after all this understanding?! – The only answer I have is that we are “awareness”, and awareness happens through the mind – the nervous system. Awareness only becomes consciousness when we willingly connect the experienced perceptions with the manifesting emotions.
The tricky part will be understanding that emotions can be experienced as manifestation, but also the other way around – to manifest emotion as experience. The same works for perceptions. It is a continuous process of experience and manifestation. A dance, of consciousness & unconsciousness, yin & yang, shape & background. Without beginning, nor an end. It has an ever-changing purpose & direction. With every emotion purely manifested, everything around can change. We can only witness it and act consciously to create a little order within our existence as individuals, and further on our surroundings. Or we can flow with the chaotic hurricane of unconsciousness until despair engulfs us.
Minding is good when it happens relative to perceptions and emotions. We create our conscious lives through this process. But if either feelings or perceptions are ignored, unconsciousness grows, creating illusions in its path. That biker will crash one day and learn to mind more about his surroundings, we have ours to care of.
