[smellyfart]

I've just started to enter what I believe to be heightned awareness. For me it's blocks of time where everything seems clear and all the pieces fit. It's so exilerating during these times, my whole body feels charged with energy and all I can keep thinking is Wow! I want to feel this way all the time My problem is I become obsessed with these states after they pass. Lets talk about your experiences in heightned awareness, I would love to see where this new state of mind is going. Please be detailed.

[ensonar]

Sounds familiar. I feel like I've been through similar experiences.

For me it was a sudden shift one day into intense clarity, or at least "intense" from the viewpoint of my life up to that point. And then fear started creeping in. Fear of fear, fear of slipping back into normal awareness. And slip I did. But then moments of clarity would come round again, and again and again.

In fact this kind of reminds me of the story of the human mold that is in "The Fire From Within". It only reminds me of it because it seems to be similar feelings.

Don Juan told Carlos that when seers first see the human mold (as well as mystics who chance upon it at times), they often believe that they are seeing god. Carlos described how he was in absolute awe the first time he witnessed the human mold. But as don Juan had him see it many times over, it was still beautiful, but lost it's awesomeness, and in time he was able to witness it without indulging.

That feeling reminds me of reaching moments of clarity, heightened awareness, moments of high energy, and such. At first many of us get so caught up in the intensity of it that we indulge in feelings of awe until we drain ourselves back to normal awareness.

But as we keep returning to it, it becomes nothing, or it becomes more our constant state of being. And so as we breathe, as we open our eyes, so we are wide awake and aware, and it's like the morning and the night. It's nothing and yet it's astonishing at once.

[Nick]

What you both describe I sometimes feel but mainly my first enemy comes to reclaim me & melancholy descends. I feel this forum is a great help as I am inspired by other peoples victories. I know that if I keep being impeccable I will win in the end. We all will.

[joyseph]

I remember when I went for an extended meditation retreat (well before my CC days) and I started experiencing different sorts of consciousness shifts -- the first 2 or 3 days it was an "undesirable" shift into sleepiness and sleep -- later it was a shift into what I now think I know as the 2nd attention (or a quasi-second-attention because what do I really know?).

At any rate, it's the SHIFT of consciousness that was (and is) so STARTLING that it calls attention to itself thus derailing the actual new state. At that retreat I found I had to go through that shift a BUNCH of times before I could face it with sobriety. (And, true to tell, the supposed undesirable shifts into sleepiness actually counted as EXPERIENCE with shifts and helped inure me too, in the end.)

Sobriety through the change in consciousness is de rigueur.

[ensonar]

I am inspired by other peoples victories. I know that if I keep being impeccable I will win in the end. We all will.

I can't help but say that that statement sounds a little funny.

Firstly, "in the end" will be at any given moment. The end may come before I finish typing this sentence. I think it's incredibly meaningful to take this as deeply to heart as possible.

And of course the other part, is that when we think of acting in terms of winning, we are obviously acting with expectations... a sure killer.

Acting for the hell of it, with no expectations because we know without a doubt that we will die at any moment, reduces everything we do to meaningless folly.

[Nick]

I take your point. My command of language in conveying my feelings needs a warrior's touch as well as the rest of my life. Winning suggests that I am investing in an outcome. At this moment in time though it does matter to me that I don't fall back into old behaviour patterns. Perhaps I should examine why this is so. I was going to write about why I feel it is important to keep on the path, but halfway through writing I realised it does not matter & that it should not become an obsession. Your comment has made me think. Thanks.

[jonian]

heightened awareness is the door for the second attention

[joyseph]

and, I reiterate, it requires tremendous sobriety to navigate through that door ...

[Merged]

One thing I remember Carlos mentioning about heightened awareness in one of his books is how difficult it is to remember what happened during the times of heightened awareness. A lot of his memories were forgotten until he managed to have them resurface to the normal attention through his impeccability.

I bet it's possible that some of us have operated in heightened awareness much more often than we're aware of.

[ensonar]

That also reminds me of the strange way that memory flashes occur in normal life. Remembering a dream that occurred years ago out of the blue, or a long distant memory, seems like perhaps our assemblage point makes a miniscule shift to a location where that memory occurred.