Sunday 19 February 2012

Living Consciously

I admire Ayn Rand as the author of 'The Fountainhead' ,'Atlas Shrugged 'and 'We, The Living' .She believed in certain ideals and created heroes around those ideals in her best selling novels .Nathaniel Branden was  twenty- five years her junior , her fan , her apostle and finally her lover. For the next twenty years , they propagated the principle of 'Enlightened Selfishness' together.But then , love turned into hate which tore their  joint movement to pieces.Ayn Rand died on March6,1982 at the age of 77.Nathaniel Branden wrote the memoir"Judgment Day , My Years with Ayn Rand " and got it published in 1989.His  remarkable book "Six Pillars of Self Esteem" was published in 1994." Six Pillars of Self Esteem" has  has been hailed as the ultimate work on psychology of self esteem  by T. George Harris, former editor of The Harvard Business Review, American Health  and Psychology Today .
Here are the six pillars of self esteem propounded by Dr. Branden:
*Living consciously.
*Self-acceptance.
*Self-responsibility.
*Self-assertiveness.
*Living purposefully.
*Personal integrity
Dr Branden says:"To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes , values and goals(to the best of our ability ,whatever that ability may be) and to behave in accordance with which we see and know."
                 In this way ,through Ayn Rand and Dr. Branden's works, I came across this practice/mindset called living consciously .I am not sure if Dr. Branden developed this concept after the breakdown of his relationship with Ayn Rand .But I find a great merit in Dr. Branden's concept of living consciously and describing it as the first pillar of self esteem.
                                                Living consciously  has two parts:
1.Seeing and knowing .
2.Acting  and behaving on what we see and know.
Living consciously is both a practice as wall as a mindset.It is on a continuum.We cannot live entirely consciously or unconsciously.We all need to and can expand  our mindset  by living more and more consciously.We are generally  more conscious in certain areas of life than in others .For example , if we are workaholics , we may be more aware of  nuances within our profession but may be less conscious of many of our emotions and personal relationships.This selective consciousness may be because of our parents , upbringing , education and life experiences and many other factors .  
                      There are two dimensions of living consciously .One is to be or live  in the moment, to be present to what one is doing.We must read, write , eat , watch a movie, listen to songs or do work consciously by paying full attention every moment.This is what Eckhart Tolle  has said in "The Power of Now" .This is what Zen Buddhism propounds about   living mindfully or living with with mindfulness.But living consciously is more than being in the moment.It is not only to be in the moment but also to remain connected with the wider context.We should be willing to understand the full context.We should take our decisions based on evidence and reality.
                            We need to override impulses of denial or avoidance due to pain or fear.We must face the facts and accept reality.Facts  should be distinguished from  interpretation or feelings.Dr. Branden says:"Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider, not to look away but to look more attentively".If new facts , data or information  that is relevant to what we are doing , comes up , we should pay attention to it.We should maintain an openness to new experience and knowledge.We should keep learning.                                  
                                   We should not only know our outer world but also our inner reality.We should know our needs , feelings , aspirations and motives .We should understand our Self, both our material/physical nature and our spiritual nature.We should know what excites us and what drains us.
While knowing our true nature, we should distinguish our true voice from influences of external agendas as reflected in the voice of a parent or a religious authority.Our voice should be free from the values we have irrationally adopted or uncritically accepted from others.It should be the voice of an autonomous human being.We should take our true feelings into account while acting consciously.Living consciously need  not be  inconsistent with our true feelings.
                                       There is a further complication there .As Dan Ariely has pointed out in his book "Predictably Irrational-the hidden forces that shape our decisions", we are not only irrational in our actions , we are predictably irrational -that our irrationality happens the same way , again and again.Understanding how we are predictably irrational  can help us in improving our decision making and changing the way we live .There is something common between "Bounded Rationality" of Herbert A. Simon and "Predictable irrationality"of Dan Ariely, and we need to factor this deviation from rationality in our actions and behaviour when we start the practice of living consciously.
                            We have our goals , values and priorities.Do we give our prime time to our top priorities or goals or mission?Often we do not .If it is so,it means that  we are not living consciously .Or  we need to have a second look at what our real priorities are.When we say our daily  prayers , we set our goals to know God and to love God by serving humanity .But the whole day passes but we do nothing on these two goals .It shows that we are not living our spirituality consciously.Living consciously requires us to bring ourselves to account every night before we go to sleep.We should live and conduct ourselves in such a way that we get closer to our goals(material and spiritual) with time.We should reflect where we are in relation to our goals , and what we are doing by investment of time , energy and resources to actualise these?We should not set our goal as one thing and do something different .If this happens , we shall never realise our stated goals, and this will lower our self esteem.
                                                        Do we need to be highly conscious in all areas of our life?Dr. Branden appears to say yes .We may need to develop  more awareness in material needs , intellectual development, creativity ,relationships,or spiritual growth , depending upon our present  situation.The first step is to identify the areas of life in which we are least conscious and  to reflect upon why it has been so difficult to focus .Then we have to ask ourselves what we need to do differently in selected  areas to  live consciously in those areas.Are we willing to do those things ?
                                                                               Acting consciously also means taking into account the possible consequences of our actions.We should take feed back and take corrective actions on the basis of that feedback.Living consciously requires us to think and reflect on a continuous basis.We should do nothing mechanically.We should persevere in spite of difficulties , but in case we decide to discontinue , it should be done consciously.

3 comments:

jasmine said...

Extremely enriching! Pains are surely gateway to living consciously as many times it reveals about oneself more than it does about others. As rightly mentioned, despite awareness about why not living consciously, we are not able to improve due to factors beyond our control. What to do then?

V.N Garg said...

Thank you.

V.N Garg said...

Thank you.Pains (and fears as well)can be helpful on our way to living consciously.
Regarding our inability to live consciously despite awareness, due to factors beyond our control ,I feel we have to reexamine whether it is a temporary but difficult period of life , or a continuing pattern .In the latter case ,We need to reflect and think daily , and also have a second look at our priorities.