Igniting the Flame of Self-Awareness

If you find it difficult to be aware, then experiment with writing down everythought and feeling that arises throughout the day; write down your reactions ofjealousy, envy, vanity, sensuality, the intentions behind your words, and so on.

Spend some time before breakfast in writing them down - which may necessitate goingto bed earlier and putting aside some social affair. If you write these things downwhenever you can, and in the evening before sleeping look over all that you havewritten during the day, study and examine it without judgment, without condemnation,you will begin to discover the hidden causes of your thoughts and feelings, desiresand words....

Now, the important thing in this is to study with free intelligence what you havewritten down, and in studying it you will become aware of your own state. In theflame of self-awareness, of self-knowledge, the causes of conflict are discoveredand consumed. You should continue to write down your thoughts and feelings,intentions and reactions, not once or twice, but for a considerable number of daysuntil you are able to be aware of them instantly....

Meditation is not only constant self-awareness, but constant abandonment of theself. Out of right thinking there is meditation, from which there comes thetranquility of wisdom; and in that serenity the highest is realized.

Writing down what one thinks and feels, one's desires and reactions, brings about aninward awareness, the cooperation of the unconscious with the conscious, and this inturn leads to integration and understanding.