Tuesday, March 3, 2009

What is Attention?

What I refer to as “attention” is the process by which a human being grows more conscious. Attention is the exercise of a latent human ability to vest subtle internal energy.

Within the human body, subtle energy is organized. Thought is an organization of subtle energy. Emotions consist of organizations of subtle energy. Sensory awareness itself is an organization of subtle energy. Any given sensation is a form of energy.

Consciousness, in its elementary form, is bodily awareness. Bodily awareness is our simple sense of being present, our rudimentary sense of being a body within the universe. Bodily awareness is generated by the continuous automatic process of sensory awareness, prior to thought. Consciousness itself is not thinking. Consciousness, in its elementary form, is prior to thinking.

Our rudimentary consciousness, bodily awareness, our basic sense of self, consists of an organization of subtle energy within the body. Our given sense of being is faint and fleeting. We only momentarily touch base with it. We quickly lose our sense of being present. We generally dwell in continuous thoughts and emotions. We are hardly conscious.

Attention reorganizes the subtle energy of which we consist. The act of attention is both a vestment and divestment of internal energy. Vestment is volitional action. Volition is a voluntary investment of energy. Energy in itself is the potential for work, a capacity for action. Vestment means increasing the capacity to act.

Touch base with your sense of being present. That is the act of attention. By getting a feel for yourself as presently conscious, you are exercising your power of attention. Get a feel for the dimension of yourself that is presently conscious. Contrast it with thought, with emotion, with awareness. By drawing a contrast between these, you are exercising your capacity to pay attention. You are increasing your consciousness.

The act of attention divests energy from emotions and reinvests that energy into bodily awareness, thereby increasing bodily awareness. Attention divests energy from the thought process and reinvests that energy into bodily awareness, thereby increasing bodily awareness, increasing consciousness, expanding and prolonging the sense of being present.

By exercising our latent ability to vest subtle internal energy, we increase our bodily awareness. Bodily awareness increases until it becomes an energetic body of consciousness. That energetic body of consciousness is our real Self, who we really are, a genuine individual, the immortal soul. We do not automatically possess an immortal soul. The soul is forged through the process of attention.

The vestment of awareness with energy increases the product of awareness, that is bodily awareness. Bodily awareness, our elementary consciousness, our sense of being, is itself an action. To be implies a special kind of action, a special organization and circulation of subtle internal energy. Continuity of being is a sustained action, a continuous circulation of subtle internal energy. The act of attention prolongs and sustains consciousness. Attention exercises consciousness.

The process of attention culminates in full consciousness, permanent consciousness.

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