The default state is for us to be aware, but not be meta-aware unless we practice a form of state change such as meditation. That means we are meta-aware for just a few moments of our lives, assuming we diligently practice meditation which we know most of us don’t. That means, the vast majority of our decisions occur in a sun-optimal state. Ideally, we would exist in a perpetual state of meta-awareness, where the Self is always aware of the mind’s thoughts, emotions, and consciousness. You may be thinking that while this sounds good, it is not practical because there is no way to sit down and meditate every second of the day.
Don’t fall for the fallacy of a binary world. Being in a state of meta-awareness is not binary, nor does it necessitate meditation or mindfulness. In fact, you could achieve a state of meta-awareness at any moment in time. While brushing your teeth. While performing in front of a crowd. While jogging. And yes, while meditating or praying. The difference is that it requires less effort to be meta-aware when meditating because of less stimuli coming in from the simulation.
However, once you have developed familiarity and the ability to become meta-aware by practicing meditation, prayer, or other forms of mindfulness, the state can be achieved even if there is noise from the simulation. In fact, advanced FoFty practitioners are able to not only achieve but maintain meta-awareness even in the most noisy environments such as being in front of a crowd, or being draped with deep emotions. Maintaining a state of meta-awareness is critical because the moment one drops into the lower state of simply being aware, one risks relinquishing control over how to render the simulation and reverting back to being an NPC.
We already know that there are many different forms of meditation. Some practice it with their eyes open, while others keep their eyes closed. There are even forms of walking meditation which introduces kinetic motion as complementary inputs along with breathing and other senses. Equipped with the FoFty knowledge of how the body, the mind, and the Self combine to render the simulation, a FoFty practitioner has the potential to transmute any stimulus coming in from the simulation into a complementary input no different than walking.
Elevating Above Attention
If you make the effort to monitor how frequently you lose your state of meta-awareness, you will quickly realize that it occurs so often that you can’t even count it. When you dive into why you keep losing the state, the typical conclusion you will come to will revolve around attention and focus. Then, you will ask yourself why is it so difficult to focus on something in the simulation, say cooking an egg or scrolling through a social media feed while maintaining meta-awareness at the same time? Why is it that we get “lost” in the simulation and must forcibly re-orient ourselves back to meta-awareness?
The answer is because we allow our attention to control us, when in fact, the Self controls attention when one is in a true state of meta-awareness. If one finds themself at the mercy of their attention and wherever it goes, then one is not in a true state of meta-awareness and constantly flip-flops in between states. There is no form of control being exercised if attention rules supreme.
In many belief systems, this phenomenon is described as temptation and falling prey to one’s “worldly desires.” However, what is being described as temptation is actually a subset of attention, namely, the subset that leads to unrighteous, forbidden, and evil actions as defined by whatever the belief system has set as its canon. There exists the antithesis of this, which is attention that appeals to righteous, encouraged, and heavenly actions. In both cases, the force is the same, but they are just classified in different categories. This is important to understand because FoFty is not about selectively targeting the phenomenon of attention and eradicating the application of it to a subset, but rather to elevate and master control over it in its entirety.
Most importantly, we must understand that while attention can be controlled and even manipulated, it can never be eradicated for it is a core component of our mind’s operating system. The goal is not to remove attention from existence in our minds. That would be the same as ejecting emotions which we discussed earlier as another immutable component of how we manifest reality. Instead, the focus of FoFty is on how to properly combine the knowledge of both controlling and manipulating the potential force that attention creates. We will discuss how later in the entrepreneurial section of the manuscript.
For now, the key hurdle to clear is to never forget that you are in simulation. Remembering that the Self within the mind is experiencing this simulation forces you to acknowledge that the Self is merely rendering everything around it, including every emotion that is experienced. If at any moment in time you find that the Self has drifted below into a state of awareness from meta-awareness, the first thing you should do is to remind the Self that it is in fact in a simulation.
Instead of taking five seconds to breathe in and out deeply during times of duress, take five seconds to close your eyes and simply re-acknowledge that the Self is simply rendering the simulation in your mind.
Sang @LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangyshin/
More about FoFty: http://fofty.net