The Power of Simple Awareness

In reading Dr. Cohen's article "Stuck? Frustrated? Going Bananas?" I was struck by one line, "We're too busy trying to make things happen in our favor rather than naturally let things happen in our favor." That line carried me back to basics, back to the concept of simple awareness. Anyone who has attempted affirmations knows that they work. Make a positive statement to yourself often enough and you begin to believe it. Continue the affirmation, it grows past belief and ripens into an accepted part of your life. Eventually, the positivity seeps into your brain, becoming as much a part if you as your skin or your eyes. Years ago, I read a book called "The Creative Process" which consisted of a collection of essays by artists, scientists, mathematicians and a whole array of creative people. I was struck by the commonality of the creative experience about which these people wrote. In each case, the person described days, months, or even years of effort at a project or problem, only to find the answer swell up in their brain and surface in a dream, on a walk by the sea or while taking a bath. One woman I know tried to remember the name of a person she hadn't thought of in years. That night she dreamt of a billboard with the person's name splashed across it. Why do people say, "Let me sleep on it?" Early in the twentieth century, physicists began to formulate the concepts which they called the Quantum Theory. Their findings implied that the finer levels of reality were the most powerful. Experiments proved them to be right. Split an atom, you have atomic energy. Split the nucleus of an atom, you have the even more powerful nuclear energy. They've found more and more finer levels of reality lead to an idea, a thought, a beingness. Where am I going with all this? What I'm about to say is less of an analogy, more of a reality, but you can take it anyway you want. Thought is most powerful at it's source, which is the state of simple awareness. When these creative people found answers to questions and solutions to problems, they found them not when they were thinking about them, but when their minds were quiet, at rest. When Dr. Cohen said "We're too busy trying to make things happen in our favor rather than naturally let things happen in our favor," it meant to me that we have to pull back, quiet our minds in order to know how to proceed. We've got to trust the still, quiet part of ourselves. We need to set aside some time each day to experience that simple awareness.