# @enjoyinglife recently asked us at TribeSteemup, "What does being aware mean to you?"

Tribesteemup is a beautiful project supporting quality content creators who are focussed on making a better world with what they post and how they live. Pioneered by @kennyskitchen there is now over 200 members who have been hand picked to embody the tribes values.

### You can find more about what TribeSteemup is about by reading this [post](https://steemit.com/tribesteemup/@kennyskitchen/the-8-pillars-of-tribesteemup-clarification-refinement-and-re-casting-the-spell) on the Eight Pillars of TribeSteemup.

I'm immensely grateful to be a part of this project, and what it embodies.

Reading the discord chat, this particular question resonated with me today. I haven't engaged with these bi-weekly questions so far, so this seems like a good opportunity to open up the dialogue and share some perceptions.  This is what being aware means to @phillyc.

![pexels-photo-256380.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeTzTfgPQFDQ2AL5up4p5wSpN7j5MCnCyGNGNjk74yC9y/pexels-photo-256380.jpeg)
[source](https://www.pexels.com/photo/extreme-close-up-of-woman-eye-256380/)

## What is Awareness? An Experiential Journey

Awareness is our most essential nature, and through introspection and self inquiry we can come back to this fundamental essence. There is the personality, the body, our thoughts, our emotions, sensations, and so many projections and programs that we are living in and through. What is the fundamental thing that ties all of this together? Is there one essential quality that pervades all of the varied and opposing experiences of life?

We can use the self inquiry tool to ask these penetrating questions, eventually coming closer to the more fundamental questions, and eventually coming closer to what is real. 

### If we are aware of all of the changes of life, then what is aware of all of these changes? Are we that awareness? And if we are that awareness, then are we also the objects of our observation?

![divider-purple-01.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPQGegpNnmswnQURPqeNu1bKAbmgQpL22e6eCg3j4Vgxp/divider-purple-01.png)

Answers may not come readily on the path of self inquiry, yet another kind of response tends to arise when we ask these kinds of questions. A response of silence, a response of emptiness, a response of tranquility and relief. The mind asks it's question and it echoes out into eternity, and in that reverberation we get the sense of a wider space so far beyond the mind its self.

What is the impact on the human being - in realizing that they are not the varied pieces of madness in this life?

If you come to know your self as awareness, then simply and truly - you are free. You are aware of the changes, but you are not the changes themselves. Our survival is not dependent on engineering the right outcome, we observe calmly all situations by simply remaining aware. Being aware, means to take a step back or to zoom out into the state of awareness.

Being aware means being aware of thoughts, and the fact that they are not you. Mind is a convincing trickster, and offers many appealing fantasies. Through identification we eventually suffer them, but through simple awareness we can enjoy them in a momentary way without any attachment.

![divider-green-01.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVpJaHthxhWVap3X3fXQBypHkCMhGSDnbVLcjeBWFpNLt/divider-green-01.png)

## Being Aware in our Dynamic 'Daily Life'

We are not always in meditation or self inquiry, we are not always engaged in spiritual practice or have the active intent of wholeness and healing. This is simply life, this is our circumstance that we must go out and collect money tokens, build relationships, and interact with life in general.

Being aware doesn't stop here though, in fact it becomes more essential than ever. When life puts stress and demands on us we tend to go back into our minds, and start to identify with the stressful scenario. We start to identify with the 'person' who is suffering these things. The whole thing become very serious and we lose sight of ourselves as awareness.

Being aware means that every situation and every person you interact with is a dialogue with life its self. Awareness gives you the stillness and distance to see this, and you respond accordingly - with integrity and love. So we can identify two main forces of life, the awareness its self (our true nature) and the basic life force that we interact with. The rest is largely imagined, the rest is our story about how it works.

![divider.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXmi9DcPbtvfRFyf7ts4Pmopk9TZJs5XGaeU7PhwWCyJj/divider.png)

## The Challenge of Dropping the Identity

It's easy to talk about this kind of thing, but to live it is another thing entirely. I have to be completely honest in saying that if you start to find spaciousness inside yourself, and take that path for your life - your mind will respond with various tactics to gain your undivided attention again.

This is the real test of being aware.

When the mind brings us things which have 'urgency' and 'danger' it's a flashing red light for our attention to pull us back into identity and survival mode (survival of the identity). It's not like the mind is a villain we have to get rid of, we just need to realize completely that as a biological survival mechanism the mind needs to be tamed and retrained.

I guess I don't mean the mind as a whole, but rather the logical calculating side. This aspect is literally designed to assess the environment and make decisions that go toward safety and comfort, and away from fear and pain. It's a great survival tool, but if we don't integrate it fully then we can never rise up into higher states of consciousness.

This is what being aware means to me, it means being aware of yourself as a piece of life and also as just awareness its self. Being aware is simply just 'being', without a premise or story to give you meaning or validation. We simply 'are' in an unknowable way, and from this place we move through life with great auspiciousness and spaciousness.

Gratitudes to the reader
Peace
Balance
Abundance

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_cheers to @ecoalex for this fly banner_