If life is defined as the degree to which I am consciously aware of being in relation to self-reflective, environmental feedback, then the more conscious attention I give to the mirror of my surroundings, instead of myself as a center, the more life I will experience. Interestingly enough, I normally assume quite the opposite, that the more attention I pay to myself as a center of consciousness, the more self-awareness I will experience and, thus, the more alive I will feel. Jesus addressed this issue of mental reciprocity quite clearly when he said, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosever will lose his life for my sake will save it” (Mt. 16:25). That is, he who would save his life as a center of conscious awareness must be willing to sacrifice himself as such by paying more attention to others. Whereas, he who gives increasing degrees of attention and awareness to himself will actually lose the life he attempts to save through increasing degrees of self-pre-occupation and absorption. The key to beating this seeming mental “Catch-22” thus lies in realizing the reciprocal nature of self-reflective consciousness is such that to increase self-awareness, sense of being and life, I must actually pay less attention to myself as center and more to myself as circumference. For what I am, ultimately, is an entire field of consciousness that alternately assumes subjective and objective states. As such, if I am ever to become whole, complete and perfect, I must learn to embrace others as myself and love them accordingly.

 

(OOMM Appendix G Intro)