How to Know You Are in a State of Awareness: One Simple Action

AVAlexander Volchek

This is a question many people begin asking: "Am I actually in a state of awareness or not? How can I tell?" A state of awareness is a very significant starting point for you to begin moving toward personal growth and development. If you write down, I want to say, fifty such points—actually, even ten or twenty are enough—then, in general, you are at some stage of awareness. How can a person tell whether they are in a state of awareness? There is a very simple action, a very simple action, just one. An easy action for absolutely anyone. This is not manipulation, not at all. I am about to suggest an action that may seem like manipulation to you. I am definitely not manipulating you. If you do it, you will understand that it is not manipulation. Watch the three most recent videos on my channel. Be sure to watch them. If you cannot watch them, there is a strong likelihood that you are in a state of unawareness. You will say, "What if I'm not interested?" But you want to check, don't you? Watch these videos. Three videos. Then, as you watch, write points on a piece of paper where you feel you know for certain that you are like that, where something negative about yourself is being described.

For example, you know you are someone who creates illusions about tomorrow. You know you often treat other people very badly. You know for certain that you are deeply insecure. You know for certain that you are constantly discussing and judging other people. Look for points like these. If you write down, I want to say, fifty such points—actually, even ten or twenty are enough—then, in general, you are at some stage of awareness. Why do I say some stage of awareness? I have heard this question many times; many people begin asking it: "Am I actually in a state of awareness or not? How can I tell?" A person wants to arrive at a state of awareness. There was zero: unaware. And notice that even at zero, this person has some partial awareness. Then there is one: aware. In their mind, they have lumped everything together: being at a stage of unawareness and moving toward awareness count as zero, while awareness counts as one. The fundamental point is that there is no zero or one.

There is no person who is completely unaware, and no person who is completely aware. The comparisons will start right away. People will say, "Can I be as aware as that person, or reach some standard of awareness? Can we draw up parameters for what counts as awareness?" Again, any set of parameters for what counts as awareness—I guarantee it—amounts to a one. That is how a system of parameters works: if all the parameters indicate one, you get one. If all ten parameters match, you are already an aware person. People often post these lists; it is common now: ten points for knowing you are a confident person, fifteen points for knowing you are emotionally stable, five points for knowing you are some other kind of person. Yet with almost any list like this, emotional stability for example, you can always imagine a situation in which you would become emotionally unstable. You meet fifteen criteria for emotional stability. Someone asks, "How do you react if your mother yells at you?" "Calmly. Everything is stable." With your child, you react calmly. But if a million people surrounded you, pressed tightly against you, and shouted at you for the next fifteen days, would you be emotionally stable or unstable?

Most likely, you will immediately say, "Of course I'd be emotionally unstable. Are you an idiot, asking a question like that?" There you go: you are already emotionally unstable. A state of awareness is a very significant starting point for you to begin moving toward personal growth and development. To move toward real awareness, you need to understand that there is no end to a state of awareness. Observe that, observe it. How you make decisions, how you act. What is a state of awareness? Let's take an example. A good level of awareness. Or, if you like—you want maximum awareness, don't you?—I will give you a very simple parameter that will never be a one for you. Never. In the evening, write that during every second, every minute—let's say every minute—of the day that has just passed, you were constantly aware and observing yourself from the outside, the decisions you made and actions you took. Constantly, constantly, everywhere, no matter what, every minute, every minute throughout the day. I have not gone down to seconds, just every minute throughout the day. I think that will be enough. An impossible criterion. An absolutely impossible criterion. Absolutely impossible—look, an absolutely impossible criterion. Someone will say, "All right, I'll sit down, shut myself in a room, stay there from waking up to going to sleep, and remain in a state of self-observation."

You will not be able to do it. Those are highly exceptional circumstances, highly exceptional circumstances for certain people. If you are now thinking, "But someone must be able to! Probably those teachers can, or someone else," let that go. Do not enter a state of constant conflict and argument. But observe those minutes of your day. Start with simple actions: at least observe what happens every hour, at least remember that you need to be observing everything now, observing everything. Observing everything means feeling your emotional state, feeling what is happening in your physical body, feeling the causes and effects of the different ideas, actions, and impulses that arise. That is a very substantial level of awareness, very substantial awareness. That is what you should strive for, rather than the right action. Strive for this. Why keep trying to find a simple solution, endlessly doing only that, when, by entering a state of awareness and observing that awareness, you will begin making far more right decisions? You will be making them consciously, not out of mistaken beliefs. A person looks for a solution and receives one. Then they go away and spend six months carrying it out, slipping into unawareness for those six months.

Bingo! This simple pattern is everywhere. Every three to six months, people change their tactics, strategies, and patterns of behavior. They like one thing today and another tomorrow. Someone comes in saying, "I'm happy, I'm so joyful, everything is great." Five minutes later, they say they are not joyful and things are not great. Make up your mind: are you joyful and doing great, or not? Then come and say, "Joy and sadness live in me at the same time." At the same time. Notice that joy and sadness always live in every person. Always. Joy can simply outweigh sadness so strongly that it is impossible to find the sadness. Is there a state without sadness? Yes. But there is no joy in those states either. There is no sadness when there is no joy. What I am describing now is very deep, and perhaps I should not even be talking about it. We are only talking about awareness and simply watching some videos. Just watching them, without even fully taking them in or fully understanding them. Take this action. If you do it, return to this video and leave that comment, we can see how many of the people who watched were in a state of awareness or unawareness.

Do not regard this as manipulation under any circumstances. It is not manipulation. It really is an elementary action you can take, a very simple one. You will spend thousands of hours in your life tormenting yourself over this question of awareness. Yet there is a simple solution: just tell yourself that in awareness, there is no zero or one. See you every Wednesday on my channel. Goodbye!