Amit Pagedar - Finding Awareness: The Journey of Self-discovery

Finding Awareness: A Journey of Self-Discovery

Copyright 2021 Amit Pagedar

Cover Design by C.S. Fritz for Albatross Book Co.

Formatting by Albatross Book Co.

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Convention. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, except for the brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereinafter invented, without permission of the author.

ISBN: 9798721905094

Arvin, when youre old enough to understand, I want you to know that I wrote this book for you.

Contents

Introduction

If you are reading this book, it is possible that you are familiar with my work on Instagram. If not, I hope that you find the contents of this book valuable. Over these past few years, I have had the privilege of speaking with thousands of my readers over hundreds of hours. Many of them shared personal stories and experiences with me as we discussed a wide range of topics. Those conversations were at times emotional and intense. This book is an expansion of the ideas we discussed and the insights we had during those talks. Therefore, I dont own this book anymore than the air I breathe. It belongs to you.

Even though I started sharing my thoughts in 2018 on Instagram under the name @findingawareness, I had been writing for 17 years before then in some form. Though, for all those years whatever I wrote always seemed conceptual or derivative in nature. It came with a peculiar feeling that those ideas werent authentic. They seemed to be more of an intellectual analysis than pointing to a direct experience. This was further established when I observed my responses to the problems that arose in my life. The conceptual understanding I had amassed was useless. The egoic patterns remained strong. Though superficial changes were happening, the core of me was still the same. It appeared that I was writing from secondhand experiences of those whose ideas filled my mind.

My perspective changed one evening, a little more than two years ago. It was one of those days when I was grappling with emotional upheaval, confusion, and fear. There were many unresolved questions about my past and my future. They had all come looking for answers, and I had nothing to offer. A deep confusion and a sense of profound meaninglessness about my life had taken over. I had been to such a place multiple times before, and every time, some temporary measure had come to my rescue. Either a new book or some new meditation would appear and help me escape my dread and helplessness. Though this time, it felt as if I had nowhere to run. The inner resistance and battle with my own fears and anxieties had come to a head.

That day, about 30 minutes into a mediation session, I began to have an intense headache. The struggle had never been so difficult so as to cause any physical pain before, but there it was. It felt like an obstruction, a psychological barrier which was both intolerable, yet unsurpassable. The rising pressure slowly became impossible to bear. It culminated into a breaking of something I could not name. With it came a wordless feeling of an ending, a washing away of dark shadows from the depths of my being. All movement ceased. There was nothing to hold on to. The mind plunged into the depths of silence. It forgot its own existence. The body became light as a feather. It felt as if the burdens of a thousand lifetimes were lifted. There was a sense of profound bliss.

I had no idea what had taken place nor did I care. All that mattered was my behavior and thinking had undergone an overnight change. The heaviness of the past had left. It felt like a new life was given to me, and there was no point in questioning it. I just wanted to live it. There was no desire to analyze anything. All my hurts, fears, and ambitions felt insignificant. They were there; yet their presence didnt matter anymore. It felt as if I could fail at anything or succeed at anything and it was all the same. There was no fear or anticipation of any pleasure. There was no resistance to anything. The mind was in a state of deep rest.

Though I could tell a positive thought apart from a negative one, there was no emotional reaction to either of them. The words positive and the negative virtually had lost all their meaning. The darkest thought no longer felt any different than the holiest thought. The battle of opposites was over. All anxiety, confusion and the frustration now seemed like a distant memory. The mind felt effortlessly clear yet sharp. It was sensitive to everything that happened around it, but had no intention of commenting on it, let alone change it. It was immersed, yet somehow, untouched. It didnt matter to me as to why any of this was happening. I simply carried on living in this new way.

Over the next few weeks, I felt a surge of inspiration and started sharing my thoughts on Instagram. As the words started to flow, more people began to resonate with them. One of my readers asked me if I had known of author Eckhart Tolle. I looked at his books sitting on my bookshelf. I had read Eckharts teachings more than a decade ago. As my memory stretched back in time, a word from one of his books resurfaced and drew me towards it. That word was surrender . I had struggled to understand what he had meant all those years ago. I even believed it to be a form of accepting defeat when I had first read his books. Yet now, the same word seemed so obvious and natural. It was here, at the center of my being.

As I continued sharing my ideas, this experience of surrender became a central theme of my writings. I also began to realize how impossible it was to ask someone to do it, and expect them to succeed. It was like asking someone to jump off a mountain with a parachute, before they had seen or climbed the mountain. It was not the starting point at all, and hence couldnt be applied as a solution. There had to be another way.

As I thought more about this, it became clear why this deep transformation we seek remains beyond our reach despite our best efforts. We wait for it to come from outside of us. We want others to give it to us. Unfortunately, real self-transformation defies teaching. It makes all teachers ultimately irrelevant. For its nature is to be grown, like a plant. It wants to arise spontaneously. Only then is it real.

Another reason why its so elusive is because the whole picture is never clear to us. We can solve part of the puzzle here and there, but we dont quite grasp how all the pieces fit together. We look at one source to understand our fears, another for pleasures, and yet another for our ego. These disparate sources become confusing and prevent a total insight into the nature of our being. We see the head, the tail, or the leg of the beast, but never the whole thing. This is why I decided to write this book, to speak about all the aspects of inner lives and explore the connections between them. For unless we see how they fit together, we cant make sense of the whole picture and bring about that spontaneous insight we await.

Think of this book as a seed you can plant in your subconscious mind, which is your garden. If it takes root, it will begin to grow as per the conditions it finds itself in. Sometimes it will grow fast; at other times, it will sprout slowly, yet it will always belong to you. If there is one message I have through this book, it is this: Self-transformation is ultimately a journey that requires time, patience, and care. It is an unraveling of who we want to be , and finding our way back to who we already are .