Introspection

Introspection is the process of looking inward and describing one’s own experiences

I. Introduction

In recent years, we have observed worldwide a growing interest in maritime expeditions, mountain treks and the exploration of remote areas such as Antarctica and the Himalayas. Certain of these expeditions have drawn the interest of businesses, whose managers are no doubt impressed by the exploits, willpower, self-awareness or charisma of the adventurers. In reality though, these are just ordinary men and women who have learnt to live in harmony with them and the laws of Nature.

Whether we live in the teeming heart of a big city or in a tiny village deep in the jungle, most of us lead a daily confrontation to ensure the existence of our family, as well as the evolution of our business and career. One could actually compare the evolution of a professional career to an obstacle-ridden mountain expedition, marked by our diverse encounters and the challenges that must be met in order to progress. At each stage of our lives, we strive to develop new skills required to face our ever-changing environment: difficulties will arise when we encounter environments whose challenges are unfamiliar, be they mental, emotional or physical. Eventually, many of us will acquire the ability to work in a number of different conditions, withstanding fluctuations of a climatic, geographic or man-made nature.

Faced with a similar challenge in a perilous situation, certain individuals will manage to overcome their lack of adequate knowledge and training, while others fail to do so. Likewise certain leaders will rise to the challenge of high expectations, constant pressure and stressful work conditions; others however are worn out by the tension, leading to a lack of motivation.

These experiences demonstrate that existence cannot always be improvised, and that mental stability is the surest ingredient to overcome a trying situation. Some of the toughest leaders have been found to crack in extreme circumstances that weaker individuals were able to handle. The ability to prevail in such a situation is the result of self-awareness, self-esteem and a determined attitude to life.

Those attitudes may be developed through an increased self-awareness, through the exploration of the body, the unknown territories of our mind, the mysteries of spirituality and through the discovery of nature’s beauty.

II. The expedition

During our journey mental and physical endurance will be severely tested by the stress, doubt, solitude and dangers inherent to such an expedition. This ordeal will require that we learn to be both rigorously effective and intuitive, developing our self-control and the awareness of our personal limits. Communication, motivation, creativity, adaptability and perseverance will be key to our success in discovering ourselves.

Objectives

Our project’s main focus is the production of a (web-) documentary which will be the basis of our educational programme. During our journey through the Himalaya, we will follow an introspective exercise analysing 3 key aspects:

• The individual: promote self-awareness methods by body, mind and spiritual knowledge.
• The power of innovation: restore people wellness through balanced and sustainable television lifestyles programs which involve long terms business and collectivity development.
• The environment: restore the respect for the environment in our economic activities by considering the laws of nature.

Various scenes of our documentary will highlight sequences in order to allow the audience to learn and understand the experiences we lived during our adventure. 

"My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see". Muhammad Yunus, Economist, creator of the Grameen Bank and Nobel Prize in Peace 2006 

III. Introspectus pedagogic process

During our expedition, we would like to invite you to simultaneously conduct an introspective exercise of your world.

The main work is to take notes of your self-diagnosis in order to analyse and, trying to understand our behaviours, so that we can find solutions for a better tomorrow. This looks like a big work but it will give you a lot of satisfaction.

“A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” Albert Camus

Process based on two methodologies:

• Maieutics: the idea is that the truth is latent in the mind of every human being due to his innate reason but has to be "given birth" by answering questions intelligently proposed. It uses dialogue as a dialectic instrument to reach truth. The basic elements of the dialogues are the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion. Normally it is thought that it was created by Socrates, because it is placed in the character of Socrates in the Theatetus of Plato. But it is not proven that the historical Socrates is the original author, although it has to do with the Socratic School. 

• Meditation: is a self-directed practice by which the practitioner attempts to relax the body and calm the mind. The goal is to go beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Most meditative techniques have been practiced since antiquity and have come to the West from Eastern religious practices, particularly India, China, and Japan, but can be found in all cultures of the world. Recently studies have found that regular meditation can reduce healthcare uses (pain, anxiety, stress…), increase longevity and quality of life. By using meditation, we create an inner space of clarity that enables us to control our mind regardless external circumstances. Slowly we develop mental stability, a balanced mind, rather than an unbalanced mind that oscillates between the extremes of excitement and hopelessness. If we train in meditation regularly, eventually, we will be able to get rid of our mind the needs and desires, that are the causes of all our issues and suffering. In this way, we will come to experience a permanent inner peace, known as “liberation” or “nirvana”. 

IV. 17 steps for your Introspection

Guidelines:

• Find a notebook: it is necessary to take notes of this self-diagnosis in order to remember our feelings and help us to free our mind when thoughts are coming up.
• Structure of the notes:  based on questions, answers, debates with your friends or colleagues and the conclusions.  
• Find a quite place: with no intrusion possibilities (no telephone, no computer,…)
• 1 step every day: +/- 45 min
• After the 17 steps, you stop for 1 week and examine your notes.
• Repeat this exercise 3 times: don’t forget to take notes of the evolution of your Introspection.
• You can practice this everywhere with everyone at your home, work, in your car, when walking… 

Watch, Learn & Act

• Part 1: The observation of the body
• Part 2: The observation of the mind: feelings; thoughts; dreams; perceptions; imagination; creativity and knowledge; and consciousness.
• Part 3: Living a spiritual lifestyle: compassion; moral consciousness; disidentification; detachment; achievement; blossoming of the heart and love
• The conclusion

Part 1. The observation of the body

Meditating is easier than you imagine. We start by paying attention to our breathing. The practical effort to focus completely on our breathing takes our minds away from the thoughts that constantly tries to invade our mind and eliminate feelings that will lead to a time of calm. With repeated effort the goal of clearing your mind – to think of nothing, does occur and the process of meditation takes on its own energy. The result is, and I guarantee this, is self-awareness, peace, serenity and eventually opening yourself to new insights.

Here are useful links and tools to help you to meditate:

• Welcome to the Meditation Room.
• This site includes audio-guided meditation 

When meditating concentrate on all your physical sensations. Feel the pressure of the seated body resting on different points on hard surfaces. Fell the rhythm of your breathing, the feeling of the air that penetrates into your lungs and goes out through your nose. Become aware of the presence of the air around you, feel it in your face. Pay attention to your blood circulation. Perceive the warmth of its inner movement. Realize that you are the quiet observer of your life, and that consequently, you are distinct from what you perceive.

Who practices that kind of observation during a meditation, will get the feeling of a very deep calm that grows little by little. Do this regularly and the feeling of being the observer and not the observed body itself will become more and more intense.

In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums. Concentrate and go beyond your normal feelings, use your senses differently.

Part 2: The observation of the mind

2. The observation of the mind: feelings 

Review the feelings that link you to people, places, things, memories, work or actions. Do that quietly, without pending a lot of time on each evocation of feelings. It is enough to identify the whole of your sentimental ties to see that inside you there is a sentimental current that potentially attaches you to this or that person, to this or that hope, to this or that memory, to this or that work. See one by one your sentimental ties, because doing that, you will be able, little by little, to discern your affective structure.

Observe in this way, positive as well as negative ties. If a feeling of rancour or frustration links you to a decision or person, look at it as an indifferent spectator. Verify objectively the situation. Look at it with attentive curiosity, without any value judgement. Look at it as you look at a strange animal walking in the woods.

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new feelings.

Love, passion, disappointment, hate, sadness or happiness, arise in you as clouds and lightning arise in the sky. They don't ask your permission to do so. They come, they go, and they develop independently from your will.

Contemplating one by one all your sentimental potentialities, understand that they create some phenomena that are produced spontaneously, without your intervention. Verify that your reality lies behind all sentimental turmoil’s or harmonies.

Your competence for observation can only grow step by step, when you give up haste. What is acquired with patience is progressively reflected in your life and activities.

3. The observation of the mind: thoughts 

You have learned in the two first steps how to meditate, and observe your body and feelings. Now, during your meditation, close your eyes and contemplate whatever happens inside you.

See your thoughts come and go. See attentively how they follow one another. How new ones come and join them. No effort from your mind is required. You meditate; you stay quietly attentive, observing the mind's movements. If you become aware of a multitude of thoughts, look at them passively. You are the observer of your thoughts.

This practice is up to you, it requires time and perseverance.

4. The observation of the mind: dreams

When you are in a state of profound, dreamless sleep, you go on existing. What remains of you? Only the fact of existing. There are no physical feelings; no mental perception or mental consciousness, there is only the consciousness of the being without content.

Remember the last time you were in deep sleep. What were you then? Try to feel or remember it. To feel in you this pure being is to feel something that in this very instant you have in common with profound meditation.

Understand that the fact of existing underlies the states of wakefulness, sleep with dreams and sleep without dreams: these are just different shows.

If you ignore all external and internal perceptions, you immediately find again in yourself the consciousness without content, which was your state of consciousness during your last period of deep sleep.

5.The observation of the mind: perceptions 

All things, which exist, have in common the fact of being. This is obvious when said, but it must be experienced. Is this fact of being, common to all things, unique or multiple?

Multiplicity rests upon separation and distinction. What is multiple and distinct are the perceptions of the forms of existence. The fact of being is all perceptions and all forms of existences.

Therefore nothing separates your being form your neighbour's or a chair's or a table's. What distinguishes has to do with the forms of existence, but not with the being, which is a unique and universal reality.

Look attentively at the first thing that comes under your eyes and then get rid of all the characteristics, which permit to identify the material appearance of what is contemplated. What is left? The informal void.

Through perception upon immanence we understand that in any human being as in everything, which exists, lies the same fact of being and struggle for identity.

While contemplating a man, an animal, a plant or a mineral, you can feel that the same and unique consciousness which is in yourself abides in what ever you are contemplating.

6. The observation of the mind: imagination 

For the human being, the world is an objective reality, because he has the same degree of reality as all that surrounds him. But, for the conscience, it is just a dream.

Look around you and realize that you do not know anything but your perceptions and your knowledge. This "external" world is just a set of coherent perceptions without deep reality. A big part of them are illusions to look for security and comfort. Do not just understand this, live it, feel it, think it. That is why it is essential that we seek to develop new and ingenious approaches to perceive and live in our world.

Remember briefly that all the perceptions that from the beginning of your life have joined one another until they produced what you perceive now. Realize that it is nothing but an experience, of which each day is an episode.

Try to think that the important issues that we are confronted with cannot be resolved by the thought patterns from which they arose. Try to break the rules that have locked you in a set way of thinking. Discover the power of innovation, try to change your environment, your opinions and share your new observations.

Once you have achieved this way of thinking, try to maintain it. Creativity lives from day to day, from minute to minute, as an figment of your imagination. By doing this, you achieve total innovation. Your outlook toward things will completely change.

It is with that kind of perception that your create total freedom and independence with your consciousness. Creative people create the world by thinking it. What you perceive is just a fragment of this immense amount of possibilities. Who is aware that evolution exists as pure being, contemplates the on-going creation of the world.

7. The observation of the mind: creativity and knowledge 

The quest who leads to the knowledge in whom you see the unique and eternal evolution, from which you cannot be dissociated. You have two faces, you are creativity on the level of the essence, and you are the human being on the level of rationality.

That is why creativity and knowledge do not exclude each other.

Creativity leads to knowledge, and knowledge can be accompanied by creativity.

Remaining present in the human being, raise your feelings towards the information presence.

8. The observation of the mind: consciousness 

It has been 7 days that you have been practicing and writing your observations assiduously; you may now know by experience that you perceive your-self but that you are not completely your-self. Perhaps the question "Who am I?" arises. It is no use answering this question with a ready-made intellectual theory. You must frequently ask yourself that question and listen to the inner response. Only then, you will experience the pure "I".

Find a quite place and position, close your eyes and hear the noise which comes to you. After that, pay attention to body feelings and to thoughts. After remaining in this way, attentive to physical and mental perceptions you will clearly perceive that you are independent from your perceptions: you are the witness.

At this moment, bring your attention to consciousness itself. Then you perceive that there is silence, void, immobile space. Concentrating on this perception you enter this void and this silence without beginning or end. You realize as spectator that this thought has no limit. This spectator is your-self and you experience your absence of limits and the reality of your void.

Do not try to reject physical or psychic perceptions, just become aware of what is behind them. Perceptions exist only on the surface of consciousness and you should learn to perceive its depths.

To discover that depth and slowly immerse oneself in it, requires a regular practice of meditation.

Part 3. Living a spiritual lifestyle

9. Living a spiritual lifestyle: compassion

Observation of the human being must be accomplished daily. It would be good, if possible, to keep every day, a period of time in which, in silence, quietly seated and immobile, you make a long observation of thoughts and feelings.

Independently from this practice, it is particularity important to integrate this observation into your daily life. Observe with compassion the Human in a general way, in all circumstances. Observe him walking, speaking or working. Observe happiness and sadness, disappointment and enjoyment, quietness and anxiety, shyness and eccentricity, competitiveness or combativeness, which come and later go. It is a question of training. Many are the results deriving from this practice.

Through observation, comes self-awareness, through awareness of self, self-esteem which reaches all possibilities beyond the Human.

In this presentation, psychologist and award-winning author of Emotional Intelligence and other books on EI, Daniel Goleman, illustrates traditional measures of compassion as a predictor of life success.

For this first exercise, watch, take notes and think about “Seneca on Anger ” video. Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the questions, the answers, the debate and the conclusions.

With this practice, you will understand that high expectation without psychological preparation can generate anger and negative reactions of your behaviour. You will reach a state of total quietness from which the reasoning mind is absent when angry. Because life is very simple when the mind is prepared to react to surprising situations.

Seneca on Anger 1 of 3

Seneca on Anger 2 of 3

Seneca on Anger 3 of 3

This awareness belongs only to those who work with perseverance to make it arise in them.

10. Living a spiritual lifestyle: moral consciousness

Objective observation is presence for oneself. It is moral consciousness grow. The understanding of what is good or bad, what is beautiful or mediocre, what we should do and what we should not do, arises spontaneously, giving an adequate answer to every situation.

In this part, there is no question of adopting any code of behaviour imposed by any country, religion, school, company or social group, because in this way only misjudgement and dissatisfaction will come to you.

For the following exercise, watch, take notes and think about “Montaigne on Self-Esteem” video. Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the questions, the answers, the debate and the conclusions.

After, this exercise, make a list and explain 6 of your moral values. Try to perceive something that you think is negative. This will help you to understand and become aware of your own values. Don’t do this to fast, take your time to intensely think about your value drivers.

With this practice, you will perceive that the more intense your awareness, the more negative elements of your behaviour will become paralyzed and later, definitely stopped. You will reach a state of total spontaneity, humility, modesty from which the reasoning mind is absent. Because life is very simple when the mind's complications are dissolved. Step by step, you are lucid, ready, adapted to reality.

Montaigne on Self-Esteem 1 of 3

Montaigne on Self-Esteem 2 of 3

Montaigne on Self-Esteem 3 of 3

11. Living a spiritual lifestyle: desidentification

The more you advance in the art of objective observation, the stronger the feeling of being something else than what you observe, will be. You are the subject who observes. Body, feelings and thoughts are the objects of your observations.

Understanding this intellectually, will take you nowhere. What will bring about deep transformation is, to actually live this understanding, from day to day, from instant to instant.




For the next exercise, watch, take notes and think about “Epicurus on Happiness ” video. Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion.

This an philosophical way to obtaining detachment. It requires daily work, in order to achieve a constant and later spontaneous discrimination between you and your perceptions.

In so doing, your way of considerate existence will undergo a deep change. Before, when you said "I" you meant body, feeling and thoughts. You meant "my body, my feelings, my thoughts". But now, you perceive more and more intensely that this identification to body, feelings and thoughts was erroneous. You are neither body nor feelings nor thoughts.

Each step on this path brings about an increase of your inner freedom.

Epicurus on Happiness 1 of 3

Epicurus on Happiness 2 of 3

Epicurus on Happiness 3 of 3

12. Living a spiritual lifestyle: detachment

As a result of the practice of objective observation, detachment will come. You realize that everything in you that desires, needs, fears or regrets, is outside you. They are simple perceptions that you contemplate as a silent witness.

You do this whenever attachment manifests itself and, is this way, little by little, you establish total detachment in yourself. No painful renouncement is required. It is quietly and silently becoming aware which brings liberation from all psychological sufferings and needs. All psychological sufferings are a consequence of attachment. Nothing is permanent, therefore, any attachment to persons, things, plans or to the past, brings suffering. Only the person who is not attached goes through the existence with a calm and serene heart.

Very often attachment is confused with ascetism. Yet, then are two very different things; the detachment we are referring to has nothing to do with any kind of ascetism. You can enjoy everything in this life without being attached to anything. Enjoyment is perception. What is means is not to be identified with body or mind and always remain the observer. It does not mean not to feel any desire but, what is means is to observe with objectivity satisfying or not satisfying the desires produced by the personality. Doing that, you do not develop any physical or emotional insensitivity but, because you are developing awareness.

Detachment is possible for those who do not go in the nature or in a monastery and who carry on their life while at the same time having a family and professional activity.

Mathieu Ricard on the habits of happiness

13. Living a spiritual lifestyle: Being as…

 My perceptions are the perceptions of what?

This question cannot be answered by any philosophical theory. What is required is, by a series of trials and through and extreme refinement of your sensitivity to feel that, beyond any perception or thought, there is the fact of being and that this fact is a conscious fact. In this very instant you exist.

Feel "I am", "I exist", “I think” and perceive that this feeling contains immensity and void. This fact of existing is free from all perceptions and outside thoughts. Make the experience of this inexpressible reality. Close your eyes. Forget the world. Forget even the memory of the world. Imagine that you do not perceive your body any more and verify that you continue to exist.

For the next exercise, watch, take notes and think about “Socrates on Self-Confidence” video. Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion.

After that work, imagine now that you stop thinking and verify that you still exist. Perceive your pure existence. Ignore everything and feel the energy of that is nameless.

This an philosophical way to think about self-confidence. It requires daily work, in order to achieve a constant and later spontaneous discrimination between you and your motivations.

Socrates on Self-Confidence part 1 of 3

Socrates on Self-Confidence part 2 of 3

Socrates on Self-Confidence part 3 of 3

14. Living a spiritual lifestyle: achievement 

To remain conscious of your-self is to remain awake. First you must discover awakening and then work through inner recalling to establishing a state of permanent awakening which will remain unalterable in all circumstances. This is the basis of the initiating discipline. Its daily accomplishment will lead to spiritual realization and success.

Being awake while you are active means to concentrate on what is being accomplished. When you are absorbed in what you are doing the notion of pleasant or unpleasant activity disappears you are what you are doing, and you experience inner peace and energy. The more perfect the concentration on the action, the more useless thoughts are excluded, at the same time, the easier it becomes to perceive the efficiency of what you are doing.

As example, watch next video and analyse Nietzsche way of thinking. Does we really need to suffer to be happy ? Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion.

In this way, little by little you verify that at all times while the human being carries out any activity, you must remain concentrated, objective about the hardships and trying to understand the benefits of your actions. You realize that failure is part of the success.

Nietzsche on Hardship 1 of 3

Nietzsche on Hardship 2 of 3

Nietzsche on Hardship 3 of 3

15. Living a spiritual lifestyle: blossoming of the heart

All perfection potentially lies in the void of the "non manifested". This is why, through consciousness and self-awareness, man becomes the receptacle and the place where great qualities manifest themselves.

The more you remain involved in the self-being quest the more love fills you. It is an uninterrupted flow of passion, which pours over you and towards your creations.

Like we said earlier, change your rules and learn to open the doors of your heart. Look carefully at someone while keeping your mind objective and receptive. Without any mental reaction or judgment. You will develop a better understanding of his personality. If you change your way of looking and behave to people, love will become for you as natural as breathing. This subtle art is indispensable if we want peace, love and harmony to be no longer just words but a living reality. Our common goal should be to attain symbiosis with this greater system whose equilibrium must be preserved by sharing our past experience and developing our respect for its future. All societies should strive to evolve in this manner!

When there is attention, lucidity, and mental silence, love springs up. It is a pure lifestyle which expresses itself for the pleasure of loving, expecting nothing in return. Such is the secret of love. Life is transfigured in daily love of things, plants, animals, human beings and the whole of nature.



Bob Thurman says we can be Buddha’s

16. Living a spiritual lifestyle: love 

The self-being manifests himself under the form of women, men, children, old people, and friends… It is you, you should love, through the people with whom you maintain privileged relationships.

When you love your feelings cease to fix and overcome themselves into this or that individuality. You will still love, but it will no longer be possible for you to be separated from the object of your love. Your love will be universal, without any stingy attachment. Learn to love behind the appearances of the multiple.

For this last exercise, watch, take notes and think about “Schopenhauer on Love ” video. Focus on the mainstream elements of the dialogues: the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion.

Schopenhauer on Love 1 of 3

Schopenhauer on Love 2 of 3

Schopenhauer on Love 3 of 3

17. Conclusion

We must understand that the spirituality is independent from our body and mind. That self-awareness can refer to an fundamental or immaterial reality and also an inner path helping people to discover the essence of their being or their deepest values and meanings by which they live.

We have to understand that spirituality is based on two phases process: the first on inner growth, and the second on the manifestation of this result by actions in the daily world.

Spiritual practices, including, mediation and observation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life. Such practices bring awareness on the self, the other individuals, the society or even the nature. It is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life.

That’s why, we should consider that the ability to live with our environment is derived from an attitude based on optimism and willpower. That experience and wisdom should go hand in hand: the former is insufficient without the latter. That our aim, rather than the accumulation of wealth, should be to lead a balanced existence within a vital and sacred environment. That our common goal is to integrate self-awareness and the respect of our environment in our daily activities. This integration of a spiritual dimension in our everyday lives may well be key to achieving sustainable development.