- Understanding Awareness as Curative: Leo Gura emphasizes that awareness alone can act as a cure for unwanted behaviors. Rather than using will force and action to alter behaviors, shining the light of awareness on the behavior can eventually dissolve the unwanted behavior. This principle is rooted in the belief that it is impossible to engage in unhealthy behavior while fully conscious.
- Neurotic Behaviors and Awareness: Neurotic behaviors are defined as unhealthy behaviors that an individual wants to change, but also secretly wants to keep, thus manifesting as self-sabotaging patterns. Instead of applying force to change these behaviors, Leo suggests the application of awareness to understand why these behaviors are still present.
- Alternative Approach to Dealing with Unwanted Behaviors: A different approach to dealing with unwanted behaviors is to employ observation, a core component of awareness, giving the problem time to autocorrect itself. The awareness method does not require the individual to actively do anything, making it versatile and applicable to various problems.
- Continual Awareness Necessary for Effective Change: For the principle "awareness alone is curative" to work, it requires the continual and full consciousness of the individual during the entire duration of the unwanted behavior. An individual must be aware throughout the whole episode of unhealthy behavior for it to cease naturally. This process necessitates patience and consistent application over time.
- Awareness vs 'Knowing': It's essential to distinguish between 'knowing' and 'being aware.' An individual might 'know' that smoking is harmful, but when they smoke without full awareness, the harmful activity may continue. The principle claims that if one smokes with total awareness, one would not be able to continue the unhealthy activity as the damaging effects become clearly apparent.
- Principle Application Example - Eating Junk Food: An example of applying the principle is in the case of eating junk food. The traditional approach would involve guilt, restriction, and willpower which often lead to temporary success and relapse. With the awareness method, one can consciously engage in eating junk food but observe each dimension of the activity with full consciousness including the sensations, feelings, and the aftermath of the behavior. With time, one's awareness should naturally lead to a lessening of the unhealthy activity.
- Awareness as a Way to Alter Eating Habits: Leo Gura suggests that one can change the pattern of consuming unhealthy food by engaging in it consciously and with full awareness rather than prohibiting oneself. Placing an order for your favorite high-calorie food without any guilt, but with complete understanding of what it would lead to. Observing what the food (e.g. greasy cheeseburger, fries, etc.) looks and tastes like, how it feels when we eat it, and the impacts it has on our body post-consumption, all done without any judgment or self-criticism.
- Maintaining Consciousness During Unhealthy Behaviors: The only way we can engage in unhealthy behaviors like binge-watching television while eating large amounts of ice cream is by diverting our attention away from the consequences of our actions. Such acts of distraction are a mechanism to engage our minds in something other than the awareness of our negative actions.
- Comparison Between Awareness and Logical Knowing: Awareness is not the same as logical knowing. Despite logically understanding the harmful effects of an action like smoking, it does not suffice to change someone's behavior. Awareness is an in-the-moment observation of what one is doing while logical knowing involves storing information as a memory to recall later.
- Development of Awareness Muscles: Awareness is similar to a muscle that can be exercised and developed through consistent application. People may lapse into periods of unconsciousness where they lose sight of their actions, but this muscle can be exercised to maintain consistent awareness. Regardless of intelligence, what matters in eliminating unwanted behaviors is the strength of one's awareness muscle.
- Application of Awareness in Personal Growth: Being fully aware helps in understanding and unraveling deep-rooted unwanted behaviors that are affecting personal development. Achieving awareness is about observing our actions like a scientist would, without any interference or judgment. Over time, the patterns of our actions become clear and lead to self-awareness, thus facilitating change.
- Moralizing vs Awareness: In this section, Gura underlines the difference between moralizing and awareness. Moralizing involves judgemental thoughts like: "This bacon is bad for my health and will make me fat". He asserts such thoughts are not awareness, but actually, lack thereof. Moralizing is seen as an unwanted behavior that needs to be watched and observed until it's naturally discontinued.
- Role of Ego: He explains that ego attempts to micromanage everything for happiness and avoidance of suffering. But, often, this control-oriented behavior counteracts the positive work, comparing it to a micromanaging boss. For personal growth, one must let go of the ego's need for control and surrender to awareness instead.
- Awareness is not suppression: Gura stipulates that awareness is not about suppressing desires or actions. The practice of awareness involves doing what you naturally want to do while simultaneously being aware. He emphasizes the importance of not manipulating your behavior while being aware.
- The Consistent practice of Awareness: Gura encourages viewers to consistently practice awareness without interfering in the situation. He compares this mechanism with a scientist who quietly and unobtrusively records birds' behaviors without meddling. He advises to just trust the method and its effectiveness will prove itself over time.
- Applications of Awareness: Gura cites multiple potential applications of awareness - from dealing with overeating, procrastination, shyness to treating depression, anger, anxiety, and fear. He discusses addressing issues like shyness or depression through the practice of awareness. For instance, to overcome shyness, observe oneself being shy in the moment - the thoughts, emotions, body reactions, and how people react to your shyness. By staying aware, one can gradually overcome these problems.
- The Importance of Patience and Consistency: Gura re-emphasizes that developing awareness in challenging scenarios like depression requires patience and consistency. The continued application of awareness could reach a point where unhappiness or fear becomes impossible because you will become aware of how you are creating these states. This process requires faith in the power of awareness. He concludes by highlighting the versatility and foundational nature of this principle in personal growth.
- Understanding the Mind as a Complex Network of Thoughts and Beliefs: Leo Gura explores the mind's complexity as an expansive network of thoughts and beliefs. This system defines personality and guides actions. However, it tends to preserve a status quo (homeostasis), making any attempt to introduce change challenging since one is not outside the system but is the system itself.
- Awareness as the Key to Change: Gura suggests that trying to modify the system from inside often fails because thoughts cannot fundamentally alter other thoughts. Instead, genuine, deep-seated change arises from cultivating awareness. By increasing awareness, the system of beliefs can naturally restructure itself.
- Significance of Awareness over Force: Gura points out that attempting to enforce change often backfires as this force originates from the same labyrinth of concepts one wants to transform, causing self-sabotage. It is suggested that change occurs naturally as awareness is heightened, offering a more effective and less disruptive route to personal transformation.
- Conceptual Acceptance of Forces Beyond Self: It is emphasized that one's network of beliefs should grasp the existence of influences beyond oneself and surrender to them. Even though this process initially involves feeding more thoughts into the system, it eventually triggers a sense of awareness and insight that fuels genuine change.
- Development of Awareness: Awareness is developed simply by practicing awareness daily. Establishing a meditation habit is an effective approach. As one's awareness 'muscle' strengthens, undesirable behaviors and problems naturally dissipate.
- Transformative Power of Awareness Through Understanding: As one delves further into understanding the distinctions between thoughts, consciousness, awareness, and reality, the transformative power of awareness unfolds. This discovery and process, albeit challenging, have the potential to completely shift one's life experience with sufficient commitment and patience.