what is conscious?
What do we mean by Conscious Living? In all that we think, feel, experience, say and are, we have a choice. We can consciously choose to take the lower ground – to compete, fight, force, self-sabotage, put down and detract – or we can choose the higher ground – to support & share, be kind, generous, equanimous and peaceful in our daily interactions.
We can spend our small income each month on fast fashion, trinkets, tokens, ‘junk’ food, or we can save and savour it – staycationing & camping, planting up our garden, supporting small local makers and ethical producers, and choosing to put our energetic ‘currency’ into good people doing good things. That’s a huge part of what this journal is about – sharing stories of makers, crafters, writers & peaceful protestors/disruptors, and their independent shops and start-up businesses, books & blogs, that are slowly, communally, changing the world for the better.
All of these good choices are rooted in one thing: nature.
My family and I choose to live our lives in tune with the seasons, forgiving on our selves, soft on our spirits and gentle on our minds. Sattva – the name of mine & my husband’s first book published by Hay House – literally means ‘consciousness’. The root of the word, ‘Sat’ also means truth. So, when we live in a conscious way – in line with higher purpose, kindness, goodness – we naturally walk a path of truthfulness: aligning with Mother Nature; wanting to protect this precious earth; advocating for those who are less fortunate than us, and our children, who have not yet found their voices or find it harder to be heard; sharing a gentle message of goodness and peacefulness in the work that we choose to do, the companies we choose to support, the communities we become part of.
We make truly conscious choices – we feel our way into life, knowing that this ‘feels’ wrong and this ‘feels’ good. Even if we are so often told that the good stuff equates to wealth, status, possessions, we can feel the truth: and it was from a place of busy, over-working, commuting, juggling & struggling, where we outwardly had ‘succeeded’, yet felt lonelier and sadder than ever, that we realised the real truth.
There are three primal energies in our universe – the gunas.
Sattva is creation – life, love, light
Tamas is destruction – obstruction, darkness, inertia
Rajas is movement – the dynamism between Sattva and Tamas
Modern life is highly deficient in Sattva
When we are rushing, racing, reacting, and competing with others for success, or have found ourselves in a dog-eat-dog environment, we are entirely overwhelmed by rajas. We are propelled by fire, aggression, competition. When we work, single-mindedly, to own things, achieve material wealth, purchase new clothes, shoes, cars, and assess our ‘value’ in this way, we are very much weighed down by tamas. We are heavy with ‘stuff’, ownership, clutter, trophies.
For most of us, a mixture of these qualities (gunas) is at play. What modern life rarely provides is, ironically, the thing that most of us are lacking. Sattva is our antidote. It chooses community over competition, and the greater good over self-serving ambition. It chooses levity and light, over the weight of debt, possessions, and clutter. Hearteningly, we really are catching on – as more and more individuals choose to leave the rat race behind, and forge a way of living that is wholly in keeping with their sattvic values – where simplicity, community and harmony lead the way. But what if you cannot leave the rat race? What if you have hugest and heaviest responsibilities and have to keep on keeping on, in order to keep a roof above your family’s heads, and food on the table? We would say, from experience, that there is always a conscious choice to be made.
We have two children, a mortgage, a car, and myriad responsibilities. We want to live as close to nature as possible – yet we live in a small terraced cottage (not off-grid, in a yurt on a beach, in a forest, or self-sustained). We drive a car and take our children to a relatively traditional village school. We work to provide what our family needs – and much of the time that means working pretty hard. We chose the countryside over the city, because living costs are lower (the commute, when necessary, is convenient – if astronomically expensive, though – hence why we no longer commute everyday, and have engineered careers that are primarily home-based). We lease a hybrid car that is safe and economical. We have a very clear idea of when we should and should not be using our devices – which we learned through trial and error; using a mobile phone right up until bedtime makes us fractious, over-tired, anxious and almost always affects our sleep. There are no hard and fast rules, because real lives always produce exceptions – but there is a sense of better-flowing between the ups and downs, ebbs and flows, and choosing to do a lot more of the stuff that brings sattva into our lives, while simultaneously reducing the amount of rajas and tamas in the picture.
So… how to soften the frenzy of modern life? And how to remain optimistic when you’ve been knocked down, hard, or feel continually wrong-footed or challenged by life? By rooting a series of the most deeply nourishing spiritual practices into your daily life… the cream in the coffee; the smooth with the rough; the slow for the unstoppable. These are spirit-nourishing practices and ideas, that plant a pretty seed, and then encourage you to help it bloom, and I share many of them here, on the Journal.
Rituals for the Spirit – or ‘Spirituals’
This process is beautifully explained by the literal meaning of the word “samskara.” The prefix sam means “well thought out”, and kara means “the action undertaken.” Spirituals are all rooted in the conscious CHOOSING of an act, performed with full awareness. A beautiful ritual or rite, to invite more ease, light, calm and beauty into our lives. When we perform such an action, a subtle impression is deposited in our mind-field. Each time the action is repeated, the impression becomes stronger. This is how a habit is formed. The stronger the habit, the less mastery we have over our mind when we try to execute an action that is contrary to our habit patterns. We all have seen how our habit patterns subtly yet powerfully motivate our thoughts, speech, and actions. There are many of these ideas and rituals in our book, Sattva. They can be as simple as lighting a candle before the sun rises, or sitting beneath the full moon, before bed. As a family we have not turned our backs on modern living, and certainly not on worldly pleasure, but the scope of the presiding vision and the qualities of mind which drive that living. We believe that heightened being is to be found in simplicity, stillness and choice which consciously embrace the whole.
Sattva, then, is self-care at its most pure and conscious and connected – and it is the foundation we lay here, on the blog (and in our daily lives). It is not the single act of replenishment to offset a truly terrible and challenging day – it is the mindset that transforms the truly terrible day into one that we learn from, and that harms us less. It is the shift in consciousness that puts the magic back into the plainest moments, and makes the struggle evaporate… it’s the perspective, the gratitude, the simple goodness of life’s ‘every day’ small things… this, truly, is Sattva – available to us all.
