Living and Working as Training in Awareness
Image by Nathan Reboucas on Unsplash
When living and working are approached as means for survival, security, or getting something, life is inevitably accompanied by fear. Attention narrows. Energy contracts. Every obstacle feels personal, and every uncertainty feels threatening.
But when living and working are seen differently—as training in accessing the capacity of awareness—the entire quality of life changes.
In this orientation, life is no longer something to secure yourself against.
It becomes a field in which awareness learns to function more fully.
From survival to participation
Survival-mode living is driven by the assumption that your existence depends on people, objects, outcomes, or conditions. From this assumption arise fear, resistance, and constant mental effort to control life.
Training-mode living rests on a different understanding:
awareness—the field itself—is the source of your existence.
When this is seen, even subtly:
fear loses its root
resistance softens
acceptance appears naturally
You no longer meet life as a threat to your being, but as a space for intelligent participation.
How to know the field of awareness is the source of our existence?
Suppose something appears in your life that makes you feel anxious or excited. You notice that the emotion arises, stays for a while, and then disappears.
But what is noticing the emotion does not fluctuate.
If emotions were the source of your existence, you would disappear when they disappear. Yet you remain. What remains is the field of awareness. It may feel personal—like “yours”—but it is impersonal, belonging to existence itself.
Your sense of being comes from this unmoving background, not from the passing waves of thoughts and emotions.
The sense of being has no location
Ask yourself gently:
Where exactly is the feeling of “I am,” or the sense of being aware?
Is it:
In the head?
In the chest?
In the body?
Look carefully. It has no definite location. Yet it is undeniably real.
What has no location cannot be a thing.
It is a field—the field of awareness or being.
Awareness is prior to possession
Consider this thought experiment:
Imagine God gives you an entire universe—but removes your awareness.
You now “possess” a universe, yet you are aware of nothing.
Would that universe have any meaning to you?
Without awareness, possession is meaningless.
Without awareness, existence cannot be known.
This reveals something fundamental:
Awareness is what makes having, knowing, and being possible at all. That’s the source of your existence. Rely on it.
Obstacles as functional, not personal
In survival-mode, obstacles are enemies.
In awareness-training, obstacles are functional.
They reveal:
where identification still contracts perception
where intelligence is needed rather than reaction
Instead of reacting immediately, you become still and see.
The field holds the situation. Insight or direction emerges—not through force, but through clarity.
Sometimes the obstacle itself reveals how it can be used.
Work and service without fear
When action is no longer driven by getting or protecting:
work becomes expressive rather than compulsive
service replaces grasping
effort becomes lighter and more sustainable
You cooperate with people, systems, and the material world without fear of losing.
The world is no longer something you must secure yourself from.
It becomes something you work with.
Living more fully, not less
This approach does not mean withdrawal from life.
It does not deny practical needs like money, health, or structure.
It simply shifts their role:
from source of security
to objects of intelligent cooperation
With this shift, life is felt more fully:
perception becomes clearer
relationships become more direct
action becomes timely and intelligent
Fear diminishes not because life becomes predictable, but because awareness no longer depends on prediction of what will happen. It is a light unto itself, bright here-now.
The deepest layer of true productivity
Seen from this perspective, living and working as training in awareness is the deepest layer of true productivity.
Most ideas of productivity focus on speed, output, consistency, and results. These operate at the surface level of action. But action itself arises from something deeper—from perception, clarity, energy, and freedom from inner conflict.
When awareness is primary, productivity is addressed at its source. Attention becomes stable. Energy is no longer wasted in resistance or overthinking.
Decisions become fewer, clearer, and more accurate. You do not need to push yourself to act. You see what needs to be done—and what is clearly seen tends to be done cleanly. This is productivity without friction.
Obstacles no longer drain energy; they refine perception.
Work becomes a feedback loop for clarity rather than a struggle for results.
Learning compounds naturally, without burnout.
Results improve not because they are chased, but because action emerges from a deeper order.
This does not mean passivity or lack of structure. Deadlines still matter. Skills still develop. Discipline still exists—but it is no longer imposed by will. Structure serves clarity, not the other way around.
When awareness is the goal, productivity becomes a byproduct.
When productivity is the goal, awareness is often sacrificed. When productivity is pursued at the expense of awareness, burnout and giving up are the natural outcome.
In this sense, true productivity begins where awareness is primary and effort becomes intelligent.
An attitude ( training) and the recognition that awareness is the source of your existence are something no one can take from you. When this becomes primary, it becomes your greatest asset. You can walk through life with quiet confidence. And from that ground, life can be lived—fully, intelligently, and with quiet joy.