Awareness creates greater choice

• Awareness precedes choice and choice precedes results. Robin S. Sharma
• The more conscious we are, the more freedom of choice we experience. Tim Freke
• Without awareness there is no freedom. Awareness is vital for any possibility of free choice. Simon Boylan
• The more conscious we become the more consciously we choose that which we set in motion to create. Caroline Myss
• I realized that the more awareness I have, the more choice I have in how I create or respond to the circumstances of my life. Shakti Gawain
• Once you start to question your life you get to a higher level of awareness. It’s like turning a light on-voila you see you have choices and choices are sacred. Naomi Judd
• Your choices are really very limited. They are limited by your level of awareness. If you can change your level of awareness radically, then you can change your destiny. Frederick Lenz
• Every human has four endowments- self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change. Stephen Covey
• The good news is that . . . humans are gifted by the potential for self-awareness and intelligent choice, and knowing our circumstance is an invitation to change. William E. Rees
• With awareness, we have choice, the freedom to choose, free will. It is choice that gives us power. Power which is energy. Energy that allows us to move forward in alignment with our choices. Laura Kangas
• We are conscious co-creators in the evolution of life. We have free will. And we have choices. Consequently our success is based on our choices, which are, in turn, totally dependent on our awareness. Bruce H. Lipton
• The first step toward personal freedom is awareness. We need to be aware that we are not free in order to be free. We need to be aware of what the problem is in order to solve the problem. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don’t have to be swept away by your feeling. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity. Henepola Gunaratana
• All it takes for generosity to flow is awareness. By actively pursuing awareness and knowledge, we can make choices that cause less harm and greater good to others in the global community of our shared earth. Zoe Weil
• It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice. William Glasser
• With awareness there comes choice. And so you are able to say: “I allow this moment to be as it is”. And then, suddenly, where before there was irritation, there is now a sense of aliveness and peace. And out of that comes right action. Eckhart Tolle
• We create our own destiny with our choices and decisions. We can base these decisions upon the awareness of our inner truth or we can base them on reactions to outer circumstances. This power always belongs to us. No one can take it from us. Gail Pursell Elliott
• Self-awareness is the ability to recognise and understand your moods, emotions and drives. By understanding your feelings, motivations and behaviours in more depth, you can begin to act more consciously in order to make better choices for yourself. Dr Nadine Sammy
• Silence allows you to watch your mind and become aware of the thoughts that you may be acting on unconsciously. When you see the thoughts, you can make a conscious choice to act on the thought or change your mind, instead of going along with the noise. Sivananda Radha Saraswati
• Becoming mindfully aware of the stories we spin about our physical discomfort quiets and steadies the mind so that the “mud” settles and we can see the thoughts more clearly. Then we have a choice. We can continue to blindly believe them or we can calmly assess their validity. Toni Bernhard, J.D.
• … my life has been dedicated to my growth and evolution as a conscious being. … becoming more aware of all that was taking place within me and around me; how my inner world affected my outer world and vice versa. I realized that the more awareness I have, the more choice I have in how I create or respond to the circumstances of my life. Shakti Gawain
• Choice implies consciousness – a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present….Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life. Eckhart Tolle
• Awareness by itself is not enough: it must be joined by mastery. We need gradually to develop a steering ability to keep ourselves from slipping mechanically into this or that sub-personality. Thus we become able to identify with each part of our being as we wish. We can have more choice. It is the difference between being impotently transported by a roller coaster and, instead, driving a car and being able to choose which way to go and for what purpose to make the journey. Piero Ferrucci
• In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment – independent will – that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day. Stephen Covey

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…providing the choice how to respond…

• Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness. Stephen Covey
• Between stimulus and response, you have the freedom to choose your response based on self-awareness, your imagination, your conscience and your independent will. Stephen Covey
• Awareness is like bringing a light to the darkness of mindless reactions. Once you can see them more clearly, you can choose to respond more skillfully. Bob Stahl
• Mindfulness is a pause – the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies. Tara Brach
• The conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions. E. Stanley Jones
• If your struggle with the conflicting parts of yourself is conscious, you are able to choose consciously the response that will create the karma that you desire. You will be able to bring to bear upon your decision an awareness of what lies behind each choice, and the consequences of each choice, and choose accordingly. When you enter into your decision-making dynamic consciously, you insert your will consciously into the creative cycle through which your soul evolves, and you enter consciously into your own evolution. Gary Zukav

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… creating a greater sense of control over our lives

• What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. Anthony de Mello
• Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. Robert F. Bennett
• Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Carl Jung
• All it takes for generosity to flow is awareness. By actively pursuing awareness and knowledge, we can make choices that cause less harm and greater good to others in the global community of our shared earth. Zoe Weil

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The amount of free will and choice we enjoy depends on how consciously aware we are of what is happening within us and without

• Without awareness there is no freedom. Awareness is vital for any possibility of free choice. Simon Boylan
• As a spirit having a human experience, you can choose to not merely exist but to be fully conscious and aware of living in a limited world. When you take a conscious part in life and its multitudes of choices, you won’t let life happen to you – you will make life happen for you. James Van Praagh
• Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. Rollo May
• There are very few joys in life greater than spontaneity. Spontaneity means to be in the moment; it means acting out of your awareness, not acting according to your old conditionings. Rajneesh
• Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Carl Jung
• Our experience of life is determined by us, either consciously or unconsciously. Sadhguru
• That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate. Carl Jung
• If one is a compatibilist, then a case for the reality of free will requires evidence for our being effective agents who for the most part are aware of what we do and why we are doing it. Timothy O’Connor
• I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself. Hermann Hesse
• Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. Sri Aurobindo
• Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. Carl Jung
• Your life mainly consists of 3 things! What you think, What you say and What you do! So always be very conscious of what you are co-creating! Allan Rufus
• With the greater consciousness of the issues involved comes a lesser assurance that an alternative is possible. Gordon H. Clark

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The more aware we are, the more free we become

• Freedom begins as we become conscious of it. Vernon Howard
• The more conscious we are, the more freedom of choice we experience. Tim Freke
• We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception. Vernon Howard
• What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. Anthony de Mello
• It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. Stanley Milgram
• Engagement is the conscious inhabitation of your body and mind. Practice is happening when your open awareness is moving with, in and through your embodied activity. Intrinsic to practice is your conscious participation with your life. Engagement is the conduction of your free and open awareness through your activities, whatever they may be. Robert McNamara
• It is unimaginably hard to remain conscious, attentive, and aware. It is difficult not to fall back into a trance-like state, surrounded by the trappings and obstructions of the tiring world around us—but it is crucial to do so, for this is real freedom. Joshua Fields Millburn
• The freedom to chose one’s actions and the ability to determine one’s own nature and future development may admit of many interesting variations and degrees rather than being a simple all or nothing matter, and various forms or levels of consciousness might be correlated with corresponding degrees or types of freedom and self-determination. Robert Van Gulick
• You and I are infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. But the best way to understand and maximize the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of the choices we make every moment. Deepak Chopra
• Choice implies consciousness – a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present….Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life. Eckhart Tolle
• In the place of stillness, rises potential. From the place of potential, emerges possibility. Where there is possibility, there is choice. And where there is choice, there is freedom! Gabrielle Goddard

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Awareness itself is a choice

• As an apparently separate self, the highest choice we can make is to turn our attention away from the objects that we seem to know, towards the Knowing with which they are known. Making that choice effects this disentanglement of our self from the body/mind, and, as a result, our true nature stands revealed as it is. Rupert Spira
• Asking ourselves, ‘Where am I right now?’ gives us a chance to step outside the internal dialogue for a moment of peace. Look around you, take a deep breath and notice what you see, hear and feel. Present moment awareness is the point of power and choice. It frees us from our compulsive thoughts. Laura Harvey
• Awareness is a choice, and sometimes it takes effort. But it’s never disappointing if we truly put some effort into it. The rewards for our effort already surround us all the time, but they’re awards that we miss constantly until we make the decision to open our eyes and our hearts to the beauty that’s always everywhere. Tom Walsh
• No matter what your spiritual condition is, no matter where you find yourself in the universe, your choice is always the same: to expand your awareness or contract it. Thaddeus Golas
• Psychologically, the choice “to think or not” is the choice “to focus or not.” Existentially, the choice “to focus or not” is the choice “to be conscious or not.” Metaphysically, the choice “to be conscious or not” is the choice of life or death. Ayn Rand
• In every moment, we make a choice between the heavenly awareness of our connection to all living things, or the hell of the delusion that we are separate and alone. The mind will manufacture according to our choice; whichever we choose, we will seem to experience. Marianne Williamson

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