Awareness.

Awareness - The Key to Living in Balance.

Most of us move through our lives like sleepwalkers. Never really present in what we are doing, never fully alert to our environment, and not even aware of what motivates us to do and say the things we do.

At work we are always "multi-tasking" - planning our tomorrows before we have even begun our todays, reading e-mail while talking on the phone, worrying about what is left undone on the to-do list as we take notes in a meeting that produces more to-do’s.

And in our personal relationships, we have all experienced moments when we have lashed out in anger, or found ourselves suddenly in a tangle of misunderstandings without quite knowing how we got there - "I did it in spite of myself," or "I don’t know what came over me." So unaware of our own inner processes that the path between inner feeling and outer expression is shrouded in darkness not only to others but also to ourselves.

At the same time, all of us have experienced moments of awareness - or awakening, to use another term - in extraordinary circumstances. On the road, in a sudden and unexpected accident, time seems to stop and one is suddenly aware of every movement, every sound, every thought. Or in moments that touch us deeply - welcoming a new baby into the world for the first time, or being with someone at the moment of death.

Awareness, says Osho, is the key to being self-directed, centered and free – at work or at play, alone or in relationship, in the marketplace or on the mountaintop, in every aspect of our lives.