Measurement of Situational Awareness

Recap – Yoga, having its roots in the word yuj, meaning “to yoke” is the weaving our conditioning with our behavior to enable us to build a cohesive personality. Raja Yoga is considered to be the Raja (king) among Yoga Shastras (a text of experience) because the king works at a material level and hence this yoga is more attuned to normal living without having to go deep into spiritual life. By design, it has two levels- a beginner’s level for self-improvement in daily life (Kriya Yoga) and an advanced level (Dhyana Yoga) for one who wishes to delve deep into the esoteric.

The world has become smaller and success lies in our ability to handle rapid change. This change could range from diversity issues in the form cultural, racial or sexual biases to assimilation of technical and business information; or issues as mundane as handling jet lag and cross cultural food.

The process of confronting, accepting, assimilating and responding to reality is not easy, especially when each experience is new and traditional/ “ready recipe” responses are inappropriate/ inadequate. This continuous need for “ground up” response tests our entire value and belief system and stresses us.

Example: Consider time. We constantly plan our lives to the clock, but does the Sun care? Do the winds and tides work to a schedule? What happens when we are engrossed with something we like? We forget time which for us, becomes the gap between when we remember starting the activity to the moment we became conscious of ourselves again. We had become so engrossed us that our consciousness was completely merged with the subject, achieved the state of Yoga. Therefore, time can only be defined as “the gap between two states of consciousness”, the time when we are completely aware of ourselves.

It stands to reason that should we be able to maintain single point focus (ekagrath) on any subject, we would be able to operate in any situation with clarity and balance and with far lesser confusion or passion. This will increase our level of consciousness or awareness and allow us to realize our full potential. This is Situational Awareness.

Measure of Progress:

How do we know that we are succeeding in our efforts? From first principles, we know that stress occurs when we perceive a lack of congruence of the stimulus with our conditioning and the ability align our conditioning with our behavior to manage any situation.

There are four stages of consciousness in the road to Situational Awareness. They are Jagrat (wakeful or transactional state); Swapna (conceptual or dream State); Sushupti (formless state) and Turiya (State where no guna exists – nirguna state). Clearly, the Turiya state is meant for mystics and not for daily application. However, the other states can be used as metrics for judging progress.

How do we judge these states?

Jagrat (transaction or awakened state) is when we are conscious of what is going on around us. It is the kinesthetic element of our existence.

Swapna (Dream State) is when we see images and intentions, the visual element.

Sushupti (Awareness State) is when the consciousness needs no form to support existence, also known as formless or nirrupa. Here audio impulse is the only conscious Situational Awareness stimulus.

The three states will manifest as shown in the matrix below. These are nine combinations of Situational Awareness which can be evaluated in a matrix shown above. The first name decides which level predominates.

Anecdotes, experiences and situations to help understand…

(Wikipedia extract) After a day at work, Rosa Parks, a 42 year old African America boarded a bus on 1 December 1955, in Montgomery, USA. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of seats reserved for blacks in the “coloured” section, which was near the middle of the bus and directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers. As the bus travelled along its regular route, all the white-only seats in the bus filled up. At one stop, several white passengers boarded.

In 1900, Montgomery had passed a city ordinance for the purpose of segregating passengers by race. Conductors were given the power to assign seats to accomplish this; Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move whenever there were no white-only seats left to seat whites.

So, following standard practice, the bus driver, seeing that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there were two or three whites standing, demanded that four black people give up their seats. Three people moved, but Rosa Parks did not get up to move to the back. The driver asked “Why don’t you stand up?” Parks responded, “I don’t think I should have to stand up. The driver said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ Rosa said, ‘You may do that.’”

Rosa Parks was arrested and jailed for not giving up her seat. Rosa Parks is often called the “Mother of the modern civil rights movement”. She exhibited valour without anger, violence or fear.

• What were the changes to Rosa Parks state of awareness in the above situation?
• What is the role of fear in situational awareness?
• What were the fears that might have been experienced by Rosa Parks?

Share your opinion and experiences;

• How close is the concept of Situational Awareness with Theory of Relativity? How does mass, time, light and space affect Situational Awareness?
• How can one assess progress in his or her awareness levels?
• Why is it so difficult to remain in the present? How can one improve one’s awareness of the present?
• How can one improve one’s focus (ekagrath)?