Mindful Awareness vs. Mindset Perception: Seeing Life Inside and Outside.

🌱 Mindful Awareness vs. Mindset Perception: Seeing Life Inside and Outside

Have you noticed how sometimes your attention goes outward—towards people, situations, and the world 🌍—and other times it turns inward—towards your own thoughts, feelings, and memories 🪞?

This natural dance of extrospection (looking outside 👀) and introspection (looking inside 🧘) is part of every human being. But how we experience it makes all the difference between living in awareness and living in prejudice.

1️⃣ The Two Directions of Our Attention

Think of your attention like a torchlight 🔦.

When you point it outward, you notice the world—relationships, work, nature, society. This is extrospection 👀.

When you point it inward, you notice your body, thoughts, and emotions. This is introspection 🪞.

Neither is better than the other. Both are needed. Just like breathing in and breathing out 🌬️, both movements keep us alive and balanced.

👉 But here’s the key: When we hold this torchlight with awareness 🌱, whether inward or outward, it shines in a way that connects our being-self (ME) with being-life (IS). That union is called mindful awareness.

2️⃣ Mindful Awareness: The Synergy of IS + ME

Imagine a 🌊 river meeting the ocean. The river is your being-self (ME)—your personality, your experiences, your individuality. The ocean is being-life (IS)—the vast cosmic consciousness, existence itself.

When the river flows freely into the ocean, there is synergy. You feel connected both inwardly and outwardly.

In extrospection 👀, mindful awareness means you don’t just “look at” the world—you sense life moving through it. You see not only a tree 🌳, but also life expressing itself as tree.

In introspection 🪞, mindful awareness means you don’t just “judge” your thoughts—you listen to them like whispers of life within.

In this way, extrospection and introspection are not opposites. They are like two wings of a bird 🕊️—both needed for flight.

3️⃣ Mindset Perception: When Prejudice Blocks the Flow

Now imagine the same torchlight 🔦, but covered with colored glass 🎭. Whatever you see—inside or outside—gets distorted.

This colored glass is your sub-conscious prejudice. It could be shaped by:

Childhood conditioning 👶

Cultural or religious beliefs 🕌✝️🕉️

Past hurts 💔

Fear and insecurity 😨

When prejudice is there, both extrospection and introspection become mindset perception instead of awareness.

In extrospection 👀, you don’t really “see” others—you project your bias onto them. Example: meeting someone new and instantly labeling them as “not trustworthy” just because they look or speak differently.

In introspection 🪞, you don’t really “feel” your inner world—you judge it. Example: feeling anger 😡 and immediately calling yourself a “bad person” instead of just noticing the feeling.

This is what happens when being-self (ME) lives in isolation, without connection to being-life (IS). You live in illusion of separateness, not in synergy.

4️⃣ Analogy: The Window and the Dust

Think of your awareness as a clear window 🪟.

Through it, you can see the world outside (extrospection) and your room inside (introspection).

When the glass is clean, everything is visible clearly. This is mindful awareness 🌱.

But when the window is covered with dust and stains 🌫️ of prejudice, you only see your own coloring—not the reality. This is mindset perception 🎭.

👉 The outside world may be bright and sunny ☀️, but through a dusty window it will still look dull and dirty.

That’s why it’s not the world or your thoughts that are the real problem—it’s the dust on the glass.

5️⃣ Practical Examples for Daily Life

Let’s make this very practical for daily living:

🌍 Extrospection in Awareness vs. Prejudice

Awareness: Seeing your colleague at work and noticing both their struggle and their effort 👩‍💼💪.

Prejudice: Seeing the same colleague and thinking, “They’re lazy” just because of a past disagreement 😒.

🧘 Introspection in Awareness vs. Prejudice

Awareness: Feeling sadness 😢 and simply allowing it as part of life’s flow.

Prejudice: Feeling sadness and immediately saying, “I am weak” 💔.

See the difference? In awareness, you witness. In prejudice, you judge.

6️⃣ How to Shift from Mindset Perception to Mindful Awareness

Here are some gentle steps 🌱 anyone can try:

1. Notice the Direction 🔦

Ask: Am I looking outside (extrospection 👀) or inside (introspection 🪞) right now?

2. Check for Dust 🪟

Ask: Am I seeing things as they are, or through prejudice?

Example: If I feel angry, am I just aware of anger, or am I labeling myself as bad?

3. Allow the Flow 🌊

Breathe in, breathe out. Let awareness move both inward and outward, like a river joining the ocean.

4. Shift from ME to IS + ME 🕊️

Remind yourself: “This is not just my thought, my feeling, my world. This is Life flowing through me and around me.”

7️⃣ The Chetasyog View

In the lens of Chetasyog, this distinction is very important:

Mindful Awareness = synergy of being-life (IS) with being-self (ME) 🌱.

Mindset Perception = prejudice of being-self (ME) without connection to being-life (IS) 🎭.

One brings wholeness and harmony. The other brings conflict and illusion.

It’s like the difference between:

🌊 Swimming with the current (easy, natural, connected).

🏋️ Fighting against the current (struggle, resistance, exhaustion).

8️⃣ Closing Reflection

Next time you find yourself reacting strongly—whether to the outside world 🌍 or your inner world 🧘—pause for a moment.

Ask: “Am I in mindful awareness 🌱 or in mindset perception 🎭?”

See if you can remove the dust from the window 🪟, even a little.

Allow your torchlight 🔦 of attention to shine clearly—both inward and outward.

Because in truth, extrospection and introspection are not separate journeys. They are two sides of the same living awareness. When joined in synergy, they become Chetasyog—the wholeness of Oneself in Life.

✨ And that is where peace, clarity, and harmony arise—naturally, like the river flowing into the ocean 🌊.