I wrote this book, The Keys to Self-Awareness, in 2010. My goal at the time was to provide the readers with a simple and straightforward algorithm for working with attention, by which anyone could develop the internality of presence and awareness. To avoid straying from this goal, I wrote the text as simply and clearly as possible by focusing on how to develop an awareness of the physical body, emotions, and mind. On the one hand, this approach made things technically easier for me; on the other, this approach was missing a number of clarifications relevant to understanding the role of awareness in the mystic Work. I wrote the instruction that has no room for subtle meanings or lengthy explanations of the interconnections between certain subjects. For example, I didn’t mention any other functions of the etheric body, except for that responsible for emotional reactions, making it more difficult for the readers to get a good understanding of the role of the etheric body in human life. Also, I never mentioned the mental body, yet I wrote quite a lot about it later on.
As The Keys to Self-Awareness fell out of tune with my later books, something had to be done. I had neither the time nor the desire to write a new book on the topic of awareness; besides, I didn’t believe Keys had completely lost its relevance. Editing the original version would require writing it anew, because the rhythm and energy of the text written five years earlier would be broken and the text would no longer have the effect that was originally intended.
After weighing the pros and cons and realizing the need for a few clarifications, I decided to proceed with the writing of comments on my own text. Considering how far I had come since then in laying out the Truth, this approach appears to be logical enough. On the one side, the original text remains intact and conveys the message embedded in it at the beginning. On the other side, the text is now supported by new comments that add to the knowledge from the earlier book. This is the task I assigned to myself and completed by adding comments to the text where they will hopefully give the readers the intended broader picture and deeper understanding of the subject.
“The master of it anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small.” Tao Te Ching
“To understand means to simplify.” Arkady and Boris Strugatsky