Something happened this weekend--something wonderful.
I had a fight with someone I care for very much regarding my failure to trust her about her assessment of a situation. She walked away in an angry huff. A few days later we talked. Deeply!
Something happened. My heart opened up. I had this bizarre experience where it felt like I had invisible feelers emmanating directly from my heart reaching out into the world. But my mind created an image of these feelers and made them into tennacles, like something from a the science fiction movie, The Thing. Each seemed to have an independent motivation and each was "feeling" for something in the environment.
When I talked to her, it was from an entirely different viewpoint. I was "looking" into the world from my heart, not my eyes. I saw she had been entirely right about something I had missed. Then I realized I had already known the truth about the situation, but discounted it and tried to cover it over to in order to smooth the waters. She felt totally abandoned and incredulous that I had not even expressed as true what she knew to be true.
I would never have been consciously aware had this break not occurred. I did know it, but my mind discounted what it knew to be true and discounted why she should feel so strongly about something I saw as so small a thing.
But now I see so clearly. I now function from my heart as if it were the primary source of my knowing the world.
What a miracle!
I can now see truth with unerring accuracy. It feels like wisdom--at least about the human condition manifesting day to day, which is entirely different from walking into the absolute, or practicing self inquiry. However, it is very related to abiding in and loving the I Am. It is so powerful and so knowing, and if you befriend it, and have angels who point the way with you, it reveals a world of breathtaking clarity and wisdom.
This insight has nothing to do with the absolute, but purely about being a human in the world of humanity. I had missed so much, I was blind but now I see.
I still feel this opening, like a layer of defenses has been torn away from my imaginary body and I can "see" into the world in a new way, formerly covered by wishful thinking, conventionality and generally not paying attention.
I can also see clearly where I need to go, what I need to do. Defenses have been dropped, revealing this is but the beginning of yet another long journey.
Realizing the Manifest Self--the Life Force permeating our humanity--and the Unmanifest source from which it arises.
Ahhhhhhhh :) :) :)
ReplyDeleteLove Ricky
This is beautiful Ed and articulated very well. There you go, paving the way for us. We are grateful.
ReplyDeleteWith Great Love
I love what you shared in this post.
ReplyDeleteFor years I studied A Course In Miracles. Kenneth Wapnick, who teaches ACIM, often suggested guidelines for seemingly loving action, though one is increasingly noticing the world as illusion. Some course students choose to use the writings in the Course to further attack one another than love and forgive (join-seeing no separation): Friends telling a dying friend in the hospital it is all illusion and he should just change his mind for he is doing it but to himself. Wapnick reminds us to just act normal, what is a normal response to someone in pain, in need--to a friend who is dying, to a child that fell down and skinned her shin, etc? Simple, humble, engaged, responsive.
Ramana did not present lofty concepts and insight concerning Robert's state when they first met. He sat with him. He asked how he was, if he was hungry--simple ,loving actions, he demonstrated care and interest in Robert. He had space to be present, the willingness to engage, the freedom to let Robert just be.
I have noticed in ACIM and Advaita circles how easy it is for us to hold up our entrenched convictions, that oftentimes mask our own subconscious defenses to the truth--what we believe we need to see to be OK. These spiritual concepts--become holy hammers of god we use to slay one another--in the name of clarity, truth, love, liberation. However, we actually don't even see the person, unable to move beyond ourselves and our fear and needs. How much more honest to just love.
Denial or indulgence in aspects of consciousness do not set us free, in my opinion, for conceptual responses to concepts can't liberate, thoughts being dead, being unreal. Suffering remains while we see consciousness as Maya, until we allow, release, and choose again experiencing consciousness now as Layla--the dance of god, the sting gone. And in either experience we can choose to see others' suffering as our own, for it is all movement in mind--with love as its base, mirroring our true nature. So we can offer compassion to our own suffering choosing understanding despite Maya, giving us further appreciation to offer joyful compassion to others who seem to be experiencing and expressing aspects of Maya. And in our joy, in our love, If we experience Layla, our compassion can taste more of joyful freedom and again we have further compassionate freedom to share with others, we have room to love and let them be--without need.
Edji you are opening our hearts.
ReplyDeleteI also had a powerful experience this weekend. I got outraged at a dear friend. Intensely. Beyond my capacity to suppress the erupting rage. There was no me anymore. Just volcanic release. I had to act. I left him, I left the Sangha. I left 'Me'. It really felt liberating. The intensity of Love helps us drop the mind. The same happens with intense rage. But this process is destructive, relationships killed, friendships abandoned. I wish the "I" got burned in the process and left for good but it came back. And with it some insights too.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always had this inner sense in me. It felt like my body had the capacity to detect Truth. I called my body my ‘Truth Serum’. It always felt like knowing what’s real and what’s not. It was like if something was True I’d be very aware of my body. But if not, I’d lose contact with it and I will feel weak, almost sick to my bones. I’ve had it since I was a child.
Abandonment is one of my most fundamental fears. I spent the first 6 years of my life in an orphanage. Afterwords I was raised by my schizophrenic mother. The entire family blamed me for her being sick. They didn’t really want a black child so their hostility was expressed in blaming me for her disease. I knew it wasn’t my fault because I listened to my inner sense , but through the years I started doubting myself more and more. The sense of what’s true was always there but I didn’t pay attention. The conditioned mind took over. With that the fear of being abandoned increased and I developed all kinds of defenses around making sure I am loved and protected at all times, that I am never blamed for something I didn’t do.
And then I met my teacher. That sense of knowing what is true was activated to such a degree that I exploded, it was orgasmic. I knew I was in the presence of Truth and Reality. I couldn’t quite articulate it then but now it is more clear. It is like I have that deep knowing. I am that knowing. Everything is knowing. It was moving so fast, it was so expansive, it carried Love with itself. Love was Truth in movement. A continious expansion toward Truth, toward knowing. That movement was interrupted by moments of silence and stillness. Total rest. And then another powerful movement of Truth. At that time I thought all this was happening to my body but I now understand it has never been within my body. I have always been aware of my sense of being, my pure presence. It interpenetrates the body and I didn’t know it, I confused it with the body. It wasn’t my body climaxing but my awareness expanding. It was a cosmic event.
This past week, I was offended by someone's passive aggressive jokes and was shocked to find out that my friend did nothing. In fact he thought I was imagining a hostility that wasn't there. After our argument I realized how much I had depended on my friend. I had wanted him to protect me, to defend me, to be there for me. I have always done that. I have always wanted those who love me to never betray me. In fact I had always expected them to fight for me. I would passively watch and measure their love with their capacity to defend me. I had wanted something from my friend that I never got from my family.
Maybe it is time for me to embrace that little girl, to stand up for her, to protect her, to defend her. After all I am the one who knows best what is it that she wants and deserves. Perhaps next time I won’t be so afraid of being abandoned as I will be always here with her – loving her, trusting her, protecting her.
Janet B.
That's the wonder of opening the heart centre. It is the centre of "feeling". Which means that when it is clear and unbound by karma, concepts and opinions that it becomes a centre for true Extra Sensory Perception. All of a sudden you can walk into a room and "feel" the energy very clearly. You can talk to a person and "feel" what needs to be said.
ReplyDeleteIt truly is an amazing centre to open. Congratulations Edgy. I hope that the state maintains for you.
In my experience the heart centre is a difficult one to clear and then maintain clear functioning of. This is because it has direct links with the sex centre, the martial centre, the mind and the unconscious centres. Thus it is banged by alot of energy from other sources if it has not been worked right through and cleared. For instance it only takes a second in a misfiring martial centre to take a stance against somebody else in your world and the Karma created in our psyche to work through is added to. You can also see the fruition of the negative process within this because someone that lashes out from a misfiring martial centre then propogates the energy into mind and elevates themselves above the other. Assessing what they have and have not done right, what is and is not acceptable.
The state of an open heart is intoxicating, as are any of the states available throughout the elevating of our energies. But it is all to easy to get lost in bliss or to get trapped by our interpretation of what "it" is. Keep up the great work Edgy.
Love
Mike
The problem comes, I believe, when we want something from person, place or thing. Please really ponder this, it goes down to this. All those defenses, all the mental crap etc are because we still want something to be in a certain way.
ReplyDeletewhen we STOP, something happens, EVERYTHING BECOMES A GIFT, simple because we stop wanting...